I love this movie so much. I've been watching it since before I can remember and I have my big sister to thank for that. After twenty-three years of having this movie played regularly in my life, I know the entire script by heart, all the songs, and it was my first comfort movie, the one that puts me to sleep when I am sick every time. Even when not attempting to pass out, when I put this movie in, I just can't help but be happy. Its like seeing my old friends all over again. Fills me with warm fuzzies every time, and I want to share it with you all!
Many people have heard of or seen it, but many more don't. I find as I grow older, the number of people I meet who know anything of Labyrinth (or even The Dark Crystal) increase, but still remain the minority. In this post I am going to acquaint you with a cover of the story, and some details about just a few of the really great, really fun characters. All filled in with some of my own thoughts and feelings on various points. So lets get started!
Warning!: There may be some spoilers here, for those who haven't see it. Also this is a nice LONG blog, but there are some YouTube clips about half way through, and a link to a site where you can watch the movie safely and for free online at the end of the blog....
Labyrinth is the story of Sarah, a young girl with her head lost in the clouds and acting. It starts off with her dressed in costume, in a park reciting lines from a small leather bound play book titled "The Labyrinth" as her dog, the English sheep dog Merlin sits on a bench as her audience. She returns home an hour late one evening to the anger of her step mother who asked her to be home by six so she could watch her baby brother while her parents get out. There is a small argument, where Sarah acts like a spoiled teenager. The scene ends with her father entering the room with the baby and seeing that she is home, warmly says, "Oh Sarah, we were worried about you." His daughter runs half way up the stairs and shouts "I can't do anything right, can I?!"
Eventually the parents leave and Sarah is along with little Toby. She tells a crying Toby a story about a goblin king falling in love with a young girl (who's life is similar yet far more over dramatized than her own) and all she need do is say the word and he'll take the baby away. At the end of the story, she turns the light off and says "I wish the goblins really would come and take you away, right now." As she moves back across the hall the crying form the child stops suddenly. She returns to the bedroom to find the child missing, the room filled with sneaking goblins running in the darkness scaring her, and finally her fist confrontation with Jareth, the Goblin King.
After refusing several times to please bring her brother back, Jareth tells her that if she can make it to his castle, at the center of his labyrinth, where her brother is located, he will return the child. At this point his magic has taken them from the bedroom to a hill outside the Labyrinth, overlooking it. A clock then appears numbered 1-13 where he tells her "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth before your bay brother becomes one of us forever." Then he fades away, his laughter hanging in the air only a moment longer than him.
Determined Sarah starts her journey through the labyrinth, She meets several friends, and makes a few enemies along the way, all the while having Jareth watch her from his crystal ball, and working against her, to slow her down, or stop her altogether. Eventually she reaches the Goblin city (which surrounds the castle) with her small group of all the usual motley crew characters. They enter the city where Jareth has ordered them stopped. After a battle where the Goblins are laid to waste by a most unlikely ally, they reach the castle. Sarah moves in for the final confrontation alone, telling her friends she will call for help should she need it.
Enter the infamous stair room. Sarah races up the steps that lead out of Jareth's throne room into a massive chamber that can only have been inspired by M.C. Escher.
M.C. Escher
Labyrinth
You can see what I mean :)
Sarah must try to get Toby, as he crawls and walks his way around the room, unaware of gravity, the child is able to crawl upside down, just as jareth walks on the underside of the stairs and platforms. This is an advantage over Sarah who cannot move past basic logic and is forced to utilize only the top side of everything, eventually leading to the final confrontation between Sarah and Jareth, where the best scene of the movie take place.
Jareth proceeds to try and talk Sarah into staying with him, and loving him. he tells her he has been generous up until now, but that he can be cruel. She is astonished at this and asks him what he's done that's so generous. He replies, "Everything! Everything that you wanted I have done! You asked that the child be taken, I took him. You coward before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time! I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you! I am exhausted of living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous?"
With no hesitation, Sarah begins to recite the lines we heard her speak in the opening scene, "Through dangers untold, and hard ships unnumbered. I have fought my way here to the castle, beyond the Goblin city. For my will is as strong as your's, and my.."
Jareth stops her here, asking she wait and shows her one of his crystal balls, telling her to look at it, at what he's is offering her, her dreams. Unmoved Sarah continues.
"And my kingdom as great" She pauses, once more she cannot remember the final line. jareth uses this time to his advantage as he appears to be in a bit of a panic. He says, "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave!" (This sounds like an equal partnership to me..just on..unorthodox terms lol.) it's pretty obvious that Sarah hasn't heard a word he's said as she's so focused on remember her next line. Then it comes to her, she looks up at him, her confidence growing as she comes to a simple realization...
"You have no power over me."
This ends it, Jareth is defeated as his hold on Sarah was based on her allowing all he's done so far. He transforms into the form of a white barn owl, and Sarah finds herself in the front entrance of her home. She races upstairs to find Toby tucked away in bed, and she return to her own room as we think it has all been her play acting with imagined characters. Even when her friends appear in the mirror of her room and speak to her, and even when it turns out they really are behind her, we think it is still her imagination, as even the bad guys from the movie are there to party with her. Then we see an own take flight from the tree outside and we're left to second guess out theories.
Thus ends my rundown of the story. The movie is filled with a wonderful score of music which I will not touch on too much, other than to say that David Bowie (Jareth) sings several of the songs, including the ever amazing "Dance Magic, Dance." Tied with this, the Firey song is my favorite, though I love all the music. You can see both songs in the following videos.
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Alright, I want to share a little bit about all of the great characters in the movie..
Jareth is the Goblin King (Played by David Bowie) Pretty much nothing is known about him, or the extent to which his power may go. What we do know is that he, for whatever reason, loves Sarah and wants her for his own. The fact that he can reorder time, and much else besides, leads me to think that if he REALLY wanted to stop Sarah, he could have done it without employing all the tricks he uses in the movie. he wanted her to reach the castle, I'm pretty sure.
Sarah, the main character is the shining example of the typical drama queen teen girl. Fighting with her step-mother (who really doesn't seem so bad to me) about stupid things, and then taking that anger out on her father and brother (who have done nothing wrong) makes her the poster child for "Stereotypical Teen Girls". Sara is very young at heart yet, obviously not having grown up, as her room is filled with stuffed animals and books (many of which become characters later in the movie). At the end of the movie there is little to tell us if she has learned any sort of lesson. We see her starting to put away a few things, but no real proof of any significant change in her.
Hoggle is a dwarf who works for Jareth. He is first seen hitting fairies with bug spray outside the entrance to the labyrinth, and starts off working as an obstacle to Sarah, first giving her a run around on where the door is, and then confusing her further more, once she's inside by asking if she will go left or right, and then when Sarah says she doesn't know and asks him he simple replies "I wouldn't go either way." We find out a few minuets later what he means by this. As the story progresses, Sarah gets to know Hoggle better and they become freinds We also learn that nobody can ever get this poor guy's name right, one gag that takes place is Jareth, surprising Hoggle and Sarah and after a few words Jareth calls him Hedgewart, Sarah corrects him, calling him, Hogwart, and a frustrated Hoggle grumbles his name for them both. This gag continues throughout the movie, mostly with Jareth, but Sarah does it a few times as well.
The Worm, is a cute little blue guy that we only meet for a few minuets before fading off into obscurity for the rest of the movie. He's one of the more notable characters though, as everyone remembers him. His first two lines consist of him being silly by first saying " 'Ello." to Sarah, and then when she asks if he just said hello he replies with "No, I said 'ello' but that's close enough." Worm tries to tell a frustrated Sarah that there are lots of turns and corners but she hasn't seen them. He teaches her to find the hidden entrances/gaps in the walls, which is was Hoggle was talking about previously. Before he teaches her this he continues to invite Sarah to come into his home (the entrance being a small hole between some bricks) and meet his wife and have a cup of tea. It's a silly thing and you wanna think he's a nut job until you learn about the wall trick, and realize he means for Sarah to get into his home the same way.
Next Sarah meets the Door Guards, also known as Ralph, Alph, Jim, and Time. These boys guard two doors, which are the only way out of a dead end Sarah is trapped in. One door leads to the castle, the other to "certian death BuBuBuBUUUM! OOohhhhhHHhh." There are rules to their guard duty as well.Only the two on the top knows which, and also "You can't as US, you can only ask one of us!" "Its in the rules" "And I should warn you, one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies." "That's a rule too! HE always lies." The two bicker on who is the liar and who isn't, and they make it clear they don't really understand much of it either way. They're nice enough, and great comedic relief. Sarah's logic in questioning the one, to discover the liar and the door she needs, is perfect sound but her over confidence gets her into trouble once more in the end of the scene.
Sarah next meets Ludo. A loveable giant who is caught up in a rope and being tortured by goblins guards. She saves him, and frees him from the rope only to have him try to hug her all the while crying out, "SARAH FRIEND!" After they introduce themselves. Ludo plays a pivital role in being the muscle in Sarah's little group. He finghts Sir Didymus before he joins their cause, and his sheer size really intimidates the goblins that attack in the city battle. He also open the large heavy doors in the city and castle that none of them could open without him. His attachment to Sarah is strong and steadfast from the start and we learn that he has no friends other than the rocks and herself. He can call on the rocks whenever need be, by howling (we figure out that how Sarah got the rocks to save him in the first place) and he uses this call several times throughout the movie. 
The Fireys are a group of bird like humanoids that can dismember and reattach any part of themselves at will, And they do it for fun. Their song is one of the best and most fun of the movie, and they're really just a blast to watch. I would LOVE to hang with these guys, to be honest! They take it a little far when they try to remove Sarah's head like they do their own, but I also think that Sarah could have reacted better to these boys. She takes their heads off one by one and throws them so she can get away. They proceed to get their heads back and chase her through the forest calling out various sports fouls on her and saying, "It's against the rules to throw other people's heads!" Followed by another one shouting that you're only allowed to throw your own head. One of the funniest lines, in my opinion, takes place at the end of a scene where Hoggle rescues her with a rope and she's climbing up a wall. As she climbs the Fireys are using their ears as wings to make their heads fly up, tyring to get her to play some more with them, telling her to take off smaller body parts instead of her head, and one of them says, "Your ear! Take off your ear!" followed by the line from another "You don't need TWO ears!" I crack up every time I hear that line. Mostly because of the delivery of it, but the whole thing, in general, is hilarious.
Sir Didymus is a fox, a knight, and a gentlemen, though not in that order. He is the guardian to a bridge that crosses over the Bog of Eternal Stench. Non may pass without his permission. He puts a stop to the progress of Sarah, Ludo and Hoggle, and there is a small fight scene between him and Ludo, where Hoggle takes the advantage of shoving his way across the bridge. Didymus ends the fight by telling Ludo he is gallant and wants to call a tie, and hence forth "we shall be brothers, and fight for the right as one!" He call Sarah My Lady, and is stumped when Sarah actually asks for his permission to cross the bridge, which clearly no one has ever actually done. He permits it, and she begins to cross leading to more mishaps. He ends up joining her little group, and he rides upon an English sheep dog named Ambrosious This is "supposed" to be the very same dog that belongs to Sarah named Merlin. Note: For those who don't know, in the stories of King Arthur, Merlin was known as Merlin Ambrosious. His "noble steed" wears a small saddle, and is clearly a coward as we see at various times in the movie. Sir Didymus, however is completely loyal to those on the side if right and himself is no coward, stating he will fight "Anyone! Anywhere! Anyplace! Anytime!"
This brings an end to the characters I felt worthy of mentioning here. I can name several more I actually cut from this list as the blog is long enough already! I wish I could add them all lol
As it is, this is a movie I really love, and I just really wanted to share it with you all. If you would like to see it yourself..be it because you have never seen it, or because you just feel like watching it again, you can find it here...
Just click one of the two links with the movie title in blue, and on the video page click "close ad and watch as free viewer." This is a trustworthy site I use it all the time myself. I hope you enjoyed the blog and i hope you enjoy the movie! If you've never seen it before and watch it, let me know what you think of it. If you are familiar with it, lets have a discussion about it!
Thank you all for reading this one, Love you all!
~Alex~
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