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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind on this episode. Ooh,

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Speaker 1: this is our look at the nineteen eighty six fantasy

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Speaker 1: musical Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connolly, one of

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Speaker 1: my all time favorite movies. This episode originally published nine thirteen,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Let's venture in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormack. And

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Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema, we're going to be talking

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Speaker 3: about a childhood classic, I think for many people roughly

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Speaker 3: our age or between our ages, the nineteen eighty six

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Speaker 3: musical fantasy film Labyrinth, starring Jennifer Connolly and David Bowie,

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Speaker 3: directed by Jim Henson. I was thinking, this is actually

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Speaker 3: our second David Bowie film, since we did previously cover

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Speaker 3: Nicholas Robes The Man Who Fell to Earth, a very interesting,

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Speaker 3: very good, but mood withering film about an alien who

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Speaker 3: comes to our planet on a mission to save his

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Speaker 3: own from catastrophic drought, but gets derailed by our culture's

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Speaker 3: infinite and infinitely absorbing distractions. Like television, alcohol and table tennis.

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Speaker 3: You remember all the ping pong and The Man Who

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Speaker 3: Fell to Earth.

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Speaker 1: I had kind of forgotten about the ping pong until

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Speaker 1: you mentioned it, but that's a solid point.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So, while it also stars David Bowie, Labyrinth, I

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Speaker 3: think is about as different a movie from The Man

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Speaker 3: Who Fell to Earth as one could possibly imagine. Bowie's

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Speaker 3: film career did have a lot of range. But thinking

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Speaker 3: about this actually raised a kind of humorous question for me,

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Speaker 3: are there any similarities between the two movies? And the

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Speaker 3: more I thought about it, I thought, actually, they're kind

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Speaker 3: of are, especially in the overall plot structure and the

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Speaker 3: journey of the hero. Both are stories in which the

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Speaker 3: hero or heroine is transported to an alien world on

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Speaker 3: an originally selfless quest to save their family or a

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Speaker 3: family member from a terrible fate, but faces obstacles along

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Speaker 3: the way, primarily in the form of temptations to go

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Speaker 3: off the path into narcissistic, self indulgent pursuits. So, in

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Speaker 3: the case of Labyrinth, the heroine is played by a

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Speaker 3: young Jennifer Connolly, whose quest is to rescue her baby

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Speaker 3: brother from a goblin related predicament of her own making

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Speaker 3: and Connolly's character is. I like the character because she

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Speaker 3: is smart and brave, but begins the story as a

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Speaker 3: very believable teenager, so self pitying and self absorbed, infuriated

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Speaker 3: by the inconvenience of having to look after her screeching

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Speaker 3: baby brother for an evening and wanting simultaneously to be

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Speaker 3: free of her family and achieve adult independence, but also

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Speaker 3: at the same time to regress into childhood and avoid

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Speaker 3: all responsibilities, like you know, hiding in her bedroom with

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Speaker 3: her dolls and costumes. And thus her challenges in the

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Speaker 3: movie reflect these very common and relatable teenage character issues,

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Speaker 3: like she's tempted along the way to give into defeatism

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Speaker 3: and selfishness in the forms of both self pity and

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Speaker 3: self indulgence. But in the end she emerges much more

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Speaker 3: successfully than Bowie's character and the Man Who Fell to Earth, though,

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Speaker 3: as we were discussing off Mike before recording, the exact

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Speaker 3: mechanics of her victory over the goblin King Jarreth are

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Speaker 3: somewhat difficult to schematize.

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Speaker 1: That's right. This is a movie that I've seen so

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Speaker 1: many times over the years, as a child, as an adult,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a parent, and so forth, and no

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Speaker 1: matter what phase of my life I am in, I

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Speaker 1: never completely get the details on how she defeats Jareth,

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Speaker 1: but I never doubt the victory like it's the emotional

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Speaker 1: accuracy of it feels one hundred percent there. This is

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Speaker 1: a film that will come back to this, I think

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Speaker 1: over and over again, but I think it speaks more

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Speaker 1: on an emotional level than it does on a logical level.

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Speaker 1: And I can't help but assume that that is one

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Speaker 1: of the factors playing into the disconnect between the way

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Speaker 1: the adult world reacted to this film when it came

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Speaker 1: out in eighty six and the way scores and scores

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Speaker 1: of children reacted to it over the years is they

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Speaker 1: grew up with the film.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we'll have a lot to say about

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Speaker 3: this as we go on, but oh, we haven't yet

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Speaker 3: gotten to one of the main things you would need

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Speaker 3: to know to understand Labyrinth if you've never seen it

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Speaker 3: and have no idea of what's going on here, and

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Speaker 3: that it's a movie full of muppets. This is a

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Speaker 3: Jim Hinson production, so the fantasy elements and characters are

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Speaker 3: achieved through the use of some of the best puppetry

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Speaker 3: ever committed to film. Labyrinth came out a few years

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Speaker 3: after Hinson's previous fantasy movie, The Dark Chris from nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty two, which I would say personally is probably the

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Speaker 3: high watermark for puppetry driven movies, Like I don't know

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Speaker 3: what could really be said to surpass it, and it's

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Speaker 3: interesting to compare the two films. We might also discuss

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Speaker 3: that more as we go on. But coming back to

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Speaker 3: what you were saying, Rob, about the way children reacted

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Speaker 3: to Labyrinth versus the way a lot of adults did.

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Speaker 3: I also, yeah, I get the impression that for a

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Speaker 3: lot of people who were kids in the eighties, Labyrinth

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Speaker 3: was just part of the common texture of childhood, as

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Speaker 3: uncritically accepted and culturally canonical as Star Wars or Et

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Speaker 3: or the mainline muppets like Kermit and Miss Piggy.

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Speaker 1: Was that your experience, Rob, Yeah, I mean I don't

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Speaker 1: remember how exactly Labyrinth was initially introduced into our lives.

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Speaker 1: I think maybe we rented it from the video store

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Speaker 1: on VHS, but we liked it so much that we

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Speaker 1: purchased a VHS CU of Labyrinth. We watched it so

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Speaker 1: many times that we broke the VHS tape and we

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Speaker 1: actually had to go take it to be repaired.

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Speaker 3: I don't even know what repaired.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we had it repaired. I don't know who did

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You know what the price point was,

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Speaker 1: I assumed cheaper than buying a new VHS tape. So

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Speaker 1: it was repaired and returned to us. But after that,

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Speaker 1: the audio and the tape was warped from there on out.

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Speaker 1: So part of me still sort of pines for a

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Speaker 1: certain like electronic warping sound to be present in the

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Speaker 1: film even when it's not.

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Speaker 3: What does the fire Gang song sound like when it's

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Speaker 3: even more discombobulated, it sounds weirder and more threatening? Okay,

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Speaker 3: I know, as if that were possible. How about you,

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Speaker 3: do you remember how Labyrinth came into your life show? Well, actually,

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Speaker 3: I'm this is weird because I feel like I should

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Speaker 3: know for sure one way or another about this, but

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Speaker 3: I can only say what I think is the case.

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Speaker 3: I think I actually never saw this movie in full

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Speaker 3: when I was a kid, and yet I had full

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Speaker 3: awareness of it as like a movie that was part

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Speaker 3: of the common culture and that everybody liked. And I

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Speaker 3: think I really never sat down and saw the whole

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Speaker 3: thing until I was an adult.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's certainly a lot of movies like that where

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Speaker 1: they're just I mean, it's really a film like this

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Speaker 1: becomes a part of the atmosphere. You can't help but

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Speaker 1: breathe it in, and you have no idea how it

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Speaker 1: originally came into your house. I just seep through the walls.

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Speaker 3: But I will have some more things to say about

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Speaker 3: it when we get back to I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 3: when we talk about the critical reception. I do remember

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Speaker 3: being surprised by some things about it when I saw it,

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Speaker 3: either for the first time ever in my life or

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Speaker 3: for the first time as an adult, whichever that was.

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Speaker 3: You know, when I saw it in my thirties, it

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Speaker 3: wasn't exactly what I expected, And maybe we can talk

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Speaker 3: about some reasons for that when we get into some

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Speaker 3: stuff about the critical reception. Yeah, but don't misinterpret me.

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Speaker 3: I love LAB. I mean, it's just it's a trip.

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Speaker 3: There's not there's not really anything like it.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 3: The closest I could compare it to, I guess is

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Speaker 3: The Dark Crystal. But actually that's a totally different kind

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Speaker 3: of story, totally different kind of world and movie.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: There there really just is nothing like Labyrinth they can

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Speaker 3: think of.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it is. It's in many ways,

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Speaker 1: as we'll discuss. It's a it was the logical next

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Speaker 1: step after Dark Crystal, but it and it is as

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Speaker 1: ambitious a film in some respects in its use of

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Speaker 1: groundbreaking puppetry, you know, pushing the boundaries of what puppetry

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Speaker 1: can do, while also looking to puppetry's past and finding

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Speaker 1: things to uh, you know, to to to utilize and reinvent.

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Speaker 1: But it is a very different story. It's a very

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Speaker 1: different like entertainment product in its own way. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: we'll get into some of those differences and similarities as

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Speaker 1: we go here. All right, Well, let's go ahead and

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Speaker 1: hear just a little trailer audio for Jim Hinson's Labyrinth.

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Speaker 4: Try Star Pictures announcing the collaboration of three extraordinary talents

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Speaker 4: Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets and Dark Crystal.

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Speaker 1: Where you go what I ate like that?

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Speaker 4: George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars saga m and

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Speaker 4: one of the most innovative forces in modern entertainment, David Bowie.

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Speaker 4: Together they will take you into a dazzling world of

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Speaker 4: fantasy and adventure.

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Speaker 2: There's nothing to be afraid of a world.

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Speaker 4: Where anything seems possible and nothing is what it seems.

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Speaker 1: Everything I've done, I've done for you.

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Speaker 4: I move the stars with no fun the world of Labyrinth.

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Speaker 1: All Right, if you want to go watch Labyrinth or

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Speaker 1: rewatch Labyrinth before proceeding with the rest of this podcast episode,

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Speaker 1: well more power to you. This one is widely available

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Speaker 1: in all formats and the special This is one of

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Speaker 1: those releases where I feel like the special editions just

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Speaker 1: keep rolling out. The limited editions. Steal book from shout

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Speaker 1: Factory looks really good. I was just getting some social

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Speaker 1: media ads about this the other day, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like it's one of these things where I don't own

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Speaker 1: Labyrinth on any like a special edition physical media release,

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Speaker 1: but I'm always tempted to get one, And each time

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Speaker 1: they roll out a new and I'm like, oh, this

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Speaker 1: is the one, This is the one I should get.

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Speaker 1: That they keep upping the ante. But yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: a number of been a number of releases, and again

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Speaker 1: that shall Factory product looks really nice. You know.

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Speaker 3: I wonder if to people out in the disc publishing world,

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Speaker 3: is it especially movies that have nostalgic tie ins to

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Speaker 3: people's childhood that are most likely to get bought up

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Speaker 3: with these like big elaborate special edition Blu rays and

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Speaker 3: boxes that you know, the special cases and the posters

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Speaker 3: and all the accessories that come with them. I would

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Speaker 3: have to think that nostalgia is a big driver in

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Speaker 3: selling these kind of things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would guess so. But then again, I look

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Speaker 1: at my own experience and I think the most money

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Speaker 1: I've ever paid for a Blu Ray was for a

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Speaker 1: special edition of Fool Cheese Conquest that came with a

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Speaker 1: special slipcase. And I can't quite explain why, because this

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Speaker 1: is not a movie I watched as a child. I

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Speaker 1: don't have that kind of deep nostalgia for it. But

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Speaker 1: I have a certain depth of nostalgia for the film,

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Speaker 1: and for some reason, it's like I had to have it,

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Speaker 1: you know. Maybe it's like the fomo of a special

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Speaker 1: release slipcase and you're just like some I've missed this,

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Speaker 1: I must have it. Yes, I will pay extra for

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Speaker 1: it on eBay.

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Speaker 3: There is something really perversely enjoyable about getting an elaborate, lavish,

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Speaker 3: lovingly produced edition of a movie that is grimy and

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Speaker 3: gauzy and is just really concerned with pus.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it has a prized place in the drawer

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Speaker 1: where I keep the discs. All right, well, let's get

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Speaker 1: into the folks involved in the creation of this picture,

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Speaker 1: starting at the top, of course, with Jim Henson. This

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Speaker 1: is the first time we've really talked about Jim Henson

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Speaker 1: on the show before, you know, in depth. You know,

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Speaker 1: work comes up time and time again, and I'm blanking

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Speaker 1: on to what extent we've ever discussed something that the

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Speaker 1: Creature Shop was involved in. It's possible the Creature Shop

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Speaker 1: has come up directly in an episode or two, But

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Speaker 1: at any rate, Jim Henson is the director, he has

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Speaker 1: a story credit. He is also an uncredited Goblin performer.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of Goblin performances in this puppetry wise,

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Speaker 1: he lived nineteen thirty six through nineteen ninety Easily one of,

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Speaker 1: if not the most important puppeteers of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 1: I recently watched the excellent twenty twenty four documentary Jim

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Speaker 1: Hinson idea Man. This was directed by Ron Howard, and

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Speaker 1: I believe it's currently streaming on Disney in most places.

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Speaker 1: And this documentary does a really great, really entertaining job

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Speaker 1: of discussing Hintson largely from the standpoint of his ambition

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Speaker 1: and his dreams, also getting you know, a little bit

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Speaker 1: into his personal life, his family life, and of course

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Speaker 1: his professional life being like the main focus because it's

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Speaker 1: about you know, how all these ideas he had ultimately

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Speaker 1: the limited amount of time he had to pull them off.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, like he was a guy that's just constantly

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Speaker 1: coming up with concepts that so many things that didn't

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Speaker 1: even come to fruition, Like he really had all these

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Speaker 1: plans for a nightclub at one point. Yeah, Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I'd seen these some illustrations, some concept art that he'd

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Speaker 1: put together for this at the Center for Puppetry Arts

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Speaker 1: in a museum display years ago. But they get into

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Speaker 1: in the documentary as well. New York's Hottest Club is

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Speaker 1: muppet essentially. Like even one of the things that they

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Speaker 1: drive home in that documentary is that even you know,

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Speaker 1: early on he was drawn more to the power of

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Speaker 1: television than he was to puppetry itself, though of course

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Speaker 1: puppetry became his core performance medium. And yeah, he continued

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Speaker 1: to push the boundaries of what was possible with puppets,

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Speaker 1: the sorts of audiences that could be reached through puppets

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Speaker 1: sometimes like initially like rebelling against you know, a box

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Speaker 1: that he helped draw for himself, like going from becoming

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Speaker 1: you know, the creator of Sesame Street in this you know,

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Speaker 1: huge property for children, and then breaking out in doing

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Speaker 1: something like The Muppet Show and beyond and again, you know,

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Speaker 1: incorporating diverse traditions of puppetry along the way related performance

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Speaker 1: styles and pushing into new frontiers of things like animatronics,

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Speaker 1: which we see in this film, and even you know,

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Speaker 1: late in his career got a little bit into into

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Speaker 1: CGI and looking at what computer generated imagery could do,

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Speaker 1: though often through sort of the guise of puppetry, like

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Speaker 1: you know, some sort of like computer animated face that

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Speaker 1: is controlled by like live action puppeteering.

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Speaker 3: Is the owl at the beginning of Labyrinth and the

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Speaker 3: credit sequence is that CGI?

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Speaker 1: I believe it is? Yeah, I believe that's like early

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Speaker 1: I would argue, largely effective CGI. It maybe doesn't look

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Speaker 1: as cool now as it did when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: but it still looks pretty good. It's not you know,

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Speaker 1: I feel like it mostly it's yeah for eighty six

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Speaker 1: especially Yeah. So, of course, Hinson is famous for his

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Speaker 1: Muppet bassed shows again, particularly Sesame Street and all the

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Speaker 1: various series and films to spin off of the Muppet Show.

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Speaker 1: But of course his creative output also includes the excellent

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Speaker 1: Storyteller series we've referenced on the show before, both the

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Speaker 1: first season and then the Greek season. I still hold

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Speaker 1: those up as excellent. Nineteen eighty two's Dark Crystal, and

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Speaker 1: of course eighty six is Labyrinth. This would prove to

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Speaker 1: be his last full length of feature film directorial effort

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Speaker 1: before his untimely death in nineteen ninety at the age

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Speaker 1: of fifty three.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So, I guess this brings us back to the

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Speaker 3: comparison between Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. I love them both,

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Speaker 3: though I think the Dark Crystal is a little more

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Speaker 3: impressive to me just because of the format of its

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Speaker 3: storytelling and its ambitions in that regard, in that The

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Speaker 3: Dark Crystal has no human characters in it. You know,

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Speaker 3: the Dark Crystal is not a like a fairy tale

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Speaker 3: integrated with our world as a kind of you know,

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Speaker 3: bridge fantasy from regular life like Labyrinth is, the Dark

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Speaker 3: Crystal is like a mythology that has nothing to do

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Speaker 3: with Earth, and there are no humans and no Earth

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Speaker 3: history and no Earth technology. It's just this totally different

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Speaker 3: world and everything in it is pure imagination.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's otherworldly, and and in fact that

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Speaker 1: the initial cut was maybe a little too otherworldly for

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Speaker 1: some test audiences because they had all these constructed languages,

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Speaker 1: so the sketchies are speaking a strange tongue and so forth,

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Speaker 1: and they had to do like subsequent you know cuts

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Speaker 1: where they added actual like English language dialogue to the picture. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Dark Crystal was certainly like aiming for

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Speaker 1: something epic and strange and wonderful and achieve that. And

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Speaker 1: so Labyrinth seems to be an attempt to make something

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Speaker 1: that has the same vision and the same you know,

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Speaker 1: like level of detail going into every nook and cranny

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Speaker 1: of the picture, but also calibrating all of that more

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Speaker 1: towards like pure popular entertainment, you know, music, humor, whimsy,

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Speaker 1: and built everything around relatable human actors, one a youth

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Speaker 1: and the other a very popular musician.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Labyrinth to me seems like it's taking a lot

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Speaker 3: of the same creativity and creative energy behind The Dark Crystal,

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Speaker 3: but lightening the tone a bit and connecting it to

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Speaker 3: the human world with a human and protagonist, and also

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Speaker 3: orienting the story a little. I mean, you could say

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Speaker 3: in both cases that probably the primary marketing was directed

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Speaker 3: towards kids. But the Dark Crystal is pretty as the

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Speaker 3: title would imply, dark and Labyrinth I think is probably

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Speaker 3: you would argue, a little bit more kid friendly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you still I certainly know people in

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Speaker 1: real life who are like, yeah, I never liked Dark Crystal.

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Speaker 1: It was too scary for me. It's too scary for

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Speaker 1: me now. And that will come into play here in

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Speaker 1: a second, because when Labyrinth came out in eighty six,

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Speaker 1: it was famously a commercial and critical failure. It was

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Speaker 1: it was one of a certified bomb, you know, and

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Speaker 1: one that apparently, according to that documentary, hit Hintson really hard.

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Speaker 1: You know. He ultimately was able to you know, to

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Speaker 1: roll with the punches and you know, move on to

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Speaker 1: the next thing. But I think, you know, everybody put

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Speaker 1: a lot of love into Labyrinth and were really bummed

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Speaker 1: out when critics didn't like it and when audiences didn't

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Speaker 1: come out to see it. But of course, says is

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Speaker 1: sometimes the case with films like this, the children did

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Speaker 1: end up seeing it. They might not have seen it

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Speaker 1: at the theater. Their parents might not have taken them,

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Speaker 1: but they ended up renting it or seeing it on television.

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Speaker 1: They told each other about it, they watched it, and

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Speaker 1: rewatched it. They grew up with it, and as such,

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Speaker 1: it has built up this cult following over the years,

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Speaker 1: and it has become this much beloved film that is

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Speaker 1: you know, does not in any way tarnish the careers

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Speaker 1: of those involved, but is sometimes like one of the

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Speaker 1: most iconic things they ever did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, as I was saying earlier, it's one of those

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Speaker 3: movies where, again to sort of interpret my perception of

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Speaker 3: its place and culture, it was a movie where you wouldn't,

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Speaker 3: even if you were a child, question whether it was

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Speaker 3: good or not, or whether there could be anything wrong

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Speaker 3: with it. It's just like it's the canon. It is

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Speaker 3: the canon of storytelling.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and yeah, And like I said, you

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Speaker 1: grow up with them, and sometimes you do reevaluate these things,

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Speaker 1: but maybe they do have an advantage because they've been

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Speaker 1: with you so long. And if it's a film like Labyrinth,

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's you know, its flaws are not

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Speaker 1: enough to defeat that fire that was implanted in you

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Speaker 1: early on with the film. But again, the grown up

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Speaker 1: world of film critics did not feel the same way.

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Speaker 1: I was reviewing some of these, and it's interesting. So

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Speaker 1: Leonard Malton, a mere four years before he was killed

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Speaker 1: by Grimlins and Grimlins two, he gave one of the

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Speaker 1: very few favorable like mainstream reviews for Labyrinth. Ebert gave

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Speaker 1: one that I think he gave it two out of

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Speaker 1: two stars total. And you know, like a like a

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Speaker 1: generally like an Ebert review, it's you know, it's not

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Speaker 1: unkind it it points out things he really likes, but

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Speaker 1: ultimately it doesn't see the logic in the picture. And

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Speaker 1: then Gene Siskel his review, if you want to dig

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Speaker 1: that one up, is one of the most brutal film

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Speaker 1: reviews I've ever seen.

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Speaker 3: I don't mad.

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Speaker 1: He is mad. Not only does he not like Labyrinth,

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Speaker 1: he seems to have hated everything about it and everyone

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Speaker 1: in it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Actually, so we were reading this off mic, and

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Speaker 3: this brought up a kind of funny difference between Ebert

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Speaker 3: and Siskel. You know, it's not across the board this way,

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Speaker 3: but I feel like more often when Roger Ebert didn't

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Speaker 3: like a movie, he had a kind of sense of

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Speaker 3: humor about it, whereas Gene Siskel was more likely to

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Speaker 3: come off as like, really offended by the fact that

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Speaker 3: a movie was bad, like it bothered him.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well that definitely holds true when you look

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Speaker 1: at Ciskel's review of Elabyrinth. Yeah, he called it quite

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Speaker 1: awful and visually ugly, which I mean, you know, say

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Speaker 1: what you will about Jim Henson pictures, and you know

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Speaker 1: you don't have to like them. But I mean, generally

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Speaker 1: most people acknowledge that there's a lot of, you know,

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Speaker 1: great visual design that goes into these things. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, everyone's entitled to their opinion.

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Speaker 3: I guess you might have different levels of personal tolerance,

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Speaker 3: and this might be a very learned thing. Tolerance for

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Speaker 3: ugly beautiful, like to see the beauty in designs that

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Speaker 3: are meant to be ugly but capture ugliness in an

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Speaker 3: exquisite way, which a lot of this movie does. It

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Speaker 3: has monsters in it that are not supposed to be like,

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Speaker 3: you know, Hoggle is not supposed to look super attractive,

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Speaker 3: but Hoggle looks wonderful. And the goblins are not supposed

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Speaker 3: to look like attractive people. They look like goblins, but

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Speaker 3: they are beautiful goblins. I feel like Ciskel is just

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Speaker 3: not approaching the movie with a tolerance for that kind

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Speaker 3: of ambition at all.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So again, critics hated it, and people who listen

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Speaker 1: to critics, you know, probably decided, well, maybe we'll skip

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Speaker 1: this one since everyone seems to hate it so much

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Speaker 1: or dislike it or find it lacking. And I was

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Speaker 1: reading an article or a chapter rather in The Wider

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Speaker 1: Worlds of Jim Henson. It's a book that came out

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Speaker 1: years back. There's a part in it by the author

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Speaker 1: Tom Holst, and it's titled Finding Your Way through the Labyrinth,

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Speaker 1: and he points out that some parents are also thought

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Speaker 1: to have kept their kids away due to negative experiences

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Speaker 1: bringing them to see the Dark Crystal. Earlier, folks had heard, oh,

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Speaker 1: the Dark Crystal is going to be, you know, from

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Speaker 1: the maker of the Muppets in the Sesame Street, and

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Speaker 1: it was maybe a little too scary, and so that

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Speaker 1: might have kept them from going out to see Labyrinth

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Speaker 1: when it came out, for fear that there would be

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Speaker 1: a similar experience. Finally, this is another thing that Holst

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Speaker 1: points out. You can also look at Labyrinth in the

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Speaker 1: way it connects though to various other themes explored in

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Speaker 1: other Hinson projects, including some of his short film works,

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Speaker 1: that some of those did have buppets and some of

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Speaker 1: them didn't. But these different themes include a fractured view

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Speaker 1: of time, the theme of being trapped, a film as

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Speaker 1: a metatext, and the trappings of superficiality. So those are

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00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,479
Speaker 1: all worth keeping in mind as we continue to discuss

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Speaker 1: the movie here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Rewatching Labyrinth with this knowledge of its reception history

431
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Speaker 3: is odd and interesting because you have this contrast, like

432
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 3: the as we've been talking about, the chilly reception it

433
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 3: got from critics and people pointing out all of these

434
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 3: things that are arguably flaws with it, flows in the storytelling,

435
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:17,919
Speaker 3: flaws in the design, flows in the acting, and so forth.

436
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 3: And at the same time you contrast that with what

437
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 3: I've been saying about I'm pretty sure I'm right about this,

438
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 3: the way that so many kids just totally accepted this

439
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 3: movie as part of the very fabric of childhood. And

440
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 3: I was trying to think what accounts for that difference,

441
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 3: And I think Labyrinth is a movie where you could

442
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 3: easily nitpick a lot of things about it if you're

443
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 3: not along for the ride. But if you're along for

444
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 3: the ride. It's just perfect and you don't question anything.

445
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,640
Speaker 3: And so the real question is are you along for

446
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 3: this ride or not? And what determines if someone will

447
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 3: be or will not be a long for the ride.

448
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 3: Like clearly Jeene Siskel was, he did not agree to

449
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 3: be along for the ride. It's almost in this regard.

450
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 3: I was thinking the inverse of a movie we talked

451
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 3: about a few weeks ago, Ridley Scott's Legend. Legend is

452
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 3: a movie made of amazing parts, but somehow it is

453
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,479
Speaker 3: less than the some of those parts. Something about it

454
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 3: just doesn't quite click as a story overall. Labyrinth, on

455
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 3: the other hand, I think has I mean, of course,

456
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 3: it also has amazing parts, and you know, great character

457
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 3: designs and puppetry and all that, but it has a

458
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 3: lot of specific stuff you could criticize if you were

459
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 3: so inclined. But if you just take the movie as

460
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 3: an indivisible whole, the way you a lot of times

461
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 3: kids take movies as just a totally absorbing experience that

462
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 3: you don't really think about critically. It would never even

463
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 3: occur to you that any part of it could be

464
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 3: less than perfect. It's just the ride you're on and

465
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 3: it's it's amazing.

466
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: I was thinking about something along these lines when I

467
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: was swimming laps this morning that like, for me, a

468
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: movie is often like a Frankenstein's monster, you know, yeah,

469
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's made from the most beautiful pieces

470
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: imaginable and that you can't even see the stitch work,

471
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: and and then other times it's ghastly the stitches are

472
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 1: are raw and apparent, you know, and there are other

473
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: like design problems. But at the end of the experiment,

474
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 1: if the creature can rise up and it has something

475
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,120
Speaker 1: like you know, cohesive life to it, then like then

476
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: you buy it, like that that's the thing it has.

477
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: It has to be able to walk out of the laboratory. Yeah,

478
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 1: and if it does, then yeah, the movie like works

479
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: at least on some sort of level that I can

480
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: get behind. And it's it's interesting because you sometimes you

481
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: do have a a beautiful monster that's there on the slab,

482
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,959
Speaker 1: But if the spark doesn't happen, if it doesn't rise up,

483
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: then you know, what can you do?

484
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, But Labyrinth is getting up and walking, It's it's

485
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 3: running around, it's dancing, it's taking its head off and

486
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 3: tossing it to the Montster next Door.

487
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely all right, let's see other folks involved here.

488
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 1: A story credit goes to Dennis Lee born nineteen thirty nine.

489
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: He'd previously worked as a composer on Fragile Rock and

490
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: we would continue to work in the music department and

491
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: as a composer on subsequent Hintson projects. He is also

492
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: an author and poet for children. Some of his poems

493
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: were adapted into the nineteen ninety two TV movie Alligator Pie.

494
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: And then, of course we have a screenplay credit to

495
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 1: Terry Jones, who have nineteen forty two through twenty twenty,

496
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: the legendary Monty Python writer, director, performer, and medieval historian.

497
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: Jones worked on an early draft of the screenplay, and

498
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: he retains the credit here, though I'm to understand only

499
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: some of his original ideas remain. But I've always felt

500
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: that you still get a very strong Pythonian vibe off

501
00:27:57,520 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: of the film.

502
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 3: Yes, I couldn't tell you exactly what those elements are

503
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 3: off the top of my head, but I can feel

504
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 3: the ghost of money Python in this beast.

505
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: I feel like the specific things that feel like Terry Jones,

506
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 1: and I could be wrong on this, you know, this

507
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: is often the case the most authentic thing and a

508
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: work is actually the most fake, and so forth. But

509
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: I always get a strong Terry Jones vibe from the

510
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: part where where Hoggle is spraying the fairies because and

511
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: then we find out it's because fairies bite. Yes, that

512
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: feels very Terry Jones. And then the logic puzzle of

513
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 1: the door guardians that we hear we encounter later on,

514
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: that also feels very Terry Jones. And I again could

515
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: be wrong in.

516
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 3: Both of those cases, No, I agree with you there.

517
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: So. Jones apparently worked off a novella by Dennis Lee,

518
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: as well as the drawings of artists Brian Frowd who

519
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: will come back to But the shooting script apparently had

520
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: a number of different fingerprints on it. You had like

521
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: Jim Henson, of course, producer George Lucas, Fraggle, writer Laura Phillips,

522
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: and also writer Elaine May. Anyway, Terry Jones is best

523
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: known for his work with Money Python. He co directed

524
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: Holy Grail in seventy five, Money Python and the Holy Grail,

525
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: and directed both Life of Brian and seventy nine and

526
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: the Meaning of Life in eighty three, followed by various

527
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: works including nineteen eighty nine's Eric the Viking. He wrote

528
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: numerous fiction and nonfiction books, including nineteen eighty's Chaucer's Knight,

529
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary. All right, of course,

530
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: as we've been saying, this is a David Bowie film.

531
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: David Bowie, who lived nineteen forty seven through twenty sixteen,

532
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: plays Jareth the Goblin King. Again. We previously talked about

533
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: David Bowie in our episode on The Man Who Fell

534
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: to Earth, and here we return once more to what

535
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: would become one of his most iconic film roles. And

536
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: rather than revisit everything we said before, I thought we

537
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: might instead just sort of position Labyrinth within his filmography

538
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: and his discography. So in the case of the latter,

539
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: it falls between his nineteen eighty four album Tonight and

540
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven's Never Let Me Down.

541
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 3: Now. I love David Bowie, but I don't know either

542
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 3: of these albums. I don't think I've ever listened to them.

543
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: I had never listened to them before. I'd listened to

544
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: them both at least a couple of times through each

545
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: while researching and doing notes for this episode, because, like

546
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: the former, was long considered and I think maybe. It

547
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: is still considered one of his lesser albums and was

548
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: poorly received, though it was apparently re released with new

549
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: instrumentation and the deletion of a track titled Too Dizzy.

550
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: But again, I didn't listen to the original version of

551
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: the album. All I have is this, I believe, the

552
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,239
Speaker 1: new version that's on the streaming platforms to listen to,

553
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: and you know I can't compare, but you know I

554
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: didn't hate it. The reggae elements are interesting. The title

555
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: track is a duet with Tina Turner, and he collaborated

556
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: with Iggy Pop on some of the tracks as well.

557
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: And then Never Let Me Down was an attempt apparently

558
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: to sort of course correct, but was also poorly received.

559
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: Even though you have a track, there's one track, Shining Star,

560
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: which features a rap by Mickey Rourke. I would think

561
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: that would be successful, but I don't know. But again,

562
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: I listened to this all the way through and I

563
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: didn't hate anything. I really liked the track Bang Bang,

564
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: which is an Iggy Pop cover. Oh and then Time

565
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: Will Crawl. It is also one that I thought was

566
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: pretty good, but Bowie himself would end up distancing himself

567
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: from both of these albums later on, so you could

568
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: sort of see this as like, at least from his standpoint,

569
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: you know, this was kind of like a low point

570
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: in his creative output. Now on the film front, this

571
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: one occurs after John Landis's nineteen eighty five thriller Into

572
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: the Night and Julian Temple's Absolute Beginners the same year,

573
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: and he'd follow it up with nineteen eighty nine's The

574
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: Last Temptation of Christ. So it's interesting that while the

575
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: mid eighties are not considered the high point of his

576
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: musical output, in Labyrinth, at least he busts out one

577
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: of what would become his most iconic roles ever, and

578
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: also a soundtrack album's worth of material. I think put

579
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: five tracks into total that I think has stood the

580
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: test of time, Like these are beloved songs today, even

581
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: though at the time, again the movie was was not

582
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: a critical or financial success. And it's I don't think

583
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: he ever performed a single one of these songs live,

584
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: you know. I think he, like a lot of people,

585
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: just kind of like rolled with the punches and just

586
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: moved on from Labyrinth, even though it would go on

587
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: to generate this kind of love and this kind of

588
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: an audience.

589
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 3: I think Bowie's presence in this movie is very interesting

590
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 3: to analyze. On one hand, he is, you know, he's

591
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 3: David Bowie, so he's captivating whenever he's on screen. On

592
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 3: the other hand, he seems a little checked out. Did

593
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 3: you feel the same way, Like it seems like he's

594
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:49,719
Speaker 3: his engagement with the material and in his scenes is

595
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 3: often it seems quite muted and like he's he's a

596
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 3: little bit hazy.

597
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is one of those things where

598
00:32:58,120 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: and we kind of got into this a little bit

599
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: with in the episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth,

600
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: like these tendencies might also ultimately benefit the character, because

601
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: what is Jareth Jarreth is he is a tyrant. He

602
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: is a like a manchild who has apparently grown perhaps

603
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: from infancy into this position of great power without any

604
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: checks and balances in place. And so yeah, maybe he

605
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: does kind of check out at times because he can.

606
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: He can do so he's a little bit aloof you know,

607
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: he's he's vain, but he's also vulnerable. He's charismatic and

608
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: can also be quite cruel. Like there are a number

609
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: of sort of paradoxes with this guy.

610
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's villainous. He can be cruel, but he's also

611
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 3: a little bit dreamy at a i don't know, a

612
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 3: slightly reduced state of consciousness.

613
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, ultimately he's of the fairy folk

614
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: in his own way. Now, one thing that I was

615
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: thinking about is that the character of Jareth is never

616
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: fully explained here in the final cut of the film,

617
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: you know, And I've read that like Hinson and Lucas

618
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: kind of like went back and forth on the final edit,

619
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: where Hinson would have more dialogue and Lucas would cut

620
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 1: dialogue and then they'd kind of like find the balance.

621
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: So maybe an earlier cut they went into this, but

622
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,879
Speaker 1: you don't really know like what he is or why

623
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: he's there, Like he's the king of the goblins, but

624
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: he's obviously or presumably not a goblin himself. And apparently

625
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: at some time, at some points in pre production, they

626
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,879
Speaker 1: intended for Jaiff to be a more darkly satanic, more

627
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: in line with what Legend does with darkness, and knowing

628
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: what Legend was going to do with that character, they

629
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: kind of went in a different direction. But I've read

630
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: that in an earlier draft of the script it was

631
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,800
Speaker 1: revealed that Jareff was once a mortal who solved the labyrinth.

632
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: And then I also have a labyrinth Bestieri by St. Binde,

633
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 1: and she writes that Jarref himself was a changeling, so

634
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: he was brought into the Goblin in realm as an

635
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 1: infant to serve as the heir to the previous Goblin ruler.

636
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 1: I guess it's because, you know, goblins need a ruler,

637
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: and none of them want to do it themselves, Like

638
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 1: can't we steal a baby to do this? Can't we

639
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 1: train a baby to do this? And the answer is yes,

640
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 1: that's how they live their lives.

641
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 3: I have a question, which is is it fun to

642
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 3: be the Goblin King? I see the goblins having fun,

643
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 3: They're you know, horsing around, They're getting into all kinds

644
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 3: of mischief, But David Bowie seems to be just kind

645
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 3: of languidly presiding over all the mischief. Is he having

646
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:35,839
Speaker 3: fun being Goblin King?

647
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 1: I think he gets bored, and I think he gets

648
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of anxiety there. You know,

649
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 1: we see like his boredom often turns into cruelty, and yeah,

650
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: he is also deeply invested in the theft of this baby.

651
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: And the acquisition of Sarah. I think because he feels

652
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: like like there's incompleteness in his life and in the

653
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: of his reign, like he needs fresh blood, he needs

654
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: an air, He needs someone who loves him, as opposed

655
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: to just the goblins, who certainly serve him. But I

656
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: think love would be a strong word, and that's where

657
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: Sarah comes in. Sarah's, of course, played by Jennifer Connolly

658
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: born nineteen seventy Academy Award winning actress whose credits as

659
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: a child actress date back to a nineteen eighty two

660
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: episode of Rhaldahl's anthology series Tales of the Unexpected. It's

661
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: one I don't think I've seen this one, but it's

662
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: titled Stranger in Town. It stars Derek Jacoby, and I

663
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: included it still from it here you can see a

664
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: very young Jennifer Connolly standing there next to a Derek

665
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: Jacoby in a ridiculous, I don't know, some sort of

666
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: a jester or magician costume. Yeah, a cross between the two, okay.

667
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,720
Speaker 1: She also pops up in the music video for Duran

668
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: Durand's Union of the Snake from nineteen eighty three. I

669
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: think she's supposed to be like a cult member or

670
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: something cool. And she followed this up with a small

671
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: role in Sergio Leoni's Once Upon Time in America. That's

672
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: an eighty four oh, and then Dario Argento's Phenomena in

673
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,399
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five opposite Donald Pleasants. Joe, I still haven't

674
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: seen this one, so you'll have to summarize.

675
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 3: It's impossible to summarize the plot of Phenomena. It involves

676
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 3: It involves like, I think, a super intelligent chimpanzee and

677
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 3: swarms of insects that are controlled by a psychic and

678
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 3: I don't know, because it's a it's a Jallo film,

679
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 3: so it has like murders at a Swiss boarding school,

680
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 3: of course, and I don't know. I can't describe it all.

681
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 3: But it does involve Donald Pleasants and a chimpanzee and

682
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 3: insects and murder mysteries, and Jennifer Connelly is the main character.

683
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,879
Speaker 1: All right. So these are essentially the credits that led

684
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: into her playing Sarah in Labyrinth at the age of fourteen,

685
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: at least in the early stages of the production, and

686
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: her subsequent credits would include the likes of nineteen ninety

687
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 1: one's The Rocketeer ninety eight s Dark City, two thousand's

688
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: Requiem for a Dream two thousand and one, A Beautiful

689
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: Mind two thousand and threes, Hulk, twenty fourteen's Noah, and

690
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: the TV series snow Piercer.

691
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 3: I think she's great in all those later movies, by

692
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 3: the way, some of the ones I remember really standing

693
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 3: out to me were like Dark City and all that.

694
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,240
Speaker 3: But you know, I remember liking her even in movies

695
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 3: that I liked less overall, Like I remember thinking A

696
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 3: Beautiful Mind is just kind of some some Oscar bait.

697
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 3: But you know, Jennifer Connelly is always great.

698
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I've really enjoyed her on snow Piercer. Now.

699
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: Sarah's parents are only briefly in the film, but as

700
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: the only other two adult humans present, they deserve mention.

701
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: Shelley Thompson born nineteen fifty nine places Sarah's stepmother, Canadian

702
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: actor and director whose credits also include eighty five episodes

703
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: of Trailer Park Boys.

704
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 3: Really Yeah Wow.

705
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: And then Sarah's father is played by Christopher Malcolm, who

706
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,919
Speaker 1: lived nineteen forty six through twenty fourteen, a Scottish born

707
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 1: actor of stage and screen who actually originated the role

708
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,399
Speaker 1: of Brad in the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show,

709
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: which will become The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And he

710
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: appears in Richard O'Briens nineteen eighty one follow up to

711
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 1: Rocky Horror Shock Treatment. And he also had small roles

712
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty's Superman two and The Empire Strikes Back.

713
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: And he has a role in Highlander, a role that

714
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: I think I always forget that this features into the

715
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: plot even the slightest. But there's like a vigilante character

716
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: running the streets in Highlander, and Christopher Malcolm plays that vigilante.

717
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: I think he's killed by the Kurgan. It's a very

718
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,839
Speaker 1: forgettable part of the film. Yeah, this one is one

719
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,720
Speaker 1: that felt like an insert from another dimension, Like really

720
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 1: that was part of this film that I've seen multiple times.

721
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: But I guess so if you say Internet okay. And

722
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: of course there's a long list of Muppet performers and

723
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: voice actors and other creatives. They include the likes of

724
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: Warwick Davis, Kenny Baker, Kevin Klash, Steven Whitmyer, Frank Oz,

725
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: Karen Prell, Dave Goles, Jim Hinson himself of course, and

726
00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: his son Brian Hinson born nineteen sixty three, who voices Hoggle,

727
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: who of course is Sarah's. The word friend is thrown

728
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,320
Speaker 1: around a lot, and I guess we'd get there eventually,

729
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: but mostly he just betrays her over and over again.

730
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: But yes, Brian Hinson provides the voice there, but.

731
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 3: He helps her too, and yeah, it's a you know,

732
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 3: your friendship is something you grow into.

733
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's I just love the parts where he's like,

734
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 1: he's like, she's my friend and I won't betray her.

735
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: And then jareded is like, Hoggle, I need you to

736
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 1: poison her, and he's like, all right, I'll do it.

737
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: So anyway, we'll come back to some of these individuals

738
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: as we proceed here, but I will point out that

739
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 1: among the voice actors, Michael Horden, who lived in nineteen

740
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: eleven through nineteen ninety five, provides the voice of the

741
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: wise Man, the one with the bird on his hat.

742
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 1: He's also known for his performance as the voice of Frith,

743
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 1: the sun god, in nineteen seventy eight's Watership Down, and

744
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,959
Speaker 1: his other credits include sixty three's Cleopatra sixty eights Where Eagles,

745
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: seventy three's Theater of Blood seventy five's Barry Lyndon in

746
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two's Gandhi.

747
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 3: Theater of Blood is Vincent Price movie. Yeah, with almost

748
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 3: the same plot as Doctor Fibes, except with a more

749
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 3: overtly comedic Hammi theater orientation Shakespearean theater.

750
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: All right, we mentioned Brian Froud, earlier conceptual designer and

751
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: costume designer born nineteen forty seven English fantasy illustrator who

752
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: had worked with Alan Lee on the nineteen seventy eight

753
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: book Fairies. His work often calls back to nineteenth century

754
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: and early twentieth century fantasy illustration, particularly like fairytale inspiration,

755
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,959
Speaker 1: and I've heard from friends who have seen him speak

756
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 1: in the past that he's something of like a true

757
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: believer in fairy folk, Like he doesn't just draw the fairies,

758
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: he knows that they are real. He of course served

759
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: as a conceptual as the conceptual designer on The Dark

760
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: Crystal previously. He also later worked on The Storyteller. His

761
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:58,919
Speaker 1: other conceptual artist credits include two thousand and three's Peter

762
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: Pan in twenty Sixteenans Pete's Dragon Interesting as well. He

763
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,280
Speaker 1: met his wife Wendy on the set of the Dark Crystal.

764
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: She worked in the creature workshop on that film and

765
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: also on this film as well, and they had a son,

766
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: Toby famously born eighty four, who of course plays baby Toby,

767
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 1: Sarah's brother in this picture. So real life. Toby has

768
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: gone into work in special effects and animation on such

769
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 1: films as twenty fourteen's The Box Trolls and the twenty

770
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: nineteen series The Dark Crystal, The Age of Resistance.

771
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 3: Oh nice, but yeah, you actually do get to see

772
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 3: a real baby crying in this movie though. I was

773
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 3: watching close when the Goblin King Jarrett starts like throwing

774
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 3: him really high up in the air. That is a doll.

775
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 3: That's not the real baby.

776
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: That's good. I mean his parents were on set. They

777
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,760
Speaker 1: weren't going to allow that to happen. Okay. Alex Thompson

778
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: was cinematographer on this only mentioned it because we brought

779
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 1: We mentioned him briefly in Legend, same cinematographer as Legend,

780
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:01,719
Speaker 1: so that's interesting. And then music is a big part

781
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 1: of this film. Trevor Jones did the score. Born nineteen

782
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: forty nine, South African composer with some very impressive credentials

783
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: going back to the late seventies. His other scores include

784
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: ex Caliber from eighty one, eighty two's The Cinder, The

785
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,800
Speaker 1: Dark Crystal, eighty five's Runaway Train, eighty seven's Angel Heart,

786
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: eighty eight Mississippi Burning, ninety two's Free Jack, as well

787
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: as the Last of the Mohicans, Dark City, and two

788
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: thousand and one s from Hell. And he's still still active.

789
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 3: I wonder if he's still getting residuals on Free Jack.

790
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: Well, one would hope. Now. I'm not current enough on

791
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 1: all of his scores, or even most of his scores.

792
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 1: I've never seen The Cinder, but it's on my list,

793
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: but I think his score for The Dark Crystal is

794
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: really really good. And I love the glistening electronic splendor

795
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: of his work in Labyrinth here fused, of course with

796
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: the musical stylings of David Bowie. And again, yes, David

797
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: Bowie's music is key here as well. It is a

798
00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: full fledged musical featuring five original tracks from David Bowie.

799
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 1: We'll come back to these as we go, but they

800
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: are Underground, Magic, Dance, Chili, Down, as the World Falls

801
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: Down and within You.

802
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 3: I say possibly the opening track Underground is the most

803
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 3: memorable for me, Like as a good song. But what's

804
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 3: the most memorable just as an experience? I think it

805
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,359
Speaker 3: might be Chili Down, which is is that I don't know,

806
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:26,399
Speaker 3: is this song terrifying, horrible, wonderful? What is going on?

807
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 1: There's a lot to process with Chili Down, I think.

808
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: I think all of us who began watching Labyrinth as

809
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: a child are still trying to figure out how we

810
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: feel about Chili Down, and of course the sights and

811
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 1: traumas that accompany it. Like if you went into this

812
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: film having found the dark Crystal uncomfortable, then the Chili

813
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: Down sequence is basically like a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah,

814
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 1: but luckily the rest of Labyrinth doesn't have quite the

815
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: same flavor.

816
00:44:57,680 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 4: Yeah.

817
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 3: But it is that track Underground that plays with the

818
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,839
Speaker 3: opening credits for the CGI Owl because it's got these

819
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 3: lines that are, uh, these are quite memorable. It says

820
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 3: it's only for forever, it's not long at all.

821
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, which fits nicely into this treatment of time

822
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: in this picture. But yeah, I love the score when

823
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: it hits us, the score that transitions into Bowie's Underground,

824
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:24,720
Speaker 1: a track that's going to play again in the closing credits. Yeah, lyrically,

825
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a song that really captures

826
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: both Sarah's emotional state and the temptations of the Goblin King.

827
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 1: You know, it just feels emotionally on point as we

828
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,320
Speaker 1: enter in at first, not necessarily not really into the

829
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: world of the Labyrinth just yet, but into the real world,

830
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: into the mundane world that Sarah finds herself trapped in.

831
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 1: Like this is a film that's ultimately about her being

832
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 1: trapped in a fantasy world, but in the beginning she

833
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:56,959
Speaker 1: is trapped in her mundane life.

834
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 3: So yeah. The action begins in a beautiful outdoor location.

835
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 3: Actually the place that's almost shockingly green. It's this park

836
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:12,240
Speaker 3: with a small river running through it, stone bridges, lush grass,

837
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 3: and these dark, shadowy trees. I am pretty sure this

838
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:19,359
Speaker 3: was shot at a place called west Wycombe Park in

839
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,839
Speaker 3: the UK. I looked it up to do some comparison.

840
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 3: But in the foreground of this shot we get the

841
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 3: animated owl from the credits, which has become a live

842
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 3: action owl, which settles on a granite obelisk. And then

843
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 3: in the background, our heroine, Sarah played by Jennifer Connelly,

844
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 3: comes running into the scene over one of these low

845
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:43,240
Speaker 3: stone bridges, and when we first meet her, she's dressed

846
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 3: in a costume, a sort of a Renaissance era gown

847
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: with a garland in her hair. And I think this

848
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 3: is meant to be a kind of fake out, like

849
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,800
Speaker 3: we might assume that the movie takes place in another

850
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 3: time period, but no, it turns out she is I think,

851
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 3: rob Let me know if you disagree. I think she's

852
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 3: supposed to be rehearsing for a play, and she's apparently

853
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 3: in costume for that, but either way, she's practicing some

854
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,800
Speaker 3: kind of lines. She's trying to memorize something from a book,

855
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 3: and as she runs and dances through the park, she

856
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 3: says her lines, and the lines go like this. They

857
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 3: are important because they recur throughout the film. She says,

858
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 3: give me the child through dangers untold and hardship's unnumbered.

859
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 3: I have fought my way here to the castle beyond

860
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 3: the Goblin City to take back the child that you

861
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 3: have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours,

862
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 3: and my kingdom is as great. And then she starts

863
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 3: to stumble. She can't remember the next line, and she

864
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,320
Speaker 3: struggles for a bit and then eventually gets the book

865
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 3: out of her pocket and looks at it and remembers

866
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 3: the next line is you have no power over me.

867
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 3: After she gets the line, thunder cracks. A rainstorm is beginning,

868
00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 3: and a nearby clock tower strikes at seven o'clock and

869
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 3: Sarah realizes, oh, she is late for something. So we

870
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 3: get to see her run back through the park, through

871
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:11,760
Speaker 3: a neighborhood, through sort of downtown area of a small

872
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 3: town in the rain to get back home, and her

873
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 3: adorable shaggy dog, Merlin is with her.

874
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: By the way.

875
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 3: He's one of these mop like dog breeds, sort of

876
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 3: more fur than body. I don't know what breed that is,

877
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 3: but I love Merlin. Question is Merlin the same dog

878
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 3: as Ambrosious, the dog of Sir Didimus later in the story,

879
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:31,800
Speaker 3: or is that a different dog?

880
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: Oh? You know, I'm not sure if we're I mean,

881
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: in a sense, definitely, but in terms of dog actors maybe.

882
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 3: Okay. So I know it's not part of the main

883
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 3: fantasy setting, which is the real draw of the film,

884
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 3: But for some reason, I also really love the real

885
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 3: world locations at the beginning of the movie, the park,

886
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:56,279
Speaker 3: the town, and the storefronts, the rainy neighborhood. I think

887
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 3: they look wonderful and they're this interesting mix of dreary

888
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 3: but lovely.

889
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it really works because the more we see

890
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: of Sarah's real life, we realize that, yeah, it's like

891
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: she's she's not to discount her displeasure or her emotions,

892
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: you know, because of course these are gonna be gonna

893
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: be very subjective and all. But like, you know, she

894
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 1: is what you know. She is in what to all

895
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 1: appearances would look like a very comfortable house and a

896
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: very comfortable life, but that is not how she feels.

897
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: She feels very set upon. She feels that she is

898
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,320
Speaker 1: trapped here and desperately wants escape.

899
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 3: Yes, so, and when we see that conflict immediately when

900
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 3: Sarah gets home, she's confronted on the porch by her stepmother.

901
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 3: Sarah is late. She was supposed to be home to

902
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 3: babysit her little brother Toby so her father and stepmother

903
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 3: could go out for the evening. And there there are

904
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 3: sort of multiple levels of conflict. Sarah is very frustrated

905
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 3: and put upon. She resents being asked to babysit when

906
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 3: she should be out living her own life. But then

907
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,239
Speaker 3: her stepmother says, basically, well, if you had plans, you

908
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 3: could have told me, I'd like for you to go

909
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 3: out and have dates in a social life, And it's

910
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 3: almost like the fact that her stepmother is not being

911
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 3: more unreasonable further enrages Sarah, and she runs upstairs yelling,

912
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 3: pouting that apparently she can't do anything right. And I

913
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 3: like this relatively complex depiction of teen angst because it

914
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 3: feels real to me, like the conflict is not one

915
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 3: dimensional or about just a single subject. Instead, it seems

916
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 3: that Sarah is living in a stew of many conflicting

917
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 3: emotions and desires, all of which are thwarted at the

918
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 3: same time, Like she wants to be an adult and

919
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 3: have independence and self determination, but feels like something is

920
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 3: preventing her. But also there are signs that she wants

921
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,839
Speaker 3: to go the other way and regress into the self

922
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:58,840
Speaker 3: centered mind space of childhood and just be free of

923
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,399
Speaker 3: all responsibilities and all cares about others. And we see

924
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 3: this in the way that she hides in a room

925
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 3: and finds solace in her collection of stuffed animals, and

926
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 3: later in the way she unfairly projects resentment onto her

927
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 3: baby brother. And I think that feeling of complex and

928
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 3: even mutually exclusive thwarted desires is very relatable to anybody

929
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:24,319
Speaker 3: who remembers being a teenager themselves, Like, I remember what

930
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:25,839
Speaker 3: that felt like in a way where it was just

931
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 3: like everything was confusing and frustrating and nothing felt right

932
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 3: and there wasn't actually one single cause of it. It's

933
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 3: just that that's what it's like to be fifteen or sixteen.

934
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 3: The conflict here isn't just about babysitting.

935
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not that your stepmom is telling you

936
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 1: to go water a stump, yeah yeah, yeah. And so

937
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: of course she goes to her room, and boy, what

938
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 1: a room it is. I think we've talked about kids

939
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:54,320
Speaker 1: rooms on the show before, but this is always something

940
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: that I paying a lot of attention to when I

941
00:51:56,520 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: watch a film. How have you decorated this child's room?

942
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: Did you just print out some stuff from Getty Images

943
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,279
Speaker 1: and you're pretending it's a poster or did you use

944
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 1: real posters? You know? Is it all fake franchise stuff?

945
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: Does it feel like a child actually lived in this

946
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,319
Speaker 1: room or not? And I think they do just a

947
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 1: fabulous job with Sarah's room here, with her reality of stuff,

948
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 1: which is going to be vitally important to the plot,

949
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 1: of course, but it also needs to feel real.

950
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are her music posters? She have like stinging

951
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 3: on the wall or something.

952
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

953
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 3: But also we see in the room. I think it's

954
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 3: in her room that there's a copy of Where the

955
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 3: Wild Things Are. That really caught my eye because currently

956
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 3: my daughter is obsessed with Where the Wild Things Are.

957
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 3: She calls it Max Boat. You know, Max gets in

958
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 3: a boat, goes across the ocean.

959
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 1: Oh that's a great one. Yeah, yeah, we read that

960
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: one a lot too.

961
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 3: She likes to hear Where the Wild Things Are like

962
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,920
Speaker 3: while she's eating, she's having dinner, and she wants us

963
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:58,439
Speaker 3: to read it to her while she's having dinner, which

964
00:52:58,440 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 3: we indulge in sometimes.

965
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:01,000
Speaker 1: Her favorite wild Thing.

966
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 3: Well, honestly, I think it's Max. She likes Max. He's

967
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 3: the king of the wild Things. He's the one who

968
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 3: says it's time to let the wild rump us begin?

969
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 1: So all right, solid sod.

970
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe as we continue to read it

971
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 3: over time, she'll she'll find more to love down the

972
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 3: character sheet. But anyway, Sarah is left to take care

973
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 3: of Toby while her parents go out, and so she

974
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 3: discovers at some point that one of her old stuffed animals.

975
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 3: I think it's named Lancelot. It's like a teddy bear

976
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 3: named Lancelot has been taken from her room and given

977
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 3: to the baby, and this makes her even more angry.

978
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 3: And then the baby's crying and she doesn't know how

979
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 3: to make him stop, which again, you know, is a

980
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 3: relatable feeling. It does create this feeling of helplessness. And

981
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 3: while in the middle of all these frustrations about to

982
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 3: boil over, Sarah suddenly gets an idea, a terrible idea,

983
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 3: an idea that seems to be related to the book

984
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 3: or the play that she's been met. She gets the

985
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 3: idea to I think sort of say a magic spell

986
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,919
Speaker 3: from whatever the story is that makes goblins come and

987
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 3: take a child away. And this actually leads to one

988
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:17,480
Speaker 3: of my favorite little stylistic choices, one of my favorite

989
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 3: editing moments in the movie. So when she's trying to

990
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 3: remember the words to say to summon the goblin magic

991
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 3: and remove Toby from her life, suddenly, with no warning

992
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 3: at all, we just cut to a bunch of goblin

993
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 3: faces waiting with baited breath for her to say the words.

994
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 3: They're like yelling at each other, like listen she's gonna

995
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 3: say the words. Such an odd and surprising choice, the

996
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 3: way we just smash cut to goblins with no previous

997
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 3: introduction or even indication that they exist. Everything up to

998
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 3: this point has been fully realistic, no fantasy elements at all,

999
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 3: and so the first time we see anything magical is

1000
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 3: an absolutely unexpl did smash cut. It almost reminds me

1001
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 3: of the moment in The Exorcist when Reagan is at

1002
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 3: the doctor's office and she's staring up at the ceiling

1003
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 3: and we smashed cut to the Pazuzu face peering out

1004
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 3: of the darkness. This isn't as evil and menacing as that,

1005
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 3: but it's semi evil and a little bit scary. And

1006
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 3: I love the way that the magic just bursts in

1007
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:24,359
Speaker 3: like that, with no warning at all.

1008
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:26,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we don't even really get a clear sense

1009
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 1: of where the goblins are. Are they in the closet

1010
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: and are in the walls? Are they just in the

1011
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: nether void? You know that's easily accessible, but equally distant,

1012
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: distant from you know, our real life at any time.

1013
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 1: But yeah, all this build up is wonderful. I love too,

1014
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:45,760
Speaker 1: how she's self narrating her plight here, including talking about

1015
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: one day when Baby was especially cruel to her. Yes,

1016
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: which of course is just such a deliciously over the

1017
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 1: top exaggeration of her current circumstance. Yes, the baby Toby

1018
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 1: was cruel to you today, Baby Toby definitely stole your

1019
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: stuffed animal.

1020
00:56:04,719 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 3: So anyway, she does eventually remember the words to say,

1021
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:13,280
Speaker 3: and then the magic descends. Toby disappears, he is gone,

1022
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 3: and instead she is now faced with David Bowie playing

1023
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:21,359
Speaker 3: the Goblin King Jarreth. He appears in Toby's room, and

1024
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:24,960
Speaker 3: she quite quickly regrets that she sent Toby away. You know,

1025
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 3: she wants him back, but Jared says, at first, I

1026
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 3: think he says she can't have him back, and then

1027
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:32,319
Speaker 3: finally he says, Okay, she can only have him back

1028
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 3: if she makes it to his castle at the center

1029
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:38,800
Speaker 3: of the Great Labyrinth before midnight, and if not, Toby

1030
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 3: will become absorbed into the Goblin Horde. He will just

1031
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 3: become goblin.

1032
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:46,759
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean, there's just so many great details

1033
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: in this moment and leading up to it. I mean,

1034
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 1: I love the goblins when they start invading the room. Yes,

1035
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:58,560
Speaker 1: I love Jireth laying out the challenge you have thirteen

1036
00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: hours in which to solve the labyrinth and making a

1037
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 1: time go weird on her. And then the first of

1038
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:06,759
Speaker 1: what will be kind of a recurring element in the

1039
00:57:06,760 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 1: film of characters really trying to shoot down her optimism,

1040
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:13,759
Speaker 1: you know, where she says, Okay, I can do this,

1041
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:16,280
Speaker 1: and he's like, it's further than you think, you know,

1042
00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 1: And we'll get something similar from Hoggle later on, where

1043
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, it just gets tougher from here on out,

1044
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, which These lines seem to like echo a

1045
00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 1: sort of adult sensibility that has been handed down to

1046
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: Sarah and is reflected in the fantasy world here.

1047
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:34,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So suddenly we're in a different place. We

1048
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:36,320
Speaker 3: have been taken to the Goblin Kingdom. We're not in

1049
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 3: Sarah's house anymore. How would you describe the esthetics of

1050
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 3: the Goblin Kingdom? What is this world like?

1051
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: Oh, it's beautiful for starters, but it's also a little

1052
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: bit desolate and everything. So many surfaces in the Goblin realm,

1053
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: and it varies depending on what section of the labyrinthin

1054
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: you're in. So many surfaces look like they have very

1055
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 1: recently been crawled over by some sort of a fairy

1056
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 1: slug that leaves just a little bit of a like

1057
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: a glistening sparkle to everything.

1058
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:05,920
Speaker 3: A glittering mucus trail overall.

1059
00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it does, I think, read rather accurately, like

1060
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 1: a fine kingdom that has been ruled too long by goblins. Like, yes,

1061
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 1: upkeep is happening, but it's maybe not as loving as

1062
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:18,160
Speaker 1: it could be.

1063
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 3: Yes. Now. Pretty quickly, while finding her way to the

1064
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 3: to the entrance of the labyrinth so she can get

1065
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 3: Toby back, Sarah runs into someone. She meets, a character

1066
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 3: named Hoggle, who's going to be one of the main

1067
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 3: characters in the movie. When we first meet Hoggle, he

1068
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 3: is urinating into a reflecting pool.

1069
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:39,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1070
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, but so that's I guess an inauspicious beginning. But

1071
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 3: it's sort of a difficult meeting. At first. Hoggle is

1072
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 3: not inclined to be very helpful to her. Instead, he

1073
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:54,080
Speaker 3: is busy poisoning fairies I think, like dusting them with

1074
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 3: some like fairy insecticide.

1075
00:58:56,720 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. He is exterminating fairies. He is not helpful.

1076
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 1: He is grumpy. Hogle is interesting because Hogel is not

1077
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: maybe not objectively cute, but you do grow to love him.

1078
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:15,440
Speaker 1: He is a character that will betray Sarah over and

1079
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: over again and really struggles to muster any true sustaining courage.

1080
00:59:21,640 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 1: But you know eventually he's going to get there. But

1081
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: you do have to be patient with him on that journey.

1082
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 3: That's right. And he does sort of disappear and reappear

1083
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:32,000
Speaker 3: repeatedly throughout the story.

1084
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:34,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's difficult to count on for a while.

1085
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, when Sarah first goes into the quick question

1086
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 3: of terminology, should we continue to call it the labyrinth

1087
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 3: or should we call it a maze? I think I

1088
00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 3: recall from our episodes on the Minotaur that technically a

1089
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 3: labyrinth is one in which there is only one path

1090
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 3: and it does lead ineluctably to the ending.

1091
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 1: Is that right you some definitions? Absolutely? So, Yeah, in

1092
01:00:03,720 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 1: some respects, you could think of the labyrinth here as

1093
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:09,080
Speaker 1: more of a maze. But I don't know. I mean,

1094
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:12,400
Speaker 1: if the ruler of this room calls it a labyrinth,

1095
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:16,120
Speaker 1: I guess we have to respect his goblin word choices.

1096
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 3: Well, I guess that's true. In any case, it does

1097
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 3: not seem that this is a place where you just

1098
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 3: continue walking and you will eventually get to the end.

1099
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 3: You have to make choices about where to turn and

1100
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 3: where to go. But when Sarah first gets into the labyrinth,

1101
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 3: it's interesting that the first real challenge she faces is

1102
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:37,400
Speaker 3: that she can't find anywhere to turn. It just seems

1103
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 3: like one endless corridor. And so she has a wonderful

1104
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 3: little scene where she discusses this with a worm who

1105
01:00:44,240 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 3: tells her he's like, ah, yeah, I can't tell you.

1106
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 3: I can't help you. I'm just a worm. But then

1107
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 3: he does provide some helpful advice because she discovers that

1108
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 3: there are gaps in the walls that she can move

1109
01:00:56,840 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 3: through to make turns and find new ways to navigate

1110
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 3: through them, but they're hidden by optical illusions. And I

1111
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 3: love the effects used here because from what I can tell,

1112
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 3: there's no real trickery going on except that they just like,

1113
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:13,200
Speaker 3: for example, we'll have a gap in the walls of

1114
01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:17,120
Speaker 3: the maze that from the perspective we're looking at it

1115
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:20,360
Speaker 3: totally blends in with the wall behind it, so you

1116
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 3: can't even tell their two separate walls.

1117
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's just a complete practical illusion

1118
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: that they depend on here.

1119
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now we don't have time to talk through the

1120
01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 3: entire plot seen by scene, but maybe we should just

1121
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 3: pick out some of our favorite moments. As Sarah is

1122
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:50,600
Speaker 3: navigating the labyrinth and its challenges and the people she

1123
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:53,560
Speaker 3: meets along the way. One thing I know you wanted

1124
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 3: to talk about was the riddle of the doors who

1125
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 3: with the dogs guarding them?

1126
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:00,400
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, these guys are a lot of fun. I

1127
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: covered these on the Monster fact a while back there.

1128
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:06,800
Speaker 1: They're delightfully weird enough on their own, of course, two

1129
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 1: headed doglike humanoid creatures that are fixed behind shields, kind

1130
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: of in the manner of double headed European playing cards.

1131
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 1: It's already a wild design. But then the scenario gets

1132
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:21,120
Speaker 1: even wilder because we find out, of course, that one

1133
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:22,920
Speaker 1: door leads to the castle at the center of the

1134
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 1: labyrinth and the other one leads to Bubbabubum certain death.

1135
01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 1: The lower heads have no idea what's going on, which

1136
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: door is which the upper heads do, but Sarah is

1137
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:35,440
Speaker 1: only permitted to ask one of them. Furthermore, one of

1138
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 1: the two guardians always tells the truth, while the other

1139
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 1: one always lies. So Sarah faces a conundrum here. How

1140
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 1: can she find out which door is which? How can

1141
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,800
Speaker 1: she risk asking the wrong guardian and being lied to?

1142
01:02:48,680 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 1: And this is really fascinating because the scenario here, of course,

1143
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:56,160
Speaker 1: instantly invokes what is known as the liar's paradox. If

1144
01:02:56,200 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 1: a liar tells you they are lying, then they are

1145
01:02:58,640 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: telling the truth. Consider the statement, this sentence is a lie.

1146
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:05,439
Speaker 1: If that statement is true, then it's false. If it's false,

1147
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:06,240
Speaker 1: then it's true.

1148
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 3: Right, Hence that it's a paradox, it's self contradictory.

1149
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:13,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now the scenario that Sarah is facing here, I

1150
01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:15,760
Speaker 1: have to admit that I really have to do some

1151
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 1: mental gymnastics to make sense of the riddle here. I

1152
01:03:18,320 --> 01:03:20,800
Speaker 1: think when I was younger, at one point I did

1153
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:23,680
Speaker 1: like settle down and think about it long and hard

1154
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 1: enough to where it clicked. But for the most part

1155
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:28,240
Speaker 1: here I just really have to trust that the film

1156
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 1: is not lying to me when it tells me that

1157
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:32,920
Speaker 1: this is the correct answer. But I did research it

1158
01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:35,840
Speaker 1: a little bit. As John Touri points out in the

1159
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 1: paper objective falsity is essential to lying an argument from

1160
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 1: convergent evidence published in Philosophy Studies twenty twenty one, Sarah

1161
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:47,920
Speaker 1: here is engaging in what is called answer laundering. The

1162
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:51,800
Speaker 1: truth and the lie dependably cancel each other out in

1163
01:03:51,880 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: this scenario, provided to Rey stresses that lies cannot be

1164
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 1: true because the answer laundering she engages here is of course,

1165
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:02,680
Speaker 1: she asks one of the guards what the other guard

1166
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: would say in reaction to her question, and she uses

1167
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,960
Speaker 1: that answer to figure out which way is which.

1168
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,600
Speaker 3: But that makes sense because you know either way that

1169
01:04:13,680 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 3: will point you to the wrong door. If you ask

1170
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 3: the truth telling guard what the other guard would say,

1171
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:21,880
Speaker 3: they will truthfully tell you that the other guard will

1172
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 3: lead you to the wrong door. And if you ask

1173
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:26,680
Speaker 3: the lying guard what the truth telling guard would say,

1174
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:30,480
Speaker 3: they will lie and tell you the wrong door. So

1175
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:33,360
Speaker 3: either way that indicates which door is the wrong one.

1176
01:04:33,480 --> 01:04:35,640
Speaker 3: So by elimination you know which is the right one.

1177
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:38,720
Speaker 1: It's a piece of gay. So Terry points out that

1178
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,640
Speaker 1: the riddle here of the four guards is a variant of,

1179
01:04:42,120 --> 01:04:43,880
Speaker 1: or seems to be a variant of the Knights and

1180
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 1: Knaves logic puzzle from Raymond Smullian's nineteen seventy eight publication

1181
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:52,080
Speaker 1: What is the Name of this Book? Yeah, This scenario

1182
01:04:52,160 --> 01:04:54,480
Speaker 1: closely resembles what we see in Labyrinth. It involves a

1183
01:04:54,560 --> 01:04:58,440
Speaker 1: knight and a knave otherwise indistinguishable, who guard a fork

1184
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:00,720
Speaker 1: in the road? Which what are you going to take.

1185
01:05:01,080 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: Dare you ask these two men, given that one is

1186
01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:06,680
Speaker 1: secretly a noble knight and one is secretly a vile nave.

1187
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:11,680
Speaker 1: The solution, again is via answer laundering. You ask which

1188
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:14,480
Speaker 1: path the other individual would say is the correct one,

1189
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:16,360
Speaker 1: and then you can use that to determine which is

1190
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 1: the correct way. Sarah guesses correctly, but of course Sarah

1191
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:22,880
Speaker 1: gets cocky and she gets the trap door for her efforts.

1192
01:05:23,840 --> 01:05:26,280
Speaker 3: It almost indicates that she got it wrong, but I

1193
01:05:26,280 --> 01:05:27,640
Speaker 3: think she did get it right.

1194
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:28,840
Speaker 1: I believe so.

1195
01:05:29,160 --> 01:05:33,280
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, So she goes through the door and

1196
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:37,240
Speaker 3: then immediately falls down a trapdoor into and there's like

1197
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:40,120
Speaker 3: a so the pit she falls into. It's kind of

1198
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:42,840
Speaker 3: funny that there are all these hands poking out the walls,

1199
01:05:43,320 --> 01:05:45,960
Speaker 3: you know, like they like stop her from falling, and

1200
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:48,600
Speaker 3: they say they're helping hands, and they form faces that

1201
01:05:48,720 --> 01:05:51,600
Speaker 3: talk out of the gloved hands. So it's kind of

1202
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 3: a weird, creepy scene. It reminds me of something that

1203
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:56,600
Speaker 3: actually that would be in return to Oz and then

1204
01:05:56,720 --> 01:05:57,440
Speaker 3: feel right.

1205
01:05:57,600 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, great sequence, a very inventive use of

1206
01:06:01,560 --> 01:06:04,880
Speaker 1: hand puppetry. Yeah, there's nothing else like it.

1207
01:06:05,440 --> 01:06:06,919
Speaker 3: But they ask her if she wants to go back

1208
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:08,560
Speaker 3: up or to go back or to go all the

1209
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 3: way down, and for some reason she chooses down, so

1210
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:15,200
Speaker 3: that ends up dropping her into an oubliette where she

1211
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:19,160
Speaker 3: eventually Oh here she meets back up with Hoggle again.

1212
01:06:19,360 --> 01:06:23,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. Rescued by Hoggle, they make a deal over some jewelry, right.

1213
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:27,960
Speaker 3: I think there are some additional negotiations with Jareth down here.

1214
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:30,600
Speaker 3: I think this is the sequence where they have to

1215
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 3: run from this like nightmare device that's chasing them down

1216
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 3: a tunnel, threatening to grind them into the wall. But

1217
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 3: they eventually they bust through and find a ladder up

1218
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:42,560
Speaker 3: to the surface, after which they talk to like a

1219
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:45,480
Speaker 3: snoozy old wise man who I think is sort of

1220
01:06:45,480 --> 01:06:47,800
Speaker 3: a dog but also is a human and then has

1221
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 3: a bird on his head.

1222
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:53,000
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and they gets some limited amounts of wisdom

1223
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:53,680
Speaker 1: from this character.

1224
01:06:54,680 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 3: Somewhere around here also is where we meet another one

1225
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 3: of the lovable friend to care aracters who become a

1226
01:07:00,880 --> 01:07:05,960
Speaker 3: part of Sarah's gang. This is Ludo. Ludo is initially

1227
01:07:06,040 --> 01:07:08,760
Speaker 3: caught in a trap and hanging upside down and being

1228
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:11,600
Speaker 3: badgered by a bunch of goblins. Ludo is like a

1229
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:16,360
Speaker 3: large sort of sasquatch type creature with sort of curving

1230
01:07:16,440 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 3: horns on his head, who appears very monstrous but in

1231
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 3: fact is actually quite sweet natured.

1232
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:25,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, or if you're Gene Siskel, this is a ripoff

1233
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 1: of Chewbacca. What a ripoff?

1234
01:07:28,800 --> 01:07:29,800
Speaker 3: Because he has fur?

1235
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:30,480
Speaker 1: Is that it?

1236
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:35,440
Speaker 3: I guess he's big and has fur, therefore is Chewbacca.

1237
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:38,240
Speaker 1: But yeah, Ludo's great, Ludo's a gentle giant.

1238
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 3: You love him, Yes, lovable. Sarah rescues Ludo from being

1239
01:07:42,520 --> 01:07:44,440
Speaker 3: harassed by the goblins.

1240
01:07:44,240 --> 01:07:47,120
Speaker 1: With the nibbler sticks. Great sequence. And oh and then

1241
01:07:47,120 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 1: this is where they're doing the hobby horse technique here

1242
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: for the little guys running around. It's great.

1243
01:07:51,840 --> 01:07:53,680
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. So they've got like these

1244
01:07:53,680 --> 01:07:56,479
Speaker 3: little monsters attached to the ends of sticks that they're

1245
01:07:56,680 --> 01:08:00,760
Speaker 3: using to bite Ludo with. But then she frees She

1246
01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,240
Speaker 3: like gets the goblins all fighting each other until they

1247
01:08:03,280 --> 01:08:07,080
Speaker 3: run away, and then she frees him, and after that

1248
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:12,040
Speaker 3: Ludo is friend. Now in this sequence, Hoggle runs away,

1249
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:14,360
Speaker 3: but he'll show back up again later. I think somewhere

1250
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:17,280
Speaker 3: around in here is where Sarah ends up running into

1251
01:08:17,360 --> 01:08:18,479
Speaker 3: the fire Gang.

1252
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:24,000
Speaker 1: Yes, the fire Gang or the Fieries. Oh, These are

1253
01:08:24,040 --> 01:08:27,280
Speaker 1: creatures that have always been pure nightmare fuel to me.

1254
01:08:27,960 --> 01:08:31,880
Speaker 1: They're a band of musical bird like goblinoids with like

1255
01:08:31,960 --> 01:08:37,400
Speaker 1: bright you know, orange and fire colored feathers, fur somewhere

1256
01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:42,080
Speaker 1: in between. And they have disturbing natural abilities in the

1257
01:08:42,080 --> 01:08:46,680
Speaker 1: realms of pyrokinesis as well as dismemberment. They can rip

1258
01:08:46,760 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 1: their bodies apart and reattach them at will willy nilly

1259
01:08:51,040 --> 01:08:54,240
Speaker 1: in various positions. They can even connect their limbs together

1260
01:08:54,360 --> 01:08:59,280
Speaker 1: into new monstrous shapes. It's a sequence full of body, heart,

1261
01:09:00,120 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 1: dance music, Menace Mayham. It is a lot to process,

1262
01:09:06,080 --> 01:09:08,720
Speaker 1: but it is a musical number. The song here is

1263
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:12,480
Speaker 1: David Bowie's Chilli Down. If you listen to the soundtrack

1264
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,920
Speaker 1: Slash Score album, you get to hear Bowie singing on

1265
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:17,520
Speaker 1: it a little bit of belief. But in the film

1266
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:22,160
Speaker 1: it is performed by Kevin Klash born nineteen sixty as

1267
01:09:22,520 --> 01:09:25,880
Speaker 1: the voice of Elmo, the original voice of Elmo. He's

1268
01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:28,880
Speaker 1: the voice of the main fiery. Then you have Danny

1269
01:09:28,960 --> 01:09:32,040
Speaker 1: John Jules born nineteen sixty a British actor, dancer and

1270
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:34,479
Speaker 1: singer who is also a member of the Blood Pack.

1271
01:09:34,560 --> 01:09:38,719
Speaker 1: In Blade two, he voices Fiery four, the really dangerous

1272
01:09:38,760 --> 01:09:42,400
Speaker 1: looking one. Then you have Charles Oggins, a British actor,

1273
01:09:42,520 --> 01:09:46,000
Speaker 1: dancer and choreographer who also choreographed this scene as well

1274
01:09:46,040 --> 01:09:50,320
Speaker 1: as the excellent magic dance scene from earlier. And then

1275
01:09:50,360 --> 01:09:53,599
Speaker 1: also you have actor Richard Bodkin doing a voice as well.

1276
01:09:53,960 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 1: So just some horrifying, freaky goblinoid creatures here performing a

1277
01:10:01,160 --> 01:10:04,560
Speaker 1: very wild song. And this whole sequence of course escalates

1278
01:10:04,560 --> 01:10:09,320
Speaker 1: into them deciding they need to dismember Jennifer Connelly. Sarah,

1279
01:10:09,400 --> 01:10:11,680
Speaker 1: they need to rip her head off, because you're not

1280
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:14,320
Speaker 1: supposed to throw other people's heads, even though they throw

1281
01:10:14,360 --> 01:10:16,479
Speaker 1: each other's heads around earlier, Like they don't even follow

1282
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:19,080
Speaker 1: their own rules. They're just pure creatures of chaos.

1283
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:21,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are the lines where they're like trying to

1284
01:10:21,160 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 3: pull her head off? They're like, Eh, it's not coming off.

1285
01:10:23,240 --> 01:10:23,840
Speaker 3: What's going on?

1286
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:24,320
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1287
01:10:24,400 --> 01:10:25,040
Speaker 3: Pull harder.

1288
01:10:25,520 --> 01:10:27,519
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's one of the things that I think

1289
01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:29,840
Speaker 1: always like really struck me about this scene. It's like

1290
01:10:30,360 --> 01:10:33,840
Speaker 1: it's two different realities clashing. Their reality is one of

1291
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:39,639
Speaker 1: just fun dismemberment. It's easily reversible and you can play

1292
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:42,559
Speaker 1: with it. It's a good time for everybody, but Sarah

1293
01:10:42,600 --> 01:10:45,080
Speaker 1: is from a world where dismemberment is permanent. It is

1294
01:10:45,120 --> 01:10:49,800
Speaker 1: permanent and fatal, and they just don't understand that. Why

1295
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:51,360
Speaker 1: don't you want to take your head off? What is

1296
01:10:51,400 --> 01:10:52,599
Speaker 1: the matter with you? Now?

1297
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:54,960
Speaker 3: You mentioned that there was an earlier part of the

1298
01:10:55,000 --> 01:10:58,280
Speaker 3: movie that featured a musical number called the Magic Dance.

1299
01:10:58,280 --> 01:11:00,519
Speaker 3: I didn't remember exactly where this came. This is the

1300
01:11:00,520 --> 01:11:04,479
Speaker 3: one where we get to see inside the Goblin Castle

1301
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:08,680
Speaker 3: where David Bowie's hanging out. Toby is there with all

1302
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:11,320
Speaker 3: the goblins. He's sort of crying. It looks like Toby's

1303
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:13,919
Speaker 3: not having a great time, but the goblins are all partying,

1304
01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:16,599
Speaker 3: and I guess this song is sort of about how

1305
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:18,240
Speaker 3: Toby's going to become one of them.

1306
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:22,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great sequence, a great song. Bowie

1307
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:24,840
Speaker 1: seems to be having a great time as Jareth here

1308
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:28,000
Speaker 1: with throwing the baby around and just so many Goblin

1309
01:11:28,040 --> 01:11:31,320
Speaker 1: shenanigans as well. This is a goblin packed musical number.

1310
01:11:31,640 --> 01:11:34,280
Speaker 3: You got a goblin doing the Barney Gumbel like laying

1311
01:11:34,320 --> 01:11:36,679
Speaker 3: down with his mouth under the tap of the beer keg.

1312
01:11:36,960 --> 01:11:39,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. When I was watching it here, I said to

1313
01:11:39,240 --> 01:11:40,600
Speaker 1: my son, he was watching with me. I was like,

1314
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:44,200
Speaker 1: why doesn't this goblin just get a cup? Like they're

1315
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:46,360
Speaker 1: not charging by the cup here, This is just this

1316
01:11:46,400 --> 01:11:48,680
Speaker 1: seems to be free for any goblins. But now he's like,

1317
01:11:48,800 --> 01:11:51,320
Speaker 1: it's just so much easier if I just lay down

1318
01:11:51,200 --> 01:11:54,840
Speaker 1: underneath it on the floor and just catch straight droplets

1319
01:11:54,880 --> 01:11:55,519
Speaker 1: of the stuff.

1320
01:11:55,720 --> 01:11:58,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, the cup requires too much arm exercise. It's difficult.

1321
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:03,280
Speaker 1: It's goblin, I guess. Yeah, so at any rate, Yeah,

1322
01:12:03,360 --> 01:12:04,960
Speaker 1: the fire Gang is something else.

1323
01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:08,880
Speaker 3: Yes, But Sarah does eventually escape the fire Gang with

1324
01:12:09,120 --> 01:12:11,679
Speaker 3: the help of Hoggle. I think Hoggle like throws down

1325
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:14,160
Speaker 3: a ladder to her from the top of a top

1326
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:16,599
Speaker 3: of a wall to help them get away, or maybe

1327
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:17,880
Speaker 3: a rope. Maybe that's it.

1328
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:20,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And so she's able to escape and doesn't

1329
01:12:20,840 --> 01:12:21,879
Speaker 1: get ripped to pieces.

1330
01:12:22,600 --> 01:12:26,320
Speaker 3: But Hoggle and Sarah end up in the Bog of

1331
01:12:26,600 --> 01:12:30,799
Speaker 3: Eternal Stench. This is a place Hoggle has been threatened

1332
01:12:30,800 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 3: with before. I think that, you know, it's like, if

1333
01:12:33,200 --> 01:12:36,000
Speaker 3: he doesn't do what Jarreed, the Goblin King says, he's

1334
01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:38,160
Speaker 3: going to be cast into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

1335
01:12:38,479 --> 01:12:41,559
Speaker 3: The premise is that the bog smells very bad, and

1336
01:12:41,840 --> 01:12:44,840
Speaker 3: if any part of your body touches the liquid in

1337
01:12:44,880 --> 01:12:46,599
Speaker 3: the bog, you will stink forever.

1338
01:12:47,479 --> 01:12:50,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the rest of your life. And I've long

1339
01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:53,200
Speaker 1: puzzled over that, like how did it works? How does

1340
01:12:53,240 --> 01:12:56,280
Speaker 1: it permanently taint you like that? Does it change your biology?

1341
01:12:56,760 --> 01:12:59,559
Speaker 1: What would it look like in like Dungeons and Dragons rules?

1342
01:12:59,680 --> 01:13:04,120
Speaker 1: Is it like a permanent like disadvantage to all charisma

1343
01:13:04,200 --> 01:13:05,479
Speaker 1: roles or something? I don't know.

1344
01:13:05,960 --> 01:13:08,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, now here in the Bog of Eternal Stench, they're

1345
01:13:08,600 --> 01:13:12,920
Speaker 3: trying to get get out without touching the cursed water,

1346
01:13:13,560 --> 01:13:15,759
Speaker 3: and at one point they need to cross a bridge,

1347
01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 3: but their path is blocked by a feisty little character

1348
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:21,719
Speaker 3: who will later become part of our group of friends.

1349
01:13:22,120 --> 01:13:25,360
Speaker 3: This is Surditymus, who I think is either supposed to

1350
01:13:25,400 --> 01:13:28,080
Speaker 3: be a fox or some type of dog, though it's

1351
01:13:28,120 --> 01:13:31,040
Speaker 3: sort of confusing because he's a muppet who is an

1352
01:13:31,040 --> 01:13:34,840
Speaker 3: anthropomorphic fox or dog, but he rides a dog. He's

1353
01:13:34,840 --> 01:13:36,880
Speaker 3: got a dog that is a dog and he rides

1354
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:37,360
Speaker 3: the dog.

1355
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of the Pluto Goofy paradox once more.

1356
01:13:41,640 --> 01:13:45,439
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, Sirditamus is kind of a reap, a cheap

1357
01:13:45,479 --> 01:13:49,200
Speaker 3: sort of character. He's like, he's very small, and feisty

1358
01:13:49,400 --> 01:13:53,479
Speaker 3: and thinks himself very chivalrous and he's always itching for

1359
01:13:53,520 --> 01:13:53,880
Speaker 3: a fight.

1360
01:13:54,200 --> 01:13:56,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a lot of fun. He's he's always down

1361
01:13:56,760 --> 01:14:00,519
Speaker 1: to joust, but his mount of course frequent as not,

1362
01:14:00,680 --> 01:14:01,360
Speaker 1: as we'll see.

1363
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:06,240
Speaker 3: So Sarah, Ludo, and Hoggle are trying to trying to

1364
01:14:06,240 --> 01:14:08,120
Speaker 3: get through this place, and I think they get blocked

1365
01:14:08,120 --> 01:14:10,559
Speaker 3: at a bridge by Sir Dinimus. But I think Sarah

1366
01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:14,040
Speaker 3: is the one who figures out that Sir Dinimus is saying,

1367
01:14:14,040 --> 01:14:16,639
Speaker 3: no one may pass this bridge without my permission, so

1368
01:14:16,720 --> 01:14:19,519
Speaker 3: she realizes she can just ask his permission. It seems

1369
01:14:19,560 --> 01:14:21,800
Speaker 3: this has never occurred to Sirditimus, that he can just

1370
01:14:21,840 --> 01:14:24,000
Speaker 3: grant permission and still keep his vow.

1371
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's like, oh yeah, sure granted. They're like

1372
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:28,280
Speaker 1: all right, good, let's go.

1373
01:14:29,320 --> 01:14:31,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so they're like leaving. Now. There is an

1374
01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:34,920
Speaker 3: interesting thing here where we discovered that Ludo is not

1375
01:14:35,040 --> 01:14:38,839
Speaker 3: only friend to Sarah, he is also friend to Rocks.

1376
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:41,680
Speaker 3: Because there's one point where Sarah is sort of like,

1377
01:14:41,880 --> 01:14:44,680
Speaker 3: I think a bridge collapses underneath her. She's dangling over

1378
01:14:44,720 --> 01:14:47,760
Speaker 3: the bog by hanging onto a tree branch, and she

1379
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:51,479
Speaker 3: is saved when Ludo summons his rock friends to emerge

1380
01:14:51,560 --> 01:14:53,200
Speaker 3: up out of the earth so that she can use

1381
01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:55,040
Speaker 3: them as stepstones to cross the water.

1382
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:57,400
Speaker 1: That's right, And of course this will come into play

1383
01:14:58,280 --> 01:15:00,800
Speaker 1: in one of the big climaxes picture.

1384
01:15:00,800 --> 01:15:03,640
Speaker 3: Now there is up here somewhere we get one of

1385
01:15:03,680 --> 01:15:08,559
Speaker 3: the Hoggle betrayals, because Hoggle gives Sarah a poisoned peach

1386
01:15:08,760 --> 01:15:12,799
Speaker 3: that the Goblin King gave to him, and this turns

1387
01:15:13,160 --> 01:15:15,760
Speaker 3: this sort of sends Sarah into a trance where she

1388
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:20,800
Speaker 3: experiences a magic masquerade ball where she is she is

1389
01:15:20,840 --> 01:15:23,960
Speaker 3: tempted to divert from her mission to save Toby and

1390
01:15:24,120 --> 01:15:26,680
Speaker 3: instead just sort of, I don't know, becomes some kind

1391
01:15:26,720 --> 01:15:27,920
Speaker 3: of evil queen of magic.

1392
01:15:28,760 --> 01:15:32,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like this is one of Jared's temptations

1393
01:15:32,280 --> 01:15:34,080
Speaker 1: to her, like this is what your life could be

1394
01:15:34,200 --> 01:15:36,880
Speaker 1: if you just loved me and stayed with me here

1395
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:40,320
Speaker 1: in this realm. And so it's this dreamy but also

1396
01:15:41,040 --> 01:15:45,880
Speaker 1: frightening sequence, you know, it is it feels like some

1397
01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:49,160
Speaker 1: sort of a weird trip, you know, it's it's a

1398
01:15:49,160 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 1: great sequence, but it's not like there are there are

1399
01:15:51,920 --> 01:15:54,320
Speaker 1: a lot of uncanny elements to it. They're creepy masks,

1400
01:15:55,200 --> 01:15:59,000
Speaker 1: you know, sort of typical I guess, you know, period

1401
01:15:59,520 --> 01:16:04,240
Speaker 1: mass that the other dancers are wearing. They're Also there's

1402
01:16:04,280 --> 01:16:09,360
Speaker 1: a feeling of actually being like drugged, of reality being

1403
01:16:09,400 --> 01:16:11,320
Speaker 1: slowed down because she is drugged. But we have to

1404
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:14,240
Speaker 1: remember if she ate a poisoned peach and that's how

1405
01:16:14,240 --> 01:16:17,719
Speaker 1: she's entered into this realm. And it's this feeling of like, Okay,

1406
01:16:17,760 --> 01:16:21,360
Speaker 1: now the hallucination is upon her, and can she recognize

1407
01:16:21,360 --> 01:16:24,200
Speaker 1: it for the hallucination it is and break free from it?

1408
01:16:24,560 --> 01:16:26,360
Speaker 1: And in the midst of this, of course, we have

1409
01:16:26,400 --> 01:16:29,559
Speaker 1: another musical number, we get as the World Falls Down,

1410
01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:33,200
Speaker 1: which I mean, no big surprise. I love all of

1411
01:16:33,200 --> 01:16:35,360
Speaker 1: these songs, so I will also say this one is

1412
01:16:35,360 --> 01:16:38,880
Speaker 1: a great one. But but yeah, it's It has a

1413
01:16:38,960 --> 01:16:41,559
Speaker 1: nice dreamy air to it, a nice dancing and slow

1414
01:16:41,600 --> 01:16:44,439
Speaker 1: motion within a silver prison kind of a song.

1415
01:16:52,560 --> 01:16:55,760
Speaker 3: Now, Sarah does not fully succumb to these temptations, and

1416
01:16:55,800 --> 01:16:58,960
Speaker 3: she does wake up in a different place. She she

1417
01:16:59,200 --> 01:17:02,120
Speaker 3: wakes up in a sort of a garbage world, a

1418
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:06,559
Speaker 3: giant junkyard that seems to lie outside of the Goblin City,

1419
01:17:07,200 --> 01:17:09,800
Speaker 3: and she meets a character who is like a junk

1420
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:14,160
Speaker 3: trader woman who I think is trying to like, Sarah's

1421
01:17:14,240 --> 01:17:18,160
Speaker 3: memory seems only partially intact at this point, and she's

1422
01:17:18,240 --> 01:17:20,960
Speaker 3: not fully aware of what she was supposed to be doing,

1423
01:17:21,560 --> 01:17:24,800
Speaker 3: and this junk trader woman is like offering her up

1424
01:17:24,880 --> 01:17:29,479
Speaker 3: little like trinkets and baubles and toys to I think

1425
01:17:29,520 --> 01:17:32,280
Speaker 3: this is part of a different type of temptation we

1426
01:17:32,280 --> 01:17:35,320
Speaker 3: were talking about earlier about her like multiple different desires

1427
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:37,240
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the movie, and this is the

1428
01:17:37,280 --> 01:17:40,240
Speaker 3: temptation to just sort of regress, to go back into

1429
01:17:40,439 --> 01:17:45,040
Speaker 3: childhood and just obsess over over little trinkets and selfish

1430
01:17:45,160 --> 01:17:49,920
Speaker 3: toys and collecting little magic, glittering things. And the lady

1431
01:17:49,960 --> 01:17:52,200
Speaker 3: of the junk world is trying to tempt her into

1432
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:52,840
Speaker 3: that fate.

1433
01:17:53,800 --> 01:17:56,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great sequence. It's also perhaps a little

1434
01:17:56,320 --> 01:17:59,000
Speaker 1: bit frightening because we you know, she goes into what

1435
01:17:59,040 --> 01:18:02,080
Speaker 1: seems to be her child room and it seems like

1436
01:18:02,120 --> 01:18:05,240
Speaker 1: maybe she's back, but then imburse the junk lady, and

1437
01:18:05,240 --> 01:18:08,640
Speaker 1: the junk Lady has this enormous backpack of stuff that

1438
01:18:08,720 --> 01:18:13,280
Speaker 1: has just seemed to like crush and wither her. And

1439
01:18:13,439 --> 01:18:16,400
Speaker 1: there is this scene where Sarah's seated in front of

1440
01:18:16,439 --> 01:18:18,719
Speaker 1: her mirror in her childhood room, but the junk Lady

1441
01:18:18,760 --> 01:18:21,639
Speaker 1: is bringing her all over things, and at least visibly

1442
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:25,080
Speaker 1: from an a visible sense, piling up like a pile

1443
01:18:25,120 --> 01:18:28,519
Speaker 1: of things behind Sarah's back, as if constructing her own

1444
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:32,640
Speaker 1: backpack that will eventually wither and crush her. You know, like,

1445
01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:35,760
Speaker 1: here are your earthly possessions. They are meaningful in and

1446
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:39,000
Speaker 1: of themselves, and this is what you should cling to.

1447
01:18:39,680 --> 01:18:42,919
Speaker 1: You know, forget what they might represent. That's not important.

1448
01:18:42,960 --> 01:18:45,320
Speaker 1: Here's your stuff. Just focus on your stuff.

1449
01:18:45,520 --> 01:18:49,000
Speaker 3: But fortunately, while being weighed down with these things that

1450
01:18:49,080 --> 01:18:51,280
Speaker 3: I think, in the view of the movie, don't really matter,

1451
01:18:51,360 --> 01:18:55,160
Speaker 3: all these trinkets and treasures, she is saved by the

1452
01:18:55,200 --> 01:18:58,400
Speaker 3: things that do matter, which are her friendships. She starts

1453
01:18:58,439 --> 01:19:01,000
Speaker 3: to kind of realize something is wrong. The place is

1454
01:19:01,000 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 3: sort of crumbling, and she's like climbing out of this

1455
01:19:03,560 --> 01:19:06,960
Speaker 3: false room prison, and she is. She meets up with

1456
01:19:07,080 --> 01:19:11,880
Speaker 3: and is rescued by her group of friends, including Hoggle, Anderditimus, and.

1457
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:14,640
Speaker 1: Ludo, and so from here, basically to get to the

1458
01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:17,360
Speaker 1: Castle of the Center of the Center of the Goblin City,

1459
01:19:17,680 --> 01:19:21,559
Speaker 1: they're like two more obstacles. First there's like the gate,

1460
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:24,240
Speaker 1: which has a big automaton in it, and then there

1461
01:19:24,320 --> 01:19:29,839
Speaker 1: is the Goblin City. The automaton battle is a sequence

1462
01:19:29,880 --> 01:19:32,320
Speaker 1: that I've always found to be very visually impressive. You know,

1463
01:19:32,360 --> 01:19:36,519
Speaker 1: I really like the creature design here, but it also

1464
01:19:36,640 --> 01:19:38,840
Speaker 1: has always felt like kind of a natural bathroom break.

1465
01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:42,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something about it that it shouldn't.

1466
01:19:42,880 --> 01:19:45,240
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's boring, but it is not as

1467
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:46,439
Speaker 1: exciting as it should be.

1468
01:19:46,640 --> 01:19:48,920
Speaker 3: Hoggle is actually this is one where we get to

1469
01:19:48,920 --> 01:19:51,479
Speaker 3: see Hoggles brave though he's the one who defeats the

1470
01:19:51,520 --> 01:19:52,280
Speaker 3: Goblin mech.

1471
01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:56,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually it's absolutely essential from that standpoint, But

1472
01:19:56,880 --> 01:19:59,120
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've always found something was lacking here.

1473
01:19:59,520 --> 01:20:02,559
Speaker 1: But anyway, we passed that test and now the party

1474
01:20:02,640 --> 01:20:05,680
Speaker 1: is united. Everyone's behind Sarah. But they have to move

1475
01:20:05,720 --> 01:20:08,280
Speaker 1: through the Goblin City, and that's where they are met

1476
01:20:08,360 --> 01:20:12,599
Speaker 1: with the Goblin army and we get this enormous battle.

1477
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:16,320
Speaker 1: It's a real blast, a mad cap, slapstick battle for

1478
01:20:16,360 --> 01:20:19,960
Speaker 1: the ages, featuring every goblin you've seen in the film

1479
01:20:20,000 --> 01:20:23,679
Speaker 1: thus far. Just hordes of goblins of varying types, all

1480
01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:29,879
Speaker 1: sorts of shenanigans, explosions, sword fights, ludo calls the rocks.

1481
01:20:30,840 --> 01:20:33,080
Speaker 1: I always enjoy watching this sequence.

1482
01:20:33,680 --> 01:20:36,280
Speaker 3: It's a great thing when he calls the rocks for help,

1483
01:20:36,280 --> 01:20:38,680
Speaker 3: and then we get to see boulders rolling uphill to

1484
01:20:38,720 --> 01:20:39,840
Speaker 3: attack the goblins.

1485
01:20:41,000 --> 01:20:43,479
Speaker 1: So they get through that, and then it's time for

1486
01:20:43,520 --> 01:20:48,400
Speaker 1: the final showdown with Jarreff in Jareth's stronghold, and we

1487
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:51,280
Speaker 1: get the scene where we see versions of this in

1488
01:20:51,320 --> 01:20:53,120
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures, right, and a lot of stories.

1489
01:20:53,400 --> 01:20:55,599
Speaker 1: Sarah has to go in alone. She has to confront

1490
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:59,280
Speaker 1: Jareth alone. Her friends can't help her in this part

1491
01:20:59,320 --> 01:21:01,240
Speaker 1: of the quest, and so they say goodbye to her

1492
01:21:01,520 --> 01:21:06,040
Speaker 1: and she ventures into this mc escher world of you know,

1493
01:21:06,320 --> 01:21:08,840
Speaker 1: mind bending paradoxical staircases.

1494
01:21:09,479 --> 01:21:11,799
Speaker 3: That's right, and it's not just a comparison. She basically

1495
01:21:12,000 --> 01:21:15,200
Speaker 3: literally is in the MCEs you're drawing with the staircases

1496
01:21:15,280 --> 01:21:17,120
Speaker 3: and the doorways going in every direction.

1497
01:21:17,439 --> 01:21:19,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was another I think there's a poster in

1498
01:21:19,200 --> 01:21:20,639
Speaker 1: her room to this effect as well.

1499
01:21:21,240 --> 01:21:23,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we get a song here, right.

1500
01:21:23,920 --> 01:21:27,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is within you. That is it's really great

1501
01:21:27,080 --> 01:21:29,760
Speaker 1: because it's threatening, it's very threatening in places, but it's

1502
01:21:29,800 --> 01:21:34,080
Speaker 1: also very vulnerable in places. And Bowie's vocal performance here

1503
01:21:34,120 --> 01:21:36,600
Speaker 1: is great too, because you have these parts of it

1504
01:21:36,640 --> 01:21:40,439
Speaker 1: where he's very firm and commanding, and then other bits

1505
01:21:40,479 --> 01:21:44,160
Speaker 1: where his voice is like trailing off and growing weak,

1506
01:21:44,720 --> 01:21:47,839
Speaker 1: like almost like he is dying while singing it. Because

1507
01:21:47,840 --> 01:21:50,639
Speaker 1: this is all, of course Jared's final appeal to Sarah,

1508
01:21:50,720 --> 01:21:55,000
Speaker 1: like please, you know, just fall in line, you know,

1509
01:21:55,120 --> 01:22:00,679
Speaker 1: be here with me, don't defy me. And no, Sarah

1510
01:22:00,720 --> 01:22:02,720
Speaker 1: is going to stick to her guns and she is

1511
01:22:02,760 --> 01:22:06,000
Speaker 1: going to do what it takes to defeat Jarreff. What

1512
01:22:06,160 --> 01:22:09,400
Speaker 1: exactly that is I still have questions about, but she doesn't.

1513
01:22:09,840 --> 01:22:12,800
Speaker 3: Well, I checked. So what she does to defeat him

1514
01:22:12,880 --> 01:22:17,400
Speaker 3: is she remembers the words, which is interesting because that's

1515
01:22:17,439 --> 01:22:20,160
Speaker 3: the same thing she did to get into this trouble

1516
01:22:20,160 --> 01:22:23,839
Speaker 3: in the first place. By remembering the words, the lines

1517
01:22:23,920 --> 01:22:26,919
Speaker 3: from the Goblin story. That's how she got Toby kidnapped

1518
01:22:26,920 --> 01:22:30,240
Speaker 3: by the goblins. Remembering the lines from the story is

1519
01:22:30,280 --> 01:22:33,840
Speaker 3: also how she defeats Jarref. She says she has the

1520
01:22:33,880 --> 01:22:36,000
Speaker 3: same lines she was reciting at the very beginning of

1521
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:39,879
Speaker 3: the story when she says, through dangers untold and hardship's unnumbered,

1522
01:22:39,920 --> 01:22:41,920
Speaker 3: I fought my way here to the castle beyond the

1523
01:22:41,920 --> 01:22:44,160
Speaker 3: Goblin City, and so on and so on. It goes

1524
01:22:44,200 --> 01:22:47,320
Speaker 3: on several more sentences, but it ends with her remembering

1525
01:22:47,360 --> 01:22:49,879
Speaker 3: the final line that she couldn't remember at the beginning.

1526
01:22:50,280 --> 01:22:53,200
Speaker 3: My kingdom is as great and you have no power

1527
01:22:53,320 --> 01:22:56,160
Speaker 3: over me. She repeats this, you have no power over me.

1528
01:22:56,760 --> 01:22:59,720
Speaker 3: And then I think the clock chimes midnight or one

1529
01:23:00,040 --> 01:23:02,000
Speaker 3: of it is that the time that she had to

1530
01:23:02,120 --> 01:23:06,160
Speaker 3: rescue Toby by and Jarreth is defeated, and so she

1531
01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:08,880
Speaker 3: gets to go back home with Toby.

1532
01:23:08,720 --> 01:23:10,800
Speaker 1: Thirteen o'clock, I believe, I think, I don't know if

1533
01:23:10,800 --> 01:23:12,000
Speaker 1: it's thirteen pm.

1534
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:15,960
Speaker 3: Or am, But I like how there's an ending where

1535
01:23:16,000 --> 01:23:20,200
Speaker 3: she sort of reconciles her earlier frustrations with Toby, Like

1536
01:23:20,240 --> 01:23:25,120
Speaker 3: she you know, repents of her earlier scapegoating of Toby

1537
01:23:25,200 --> 01:23:27,880
Speaker 3: because Toby wasn't really the problem, you know, she was, Like,

1538
01:23:28,520 --> 01:23:31,400
Speaker 3: she's just struggling with herself and her role in life

1539
01:23:31,400 --> 01:23:34,680
Speaker 3: at this point, and I think she has some perspective

1540
01:23:34,720 --> 01:23:37,160
Speaker 3: on that. But also I like how she ends up

1541
01:23:37,200 --> 01:23:43,000
Speaker 3: sort of reconciling her relationship with fantasy. She realizes she

1542
01:23:43,080 --> 01:23:45,760
Speaker 3: has to part ways with her magical friends, she has

1543
01:23:45,840 --> 01:23:47,920
Speaker 3: to live in this world, but she also needs to

1544
01:23:47,920 --> 01:23:49,280
Speaker 3: see them from time to time.

1545
01:23:49,920 --> 01:23:50,160
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1546
01:23:50,320 --> 01:23:54,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, So she defeats Jared again, I never doubt this

1547
01:23:54,560 --> 01:23:57,800
Speaker 1: on an emotional level, you know what's happening, Like she

1548
01:23:57,840 --> 01:24:00,559
Speaker 1: finds the strength to overcome him, and then she's back

1549
01:24:00,600 --> 01:24:03,519
Speaker 1: in her room. She sees like the reflection of her

1550
01:24:03,560 --> 01:24:06,599
Speaker 1: friends through the mirror, but realize that she can call

1551
01:24:06,600 --> 01:24:08,559
Speaker 1: on them when she needs them, and then she does

1552
01:24:08,920 --> 01:24:11,160
Speaker 1: and we get like a final big party sequence in

1553
01:24:11,160 --> 01:24:14,360
Speaker 1: her room, which is great. Though I've always been disturbed

1554
01:24:14,400 --> 01:24:18,680
Speaker 1: by the fact that the Fire Gang members are there, Yes, like,

1555
01:24:18,760 --> 01:24:20,640
Speaker 1: why did you invite them? Why did you could have

1556
01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:23,160
Speaker 1: maybe just let them go, Sarah, It's right, you don't

1557
01:24:23,160 --> 01:24:26,400
Speaker 1: have to keep all of these strange creatures. Maybe let

1558
01:24:26,479 --> 01:24:29,160
Speaker 1: the fire guys go off and live their own life

1559
01:24:29,160 --> 01:24:32,760
Speaker 1: and oblivion. But no, they're there as well, but they

1560
01:24:32,800 --> 01:24:34,439
Speaker 1: seem to be well behaved. They're not trying to pull

1561
01:24:34,479 --> 01:24:35,200
Speaker 1: anybody apart.

1562
01:24:35,640 --> 01:24:40,439
Speaker 3: I invited the bog of eternal stench here it's in

1563
01:24:40,520 --> 01:24:41,439
Speaker 3: my sink now.

1564
01:24:41,760 --> 01:24:45,559
Speaker 1: And we once more get the theme song underground and

1565
01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:49,120
Speaker 1: we roll back. We see that the owl, the animal

1566
01:24:49,200 --> 01:24:51,719
Speaker 1: form of Jarreff, has like been watching through the window

1567
01:24:52,040 --> 01:24:54,160
Speaker 1: and then takes off and flies away into the night.

1568
01:24:54,880 --> 01:24:57,559
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, it is. It's like I say, very like

1569
01:24:57,640 --> 01:25:01,719
Speaker 1: emotionally and visually beautiful, satisfying conclusion to the picture.

1570
01:25:02,040 --> 01:25:04,559
Speaker 3: So in the end, you agree with Ciskel that it's awful,

1571
01:25:04,720 --> 01:25:05,719
Speaker 3: ugly and terrible.

1572
01:25:06,520 --> 01:25:11,400
Speaker 1: I could not disagree with Ciskel more on Labyrinth. I

1573
01:25:11,439 --> 01:25:14,120
Speaker 1: mean the thing. It really was challenging to talk about

1574
01:25:14,160 --> 01:25:16,880
Speaker 1: Labyrinth here in some respects because you could go on

1575
01:25:16,960 --> 01:25:18,599
Speaker 1: and on, or I could go on and on about

1576
01:25:18,640 --> 01:25:22,320
Speaker 1: just about any moment in the picture. There's always something

1577
01:25:22,360 --> 01:25:25,640
Speaker 1: interesting going on in the set design or in the costuming,

1578
01:25:26,120 --> 01:25:29,839
Speaker 1: in the particular dialogue choices that are in play lyrics

1579
01:25:29,840 --> 01:25:32,320
Speaker 1: to the songs. There are some weird lyrics to these

1580
01:25:32,320 --> 01:25:35,080
Speaker 1: songs we didn't even get into. There are also lines

1581
01:25:35,120 --> 01:25:38,360
Speaker 1: of dialogue, particularly from David Bowie. Some of them I

1582
01:25:38,479 --> 01:25:41,400
Speaker 1: never fully understood, Like I couldn't really understand what he's

1583
01:25:41,400 --> 01:25:44,040
Speaker 1: saying until like this viewing of the picture where I

1584
01:25:44,080 --> 01:25:45,600
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I'm going to turn on the

1585
01:25:46,280 --> 01:25:48,360
Speaker 1: captions for a minute, and it's like, oh, he's saying,

1586
01:25:48,560 --> 01:25:50,599
Speaker 1: well laugh, And I always thought he said well love.

1587
01:25:51,040 --> 01:25:52,719
Speaker 1: I don't know why I thought that was the line,

1588
01:25:52,760 --> 01:25:55,799
Speaker 1: but that's what I've been hearing for decades. Huh.

1589
01:25:55,880 --> 01:25:58,599
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the kind of movie where I feel

1590
01:25:58,600 --> 01:26:00,640
Speaker 3: like a lot of things, especially and you're watching as

1591
01:26:00,640 --> 01:26:02,479
Speaker 3: a kid, can just go right over your head.

1592
01:26:03,720 --> 01:26:05,640
Speaker 1: But you know, there are lots of confusing things in

1593
01:26:05,680 --> 01:26:08,200
Speaker 1: the world of the Labyrinth. Yeah, you know, it's a

1594
01:26:08,240 --> 01:26:12,160
Speaker 1: film in a world full of paradoxes and illusions, and

1595
01:26:12,200 --> 01:26:16,680
Speaker 1: it's part of its texture. There was some essay I

1596
01:26:16,680 --> 01:26:18,599
Speaker 1: was looking at. Maybe it's the one I sided earlier

1597
01:26:18,600 --> 01:26:20,760
Speaker 1: talking about well, some people were confused when they saw

1598
01:26:20,840 --> 01:26:23,479
Speaker 1: Jarref when they saw David Bowie's Chariot, and it's like, well, yeah,

1599
01:26:23,720 --> 01:26:26,880
Speaker 1: you should be confused when you behold Jared. He is

1600
01:26:27,120 --> 01:26:30,280
Speaker 1: supposed to be this alluring and kind of confusing character,

1601
01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:32,120
Speaker 1: Like that's that's intentional.

1602
01:26:32,800 --> 01:26:35,679
Speaker 3: It was the confusion like why isn't he a goblin

1603
01:26:35,840 --> 01:26:38,439
Speaker 3: like the others? Like why are the goblins ruled over

1604
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:40,679
Speaker 3: by a rock star who with a human form?

1605
01:26:41,080 --> 01:26:44,200
Speaker 1: Right? That? And then also some of the aspects of

1606
01:26:45,240 --> 01:26:49,600
Speaker 1: Jariff being a like a sexually alluring character, but in

1607
01:26:49,640 --> 01:26:52,400
Speaker 1: a way that makes sense, like he is he is

1608
01:26:52,760 --> 01:26:56,479
Speaker 1: like his role is in relationship to Sarah, a young woman,

1609
01:26:56,880 --> 01:26:59,519
Speaker 1: and therefore he has these kind of like pop star

1610
01:26:59,840 --> 01:27:02,840
Speaker 1: las to him, you know. Yeah, And so there are

1611
01:27:02,840 --> 01:27:05,400
Speaker 1: a lot of deliberate choices with the way that he

1612
01:27:05,439 --> 01:27:09,240
Speaker 1: has presented as an object of obsession and desire.

1613
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:11,479
Speaker 3: Like would be on a poster on a bedroom wall.

1614
01:27:11,720 --> 01:27:13,880
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but a bedroom but a poster on the

1615
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:18,280
Speaker 1: bedroom wall that also is directly bordering of the fay

1616
01:27:18,400 --> 01:27:21,760
Speaker 1: world and is influenced by the strange energies of the

1617
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:22,400
Speaker 1: fairy folk.

1618
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:25,519
Speaker 3: Yes, why do you think jareded is an owl?

1619
01:27:26,280 --> 01:27:28,719
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the owl ism is a magical bird

1620
01:27:28,760 --> 01:27:31,280
Speaker 1: of the night, so I guess it is a fitting

1621
01:27:31,960 --> 01:27:33,040
Speaker 1: animal form.

1622
01:27:33,439 --> 01:27:37,719
Speaker 3: The owl is dangerous, the owl is inscrutable, the owl

1623
01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:41,320
Speaker 3: is yeah, yeah, it seems like it's got secrets.

1624
01:27:41,680 --> 01:27:44,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, we're gonna gohead and close this

1625
01:27:44,200 --> 01:27:45,759
Speaker 1: one out, but we would love to hear from everyone

1626
01:27:45,760 --> 01:27:48,080
Speaker 1: about Labyrinth. I'm sure a lot of you have thoughts,

1627
01:27:48,520 --> 01:27:51,240
Speaker 1: thoughts about things that we discussed in this episode, but

1628
01:27:51,320 --> 01:27:54,120
Speaker 1: also again many of the details in the picture that

1629
01:27:54,160 --> 01:27:57,080
Speaker 1: we didn't have time to get into, so right in,

1630
01:27:57,200 --> 01:27:59,559
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you or reminded of stuff.

1631
01:27:59,560 --> 01:28:01,439
Speaker 1: To Blow your Mind is primarily a science and culture

1632
01:28:01,439 --> 01:28:03,760
Speaker 1: podcasts with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on

1633
01:28:03,760 --> 01:28:06,280
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to talk about

1634
01:28:06,320 --> 01:28:08,599
Speaker 1: a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. And if

1635
01:28:08,640 --> 01:28:10,160
Speaker 1: you want to see a full list of the movies

1636
01:28:10,200 --> 01:28:12,360
Speaker 1: we've done over the years on Weird House Cinema, go

1637
01:28:12,439 --> 01:28:14,559
Speaker 1: to letterbox dot com. That's L E T T E

1638
01:28:14,680 --> 01:28:17,160
Speaker 1: R B O x D dot com. Our user name

1639
01:28:17,200 --> 01:28:19,320
Speaker 1: there is weird House and you'll find a nice list.

1640
01:28:19,720 --> 01:28:23,240
Speaker 1: And if you're on Instagram, follow us at STBYM podcast.

1641
01:28:23,640 --> 01:28:27,280
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

1642
01:28:27,400 --> 01:28:29,040
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1643
01:28:29,080 --> 01:28:31,559
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1644
01:28:31,560 --> 01:28:33,559
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1645
01:28:33,640 --> 01:28:36,360
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your

1646
01:28:36,360 --> 01:28:43,840
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

1647
01:28:43,960 --> 01:28:46,920
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1648
01:28:47,000 --> 01:28:49,800
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1649
01:28:49,960 --> 01:28:53,200
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.