why did anyone let their kids watch Labyrinth??

the 16 year old kid getting irrationally angry at her parents over nothing is probably the most realistic part of this movie

Fun fact about the baby, he was actually the child one of the puppeteers (her husband was the lead stoty board artist), so he had been around the puppets his whole life and wasn't scared of them (he parents also met while they both were working on The Dark Crystal)

As a child, I never once noticed Bowie’s pants. I feel like that’s something you only notice once you’re an adult.

So as an adult, the beginning seems really silly, but as a teenage girl.....that is pretty much the exact amount of drama that situation could cause

So the Labyrinth is about when you're at the weird age of not quite a kid and not quite an adult. Where you want to play with toys and play pretend but also you have romantic adult feelings. It's Sara's journey to maturity.

I think the idea with Jareth is that he's playing a role, and he's stuck in it. It's never really stated whether the Labyrinth is one of those 'different for everyone who goes through it' sort of things or not, but clearly Jareth, at least, is playing out the role she placed him in at the beginning. She made up a petulant fantasy about someone who'd take away her brother because of his love for her, and that is what he did. She doesn't love HIM - that was all just part of the fantasy - but he loves her, because that's what she wanted. What makes their subsequent relationship interesting is that he IS stuck in this role, and she's not. She doesn't stay in 'whiny brat' mode after he appears, because there's more to her than that - but there isn't to him, which is why he keeps getting frustrated at her. 'I'm doing exactly what you wanted! I took the baby when you told me to take the baby! You wanted someone to love you; well, I love you - which is why I'm keeping the damn baby! You turned me into a villain; fine, I'll be REAL villainous - thereby giving you exactly what you wanted, like I've done from the beginning! A SIMPLE THANK YOU WOULD BE NICE!'

So about Bowie's character Jerith. If real, he did literally do everything for Sarah. He took the kid, made her fantasy world a reality and allowed her to play out all the things she wanted. His evil is more the type that gives what is wanted instead of what is needed. But she figures it out and takes what she needs (which also may have been him setting her up to grow as a person). Overall though I think the movie is all about Sarah learning to play with her little brother to make the chore of watching him not so bad. She is playing out her story and fantasy with her toys and just made her little brother the main objective. She was likely in reality holding her brother and dancing around with him singing "dance magic dance".

I love the ending to this movie, and the message that we cannot stay kids forever, but that doesn't mean that we can't hold on to our sense of wonder.

I think the reason the Goblin King is so interested in Sarah is because the entire movie is her fantasy. Its more or less a dream, a figment of imagination. And as her fantasy he is enraptured by her.

I've always found it fascinating that the creatures Sarah meets in the Labyrinth are actually toys she has in her room, the song & the dress she wears in the ballroom scene is the same as her music box, and that Jareth closely resembles Jeremy, her mother's co-star & alleged lover

"Majic Dance" without the background music is so cursed lmao

I always loved the message of this film (as well as just loving it for the effect and music). Sarah is growing up, but still clings to her childhood fantasies. Her parents want her to take responsibility and "grow up". At the beginning of the film, you see that the characters of the Labyrinth are toys in her bedroom. She is taken on this hero's journey to save her baby brother (responsibility) but her childhood fantasy figure, the Goblin King, keeps trying to pull her back into her fantasy world - to totally dominate and control her. By the end she realises her childhood fantasies have no power over her, and she can be her own independent person, BUT "every now and then in my life, I need you". She isn't willing to completely let go of the magic and imagination of her youth. And neither should we. :)

Also, I love how Jareth is the villain but is the likable one who put Sarah in her place. She was purposefully insufferable as a teenaged drama queen, and a fully unlikable protagonist. My favorite line is in the tunnels and after she tells Jareth “It’s not fair!”, he goes, “You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is.” And just continues about his business. 😂

In case noone else mentioned it already. The reason the baby playing Toby was so awesome around the goblin puppets was because his mom was one of the puppet makers.

A movie that could only come out in the glorious 80s. RIP Jim Henson & David Bowie😔🙏

You missed that part where like she is sent home and everything falls apart with old women collecting her belongings and tries turning the girl into a hoarder

Re: Sara's self-confidence. She was a teenager in the 80s. That means she's a GenXer. We were the feral generation, the latchkey kids. We had confidence that we knew how to survive because we'd been going home from school to an empty house for 6-7 years by our sixteenth birthdays, making our own dinner, and waiting for our divorced moms to get home from the second job they took to keep a roof over our heads. Oh, and more than one reviewer has suggested that Labyrinth as a whole is basically a metaphor for teenage female puberty, adolescence and burgeoning sexuality. In that light, well, she could do a lot worse than fantasizing about David Bowie playing with his crystal balls.

Watching the movie as an adult, the plot is admittedly pretty basic and Jennifer Connelly still has a long way to go before she would be delivering Oscar worthy performances, but Jim Henson's creature work is incredible (some iffy green screen aside), David Bowie is clearly having a blast, Dance Magic Dance is a bop and the blend of dark but whimsical fantasy truly makes it unique. Alex is right, you really don't see these kinds of films anymore.

I always thought the stepmom gave the teddy bear Lancelot to Toby the baby, who dropped it and cried as a result.

David Bowie in that outfit is what made both me and my mum realise that we liked men 😭😭