My Lion King Forum

Any Labyrinth fans here on MLK?

This 1986 fantasy film starring David Bowie and a young Jennifer Connelly still has a strong following today. This is a classic fantasy film from Jim Henson, in collaboration with George Lucas.
I was in my mid/late teens when I watched it for the first time, and it was instantly a favourite.

Plot summary:

Young Sarah is left home alone by her parents and she has to babysit her little half brother Toby. But the baby keeps crying and Sarah, while telling him a story to make him sleep, inadvertently conjures from a fantasy world the Goblin King who steals the child and brings him to his castle in the middle of a labyrinth. There is only one hope: Sarah has to find the way to Jareth's castle - through the dangerous labyrinth - where she will find strange creatures. She has 13 hours in which to solve the labyrinth or her half brother becomes a goblin!

If you`re a fan of fantasy films such as Narnia and Stardust I highly recommend this!

I'm a huge fan of Jim Henson and the Muppets, and I enjoyed watching Labyrinth; I may give the movie another watch sometime soon. The story is similar in ways to The Wizard of Oz in which a female teenaged protagonist enters a fantasy world pursuing a MacGuffin (for Dorothy, it's the ticket to go home; for Sarah, to rescue her brother, encounters roadblocks along the way, and is accompanied by friends along the way. It occurred to me now it is similar to the story of The Snow Queen where a young girl goes on a journey to rescue her kidnapped male companion from an enchanted ruler. The first half started great, but the second half stumbled for some reasons I can't remember.

On the other hand, the puppetry, the backgrounds, and the visual effects is technically impressive. David Bowie's music dates the film a bit, but no harm is done. Jennifer Connelly looked great, and I appreciated the character arc written for her. The supporting characters were fun with Hoggle being my favorite of the bunch. Other than that, it's a cult classic that I recommend users here, and would very much appreciate a sequel, but it's not in development as confirmed as of late.

Honestly I watched this movie all the time back in the day. And the reason I haven't watched it in ages is because the VHS is either lost, or somewhere in our massive collection; but either way, irrelevant. We don't have a trustworthy VCR to play it in. I'll have to track down a DVD or perhaps Blu-Ray copy some day.