The Labyrinth

So sitting here munching my apple and staring the pile of dvds on the arm of my chair (500 Days of Summer, Gladiator, Accepted, Labyrinth, and Leverage) I've decided to write about Labyrinth while I wait for my hair to be dry enough to strighten. I've just cut more bangs, and I can't just let them go wild. That would be absurd.

It is, for obvious reasons (and by "obvious," I mostly mean David Bowie), one of my favorite movies.

My copy actually has Jareth contact juggling scenes from the movie in 

his pretty glass spheres on the cover, but this works too.

And look! Pictures to make the sidebar more terrifying, but the text friendlier. Aren't I nice?

 The answer there is always no.

As all of you with childhoods know, this film is about Sarah (as played atrociously by the eventually lovely Jennifer Connely. I loved her in A Beautiful Mind, which revolves around Russel Crowe, so yay) becoming less of a horrifying brat by fetching her baby brother from the embodiment of awesome, the Goblin King.

First thing: Did you see on the cover? It says "Where everything seems possible and nothing is what it seems." I'm incredibly annoyed by the extraneous capital letters in there, as yet another irrelevant side note. Think about that one for a second...All I keep getting out of that is that nothing is possible in The Labyrinth.

Also, is that word hard for everyone? I always want to add an unnecessary E at the end. Labyrinthe. Which isn't at all correct.

Now on to Sarah's flaws!

Aside from her terrifying, caterpillar-esque eyebrows, there's so many things to rant about with her.

When Taryn and I watched this on tuesday, we had to laugh at the opening of the film. Partly for the bad CG--cutting edge technology in 1986--but mostly because watching Sarah is just entertaining. I love that first dialogue with her evil stepmother. She never raises her voice or says anything horrible, and Sarah is so angsty; Taryn suggested that we do a parody with the stepmother getting increasingly nice.

"Sarah, I made some chocolate-chip cookies for you. They're in the kitchen. We'll be back around midnight, and we already put the baby to bed, so you don't actually have to do anything unless he wakes up."

"Chocolate-chip isn't even my favorite! Not that you'd know. You never ask me what I like! And I hate having the house to myself on a saturday night!" *Stomps up the stairs*

Dude, if I was an hour late to babysit on a night my parents were going out, I wouldn't just get lightly chastised. I would be lucky to get away with a stern lecture, depending on how rushed they were.

That's kind of how she is the entire movie, though. Sarah is the victim, and it's everyone else's fault that she's whiny. Isn't part of the drinking game to take a shot every time she complains? Even without David Bowie's crotch, you'd be sloshed about fifteen minutes in.

Our conclusion was that she must have originally been written for a younger character, because her behavior is much more typical and forgivable in character like ten or twelve years old, and she's supposed to be fifteen.

I shall do some quick googling to see if it was once a book.

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_(film)), it was an original concept by Jim Henson and Brian Froud after they finished Dark Crystal (another of my favorites), but they found a lot of inspiration in various other works. So no book, and therefore no excuse for her character.

And, holy crap! Helena Bonham Carter auditioned to play Sarah. That would've been an entirely different movie, and I don't doubt it would've been awesome.

Anyways. That was interesting. You should really read that.

I've thoroughly derailed myself now, though. This is why one traditionally does research before writing. Then things can coalesce and become a cohesive stream of thought after your brain sifts and categorizes the information. Yay brains! I may need to blog about that one of these days. Because all that squishy crap in your head is a freaking miracle, guys. You should totally research that a bit.

And while wandering around the interwebs looking for adequate pictures, I stumbled on this blog about Labyrinth, and I ended up reading through it. So if you happen to be interested or need to kill some time.
http://fluffrick.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/bonfire-of-the-nerderies-labyrinth/
This one too.
http://www.acidemic.com/id29.html
Don't do any comparing, though. This is an actual evaluation of a film from adult eyes, not my silly rambling that sounds kind of like a combination of brain vomit and a sugar high.

And now I've kind of lost steam. So I'm just going to stop there and spare you my talk of Jareth. Because he's the best part of that movie. Dodged that bullet. I'll simply put these in here and assume you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvyNOg4jSRg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nBjvElCzAw

Because, yeah.

Also, I love the goblins. They're totally ridiculous. I was never a huge Muppets kid, but I liked them well enough, but I grew up absolutely loving The Dark Crystal and such. I have a particular affection for the craptacular special effects of the past, particularly the eighties and nineties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0K5T0AqVlY&feature=relmfu

And with that, I shall go. No brilliant analysis or anything, just me rambling about a movie and stuff.