Labyrinth - S10 E81 - Shoot The Hostage

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Shoot a Hostage with me, Dan, and my partner, Sarah. We're a movie podcast who talks about a different film each week based on a theme. We do swear and we do spoil the featured movie. So, only ever listen if you've seen the film or you don't care too much about spoilers. If you're a regular listener, you can just skip forward until you hear the intro music cuz you've heard all of this before. But if you are new to the show and you do enjoy what you hear, there are a couple of things you can do to help support the show. Firstly, make sure that you're subscribed on your podcast. player so you get notified when new shows drop on Mondays. Uh you could rate us five stars on Spotify, which couldn't be easier. You just hit the star icon below the show's artwork. Or if you have a spare few minutes, we'd love it if you could submit a review wherever you listen. Uh make sure you come follow us at swth_pod on social media. We are active on Instagram, threads, and Tik Tok. And lastly, the biggest thing you can do to help is tell a friend about the show. So that's about it. That's enough preamble from me. Uh Over to me and Sarah for this week's episode.

(00:01):
I wasn't very sure how to start this episode.
I had a few options in my head. I was thinking,
could we go with a impression. Leave that I think for an impromptu moment during a show.
Oh, I was going to say there will be some surely.
Yeah, it's a fair assumption. And then I thought, could I do the worm? Could I go all
Oh, right. When you said, can I do the worm? I thought you meant like the break dancing move.
Yeah.
It's like nobody's going to be able to see that.
No. So, I might be doing the worm.
Yeah.
You can't prove that I'm not doing the worm.
I mean, you're not.
I I think that I am doing the worm.
You're delusional. Or what was the third option?
Uh there was probably a third option which I've forgotten. I don't know. Do you know?
So you went with this.
Just be honest.
Yeah.
You know, I did write down um Labyrinthi in my notes. But that's not the movie we're covering, is it? It's called What's it actually called?
Labyrinth.
Labyrinth. The Labyrinth.

(00:22):
Labyrinth.
Just Labyrinth. No. The
No.
Okay. Well, I wrote Labyrinth, so my brain is going to be going Labyrinth all all episode.
Cool. I don't think I think there's a film named Labyrini to the best of my knowledge.
There is. It's this one. It's the Bowie one.
Is it cool? I think I might have watched the wrong thing. I don't think it's going to come as a shock to anybody that this was my choice.
Yep. It was your choice um for the penultimate episode. You're doing all the evens. This is your last one.
I'm so sad. But I'm happy that I'm going out on Labyrinth. Yeah.
Labyrini. Sorry.
Labyrinth. I mean, what you you're always going to get this on an episode somewhere.
I've never covered this before.
That's crazy
on any podcast. It is way past due and I'm so excited.
I think probably Empire Records aside, this is without doubt the film I've seen most in my life.
Is it really?
Yes.
Do you remember the first time you saw it? The circumstances?
I don't really because when I was a kid in the 80s, it was on TV at Christmas
and Sunday. every single year without fail. And so I definitely watched it yearly when I was a kid. And then there was one year it wasn't on and I was distraught. I was beside myself. So I think at that point we must have invested in a VHS copy at which point I just never stopped watching it.
Yeah. So it's always been with you.

(00:43):
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Could could have formed part of your personality. You might say might have shaped helped shape the person that you are.
I don't know what you're trying to suggest.
You don't have a labyrinth tattoo, you were saying.
Not yet. I'm kind of amazed. It's something I've thought about a lot over the years.
Is it because obviously
you're not sure what to do or
do you know what you want and you just don't want to
You don't want it to be over. You want it to be always before like prelabrinth tattoo, not post labyrinth tattoo.
You can look forward to that.
I think it's just the paralysis of choice.
You're right. Okay.
And I had a friend that had a full half sleeve of lab. stuff.
What? What? The Bowie stuff. The the goblin stuff.
Bowie was central. Bowie was central, but there was a bunch of other characters as well. Ludo was on there. Like, it was pretty cool.
Ludo.
Ludo.
This is This is our second David Bowie movie.
It is.
Uh, again, you're a big fan of Bowie, so I'm not surprised at that. And I think we spoke about in our what was it? The man the man what fell to Earth.
Yeah. As it's colloquially known.

(01:04):
He's done way more movies. than than I had realized.
So maybe he'll come up again.
I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. When when did you see this for the first time?
I don't know.
It's cool story.
I don't remember. It's just always been something that was just there. It was
Well, you saw it as a child.
I definitely saw it as a kid. It was 86 it came out. So I was two.
So I was probably about the right age when it started to be shown on television.
Mhm.
Maybe we had a recorded off the television version without the first few minutes in,
which was often the case, I seem to remember. But
yeah, I saw I guess like every other kid born in that time period, it was always on. It was always on Sundays for some reason. I don't know if that was just cuz it was on TV or we would just play the VHS on Sundays.
Yeah. Oh, it's Sunday. It's Labyrinth Day.
Yeah, it's Labyrinth Day. Um, so yeah, I mean, I probably saw it quite a lot cuz it was always on and then I didn't see it for years and years and years, like since I was like eight or nine or something
until
and then you put it on a couple of years ago. It's the first time I've seen it in ages. Yes. And I watched it three or four times now since then, I think.
Yeah, we saw it at the open air cinema last year. Last summer.
Do we?
Yeah.
Are you sure?

(01:25):
Yes. I have a photo.
Why do I have no memory of that whatsoever?
No.
That's I remember seeing Baby Driver on the open air cinema.
Yeah. We're seeing and Juliet.
Uh-huh. And Labyrinth.
Was it raining?
No, it was really sunny. It was during the day.
Oh, Lord.
Yes, we saw that. I remember. That was good. That was I enjoyed that.
I'd seen it on a big screen before.
Yeah.
But it's it's always nice to have a different experience.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Especially when your partner isn't paying attention and doesn't remember it a year a year after the fact.
I was paying attention. I just don't remember it. So, I think it's safe to say that you don't necessarily have any enduring love for this movie from childhood.
Uh, no, not really. I have a I have a certain fondness for it, I would say, just cuz it was kind of part of that fabric of growing up.
Yeah.
And everyone knew the references and stuff like that, but no, enduring love is probably a bit strong. I was just like, "Oh, that's that's the cool thing that was kind of around for a bit when I was a kid."
But you thought it was cool.
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah,

(01:46):
that surprises me. It's a movie and like I'm not really a puppet person I must say. Like the Muppets didn't never really interested me. Or the um are Fraggle Rocks Muppets? Are they in the same Muppet verse?
Fraggle Rock is another Henson production.
So they're Muppets as well.
They're not Muppets. No.
Are all So not all puppets made by Henson are Muppets.
Okay.
But all Muppets are puppets.
All Muppets are puppets. Okay.
But not all puppets are Muppets.
These are the important questions.
Yeah. kind of wanted to start the show with.
Yeah.
And Fraggle Rocks, they're not Muppets, did you say?
Fraggles are Fraggles.
Fraggles. They're Fraggles. They're not rocks. Or they
They live in Fraggle Rock.
They live on one big rock. Is it one big rock or lots of like little rocks? But they pretend it was one big rock and it sort of broke apart like
I mean technically they were like part subterranean.
Were they? Does that mean they live underwater like mammals?
Underground.
Underground.

(02:07):
Like mammals.
Yeah. Like Um, what lives underground like beavers?
Should we talk about Labyrinth?
Yeah, I guess so. It's impossible not to think about like borrowing animals when you're watching a film like Labyrinth cuz all of the kind of the creature design, they're all the muppets and the puppets. I'm going to say Muppets.
Sure. Okay.
The puppets are all very animallike.
Yeah.
Well, not all of them. Some of them are more humanoid than others, but in in appearance.
Kind of like a grotesque mixture.
Yeah.
For the most part.
Yeah. Yeah,
especially the goblins.
Yeah.
Do you do you have any fondness for any other Jim Henson creations? Obviously, you're not a fan of the Muppets. I'm guessing by that conversation, you're not a fan of Fraggle Rock either.
I hated Fraggle Rock.
You hated it? That's words.
I didn't Well, I I think that Fraggle Rock might have been on Sundays about 5:00 p.m.,
right?
And I was like, "Oh, f***. It's time to go to school tomorrow." And it annoyed me. So, anything that was on a Sunday after sort of 5:00 p.m. I didn't like. But That did include Songs of Praise and Antiques Road Show.
That's just an unfair connotation.

(02:28):
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it wasn't on Sundays, but I remember I remember getting quite annoyed by the song. I think
down a frag rug.
Yes.
You didn't like that.
I don't think so. You have to ask my mom. But my memory of it is that I didn't really care for it. And it was the same with the Muppets. I I think I could take or leave the Muppets to be honest. I wasn't like I didn't have any strong feelings either way. I was like, it's the green the fabric frog frog guy. But as I've gotten older, to sort of appreciate it a bit more for the sense of sort of humor it has and the silly comedy. I've never seen a Muppet film in my life. Not one.
Wow.
And some of them are quite good, I'm told.
Yeah.
What's What's a good one to start with from A Muppet Virgin?
I mean, A Muppet Christmas Carol is a classic for a reason.
Is that the one that's based on A Christmas Carol?
Yeah,
but it's Muppets.
Yes.
Okay.
I'm so glad you put that together.
Yeah.
Um I haven't There's a couple of more recent ones that I haven't actually seen.
Was there one? Did Ricky Jice make one?
I don't think Ricky Jace made one. He might have been in something.
Is he in one? I I'm sure I saw. Wasn't that the last one? Maybe.

(02:49):
Maybe. There was one with I think Jason Seagull, which I didn't see.
I remember the that being marketed and they drive a car underwater or something, I think, is the premise.
Probably.
Yeah,
I know. I saw um Muppets in Space at the cinema.
Oh, that was about 97ish, was it? Yeah,
I want to say like a little bit later than that. 98 99.
Yeah, I sort of I remember that as well.
I was a teenager. I was too old to be going to see Muppets in space. Put it that way.
But the Muppets, don't they like appeal to people of all ages? And isn't it one of those things that like for me I say that I appreciate it more now I'm older. I find it funny whereas I didn't so much as a kid.
Maybe. I don't really know. I think most of the adults that I know who embrace Jim Henson's stuff are people that grew up with it.
Yeah, I suppose so.
So there's a definite nostalgia factor there.
What year was the Muppet Christmas Carol? Was that in the '9s?
Yes, I believe so. It's Yeah, early to mid.
So, when we were growing up, we had the Dark Crystal like Henson Dark Crystal
Labyrinth Muppets and he was the Fragle Rock guy as well.
He did Fraggle Rock.
He was the Fraggle Rock guy.
He did the storyteller.
Is Is that a Moli McCain film?

(03:10):
What? No. I know what you're thinking of.
The story boy. The paper boy.
Jim Henson's the storyteller.
Right. Okay.
And it was John Hurt with his dog sitting by the fire telling folktales basically or versions of folktales.
And it was just fantastic cuz I think I don't know Labyrinth has some darkness. Dark Crystal definitely has some darkness.
Storyteller definitely goes to some dark places. I think I really like that sort of whimsy when it's tinned. ed by bit of bleakness maybe bit of darkness
I think that's my favorite Hensson
yeah there is a bit of a darkness to all of it isn't there like there's a bit of kind of it's an it's an odd mixture of like cutting sort of humor/satire maybe in places
and it's there's a lot of whimsy and silliness and just
yeah
fun like Jim Henson struck me as quite a serious man but very silly as well
yeah complicated
yeah serious certainly serious about his craft, but but definitely embraced the silly a lot.
And I think that's what I'm coming to appreciate more from his creations is more knowing that they're his creations and they've come from his brain, the context of after we watched that
documentary about Henson. For me, I just get sort of getting more and more fond of the stuff. And we did watch an episode of The Muppets, which was all right. It was silly and funny, but um and fun, but um I I don't just sit there and watch it like every week or whatever out.
The older I get, the more I relate to Stalor and Waldorf.
Yeah, they're the the um Mooney old um couple, weren't they?
They Yeah, they sit high up in the box and just heckle them,
right? Yeah. They're not Bert and Ernie.
No,

(03:31):
Bernie was That's not They're not Muppets, are they? Bert and Ernie.
Bert Ernie was Sesame Street,
which Henson must have had a hand in.
I see what you did there,
cuz it's a puppet thing during that time.
Mm. Uh, I think he did, didn't he? I'm sure we heard that somewhere in the documentary.
But, um, so Henson working putting out things like Dark Crystal Labyrinth in the 80s. When did the storyteller come out? Was that was that post Labyrinth?
Oh, do you know what? I can't actually remember. It was definitely very firmly in the 80s.
Yeah.
But I think it was late 80s. I think I think it was after Labyrinth. Yes.
So, it probably would have been Labyrinth, that movie, and then with lost him, right? Was it 1990?
Uh, yeah, I think so.
And then you get a few uh Muppets movies. The the the Christmas one, the space one,
Treasure Island.
There's another There's a Muppets Treasure Island as well, isn't there? In there, is that's also in the '90s. So, I think so. You had like three Muppets movies out in a decade. Who's controlling those? What What was it?
Honestly, I'm not sure.
Hson Company, do you think?
Oh, yeah. I imagine so. I imagine so. I think his kids probably had a lot of weight in terms of the decision- making.
He's one of his kids being Brian Henson who is the voice of Bogle in Lav
Hogwart
brain rot. Um yeah, so I just I was just wondering sort of who continued with it really who sort of ran with it cuz people like those muppies mupp muppies they like those Muppets movies from the '90s

(03:52):
so there must be some sort of consistency. I'm guessing like it's not like a new person came and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to make my Muppets." Can you see the difference between the '90s Henson Company, whatever it is, creations to like the 80s stuff? Or is there more consistency there? People seem to enjoy them nonetheless.
Obviously, I can only speak to the ones that I've seen, so I can't comment on the more recent ones, but yeah, I think there is a good amount of consistency. I think it shows that his his kids or at the very least his son was very much involved in the puppeteering and the voice work growing up. Like he you can tell his his childhood was sort of immersed in that in that world. So I think it's pretty in keeping. Yeah.
Yeah. I I imagine that Jim would have as soon as the baby could move their thumbs. He was like, "Right, get in this f****** Muppet costume stacked. You work for me now, boy. Put that latex over you. Shut up and do a voice. Shut up and do a voice. It's very confusing living. Jim Henson's your father.
Contradictory instructions.
Um, but they they haven't done anything for a while. I don't don't think maybe they have. Puppet things in general are pretty scarce, aren't they? They don't come around very often.
They're pretty thin on the ground now. And I hate to say it, but I think it it really is a dying art.
I Yeah, it probably is. Well, I guess. But Henson was the puppet guy. Who else was really doing puppet stuff?
Honestly, I don't know. I I I know like the Henson company do they from from memory I think they sort of branched out a little bit into kind of more effects work but they still
did they
yeah when I say effects work it's still sort of like largely
and creation based yeah that's that sort of thing
yeah
but yeah they they still
they still have like a big office building and
you know they have a Tik Tok account follow Nice. Oh, okay. I'd have watched some of those.
They are still doing stuff.
Yeah.
Looks like a fun place to work. That's all I'm going to say.
Yeah, I bet it is. I The last puppet thing I can remember is that Melissa McCarthy thing when she's a police officer or something.
Yeah, I know the one.
And I don't know. I haven't seen it, so I don't really know the premise, but I think the premise might be that she's human and all everyone else is a puppet that lives in that world or something.

(04:13):
That's weird.
And it's just played like a regular detective.
Okay.
I don't know. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's more funny than that or more complicated than that. I don't know.
Yeah.
Played straight, I think, is the phrase I was looking for.
Yeah. Um, obviously there there have been more recent things like they revived the Dark Crystal.
Oh, Louisier did that.
Yeah. But obviously it was all it was all Henson's guys
who were doing the puppet work and it was all kind of built from scratch and just insane scale.
But much like a lot of his the stuff. I don't necessarily think it was as profitable as they wanted it to be.
It must have cost a small fortune.
Yeah, that was what a 8 10 hour run. Was it
um 200 million maybe?
Easy,
do you reckon? Yeah.
Yeah. I think it would have been very expensive. Not to mention all the voice actors. They were all celebrities.
Oh, yeah.
It wasn't like they were just casting unknowns
like Martin Freeman. Was Martin Freeman
thinking more like Simon Peg and Alicia Vicander and Anna Taylor Joy,

(04:34):
Taran Edgerton, you know, actually
actual people,
right? Okay. I Yes. And that was very critically praised though, actually, wasn't it? And and loved and you enjoyed it and it was
a sequel or prequel to that thing that you really liked.
Prequel.
It's a prequel, right?
Yeah. But I know there was some talk of it getting renewed and doing more, but there's been it's been combo weeds ever since. So, I'm guessing it didn't do as well as they'd hoped.
I like it's pro, like you say, it's probably just down to cost and logistics because it's it's very costly.
Time consuming.
It's very timeconuming. It's very costly because it's very partly because it's very time consuming
and I guess there's probably a certain degree like do we want to tie up as many res I hate this but do we want to tie up as many resources into this one project?
Production accountant coming out.
Yeah.
Is it worth it? And I mean obviously it was because people loved it, loved it, and you liked it, so you've got it now.
Mhm.
It would probably be nice to see more of that sort of thing.
Oh, I would love that. Yeah,
they they have been working on a a sequel to Labyrinth for the longest time, which we might talk about a little bit later perhaps.
There goes
it goes. Yeah. But I don't know. I wanted to get a bit of context on the whole situation really cuz obviously uh it's a you like the Muppets.
You like the Muppets. You're a Muppet person.

(04:55):
Yeah.
And I don't necessarily like being called a muppet person.
No.
But yes, broadly speaking, I am a muppet person.
I'm a I'm a Jim Henson guy.
Yeah.
I think he was from all anecdotal evidence seemed like he was an excellent human being and had a hell of an imagination and a hell of a sense of humor.
And it's very sad that we lost him when we did.
Yeah. So early.
So early. But his leg,
was he like 53 or something? He was I guess I guess yeah he I guess he looked about that sort of age when we were watching the labyrinth behind the scenes stuff. So
yeah but his legacy lives on.
Mhm.
And we did get Labyrinth.
Yep.
Which is something that we get to talk about for a little bit now.
Um there were Did you know there were 25 drafts of the script?
25? I didn't know there were that many. No, I do know that Terry Jones obviously of Montipython fame wrote an initial script And then it was passed around to a bunch of other people for rewrites and additions.
And then I heard that Jim Henson got the whatever number draft it was and was kind of bummed out because all the humor had gone.
So he handed it back to Terry Jones and was like, "Put all the jokes back in."
Okay.

(05:16):
So I think it certainly sounds like what we ended up with was pretty close to Terry Jones initial screenplay, but I think some stuff that he wanted in there was taken out,
right? And also you had contributions from obviously Henson himself, other writers and the the the artist guy, the what's his name? Brian.
Brian Fraoud. Yeah, that's it.
Um, so just a lot I guess a lot of different ideas and kind of put in this little cooking pot and then they heated it up and they cooked a a big drink of what we now know of the movie The Labyrinth.
Labyrinth. There's no the It surprised me that there were 25 versions of this script because I well I think back to last week and it's 15 um versions of scripts less than the movie driven the side produced for that. So I was I don't know I was surprised I was surprised by that if it was shot for the most part in the UK
over here. So we get to claim that shot at L Street.
Lree. Yeah,
I thought so.
And a park somewhere up in Buckingham Shear that you showed me. photo uh Hi Wickham,
right?
I believe. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's it's interesting cuz it does feel like a very British movie. I I guess especially with some of the humor where it's a bit more like like you say, a bit a little bit darker
and a bit kind of anarchic at times.
Absolutely. Yeah.
But I guess that's the Terry Jones of it all.
Yeah. You can see him all over it. Particularly with there's one particular character in the movie that makes me think that is basically him.
Oh, which one
is the the guys that lift up the pavement slabs. Oh,
right.
And turn like turn over with the the arrows so Sarah doesn't know where she's going in the labyrinth.
I see. Yeah. It's funny because when you think about it through a Montipython lens, some of the humor just really makes sense.

(05:37):
Yeah, it does.
I don't think I'd ever really appreciated that very much before now.
So, there's a lot going on in this film and I kind of don't really know where to start.
We could start the beginning with the CGL.
We could start at the beginning. I was going to say I made a list of all of the um the important scenes, which was really difficult to to boil it down to just a series of scenes, but um so effectively it's the Wizard of Oz.
Yeah. And that's based on book.
What is book? Wizard of of Oz is book.
Yes.
And then movie.
Yes.
And then sequel.
Yes. And then remake
and then reimagination. Reimaginings. reimaginings. Yeah.
We start at the very beginning. We get straight into things, which is something I really appreciate about this film. It does not f*** around.
Yeah. It's pretty lean as well.
Yeah. An hour and 40 minutes and it zips by
and it's just packed with stuff as well.
Yeah. But we get very quickly introduced to Sarah who seems like maybe a little bit of a fantasist
a little bit. She's laughing in the park. That's the first time we see her
on her own. Yeah.
Oh. Oh, bless her.

(05:58):
I know. I would have befriended her. Um, but I think it's sort of telling that she's maybe a little bit older or looks a little bit older than the average child that would be playing dress up in a park.
Yeah. I hadn't thought about that actually, but yeah,
because I think
well nowadays
I don't know what was it like back in the good old days. Were kids allowed to be kids before they had screens shoveled down their throats as soon as they exited the the vagina? There you go. Have a f****** screen. You've been awake for 35 seconds. You ain't got a f****** screen in front of you. Swallow that, you bastard. Just shut up.
Oh my god. Not a fan of iPad babysitters then.
Um, yeah. I don't know. She's supposed to be like what, 14?
Yeah, I think so. I think she was 14.
Jennifer Connelly was 14. Yeah. And 15 when the the movie actually came out.
Um, and so I think like to me the film is sort of about a reluctance to let go of childhood things.
Yeah. Okay. So to me, the fact that she's a little bit older than you would expect kind of is in keeping with that theme.
Yeah, it definitely fits that idea. I uh cuz I guess it's sort of a coming of age movie.
Yeah, in a way,
if you look at it from that lens anyway,
I I found more the it uh don't hang on to things in general sort of theme.
Don't hoard an anti-hoing message.
Don't be a hoarder or you'll turn into a mankey old gray puppet. a house on your back, right? You'll be the garbage lady.
I love the garbage lady.
Yeah. The character from Home Alone 2 was based on that. It's inspired by that.
The character from Home Alone 2.
Yeah, the bird lady.

(06:19):
The one who looks like Pers Morgan.
Yeah, that one.
I love that for Beers Morgan.
I hate that for the bird lady.
Me too. I couldn't agree more. Yeah.
Give the bird lady a a talk show.
Yeah. f*** off Pers Morgan.
Put a screen in front of him and shut up.
That's what I say.
Is that just what you do with people you don't like now?
Yeah.
Babies.
Yeah.
Racist TV pundits.
Yeah. All racists, actually.
Yeah.
Not just just the ones that are on telly.
I don't like regular racists either that don't.
No, they're not great.
No, they're my favorite.
No.

(06:40):
Not ideal human beings.
No.
But yeah. So, we start at the beginning. She's in a park. Um starts pissing it down. So, She runs home. Dad and stepmom, which we're introduced to through fairly expositionary dialogue, but it's economical and it's it's fine.
What do you mean in terms of that's her stepmom?
Well, she literally has um a line about like, "Oh, she thinks I'm just this wicked stepmother."
Right. Oh, of course. Yes. I forgot that phrase. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose that is supposed to encapsulate quite a lot of information for you and explain why she is Sarah is essentially a bit of a knob. Well, she's a teenage girl.
Exactly. Bit of a
nobit. Yeah, exactly. Anybody who's encountered a teenage girl knows that. Um, yeah, they they clear off out. She's left babysitting a her a baby brother, which she resents.
Toby.
Toby,
who originally was called Freddy or Freddy or Teddy or something. I forget the original name.
But the baby wouldn't respond to anything other than his own name cuz he's a baby.
Yeah. But also, if you can't pretend to be someone else, you shouldn't be an actor.
I don't think the the baby at one years old was just like I would like to go into the industry papa
I have dreams family I'm going to make it big like just puts a suitcase on top of the car drives those little one of those little red and yellow cars that you had in the 80s do you remember the ones pedals
cozy coupe
oh I f****** always wanted a cozy coupe bastard never got one did he
oh I would get one now if they did adultsized ones I would f****** get one yeah of course
peddle it around
in the garden yeah
did they have pedals or did you just Was there a hole for your feet and you just kind of went like that like a Flintstone?

(07:01):
You might have might have been a Flintstone car. Yeah, it might have been. I wouldn't know. I never had one. I just saw the pictures on on the in the Argos catalog. I was like, I want one of them. My parents were like, no chance.
Yeah. And I was never
Robocop again.
I was never brave enough to fight for my turn in the early learning center. So, I just used to stand there wisfully watching other children hogging it and going
one day.
I used to like playing with the train set in the early learning center.
They were cool.
The little wooden things, weren't they? I think I loved them so much that
I was out shopping with my nan one day and I must have been about I guess four or five and I remember sort of images but I don't know. It could just be that my parents told this the story and it's sort of been cemented in there. But I do know that we were shopping in CNA
and I was coats
and I was so f****** bored just like after I'd been standing in the shirt bit for a while you know
probably about 10 seconds knowing you
I'm bored and I just f***** off out of CNA and I ran to uh the early learning center and just played with the trains and I was a lost child for a while.
Oh my god.
I guess my name must have thought all right where would he go bastard like no police were phoned no one was contacted my mom wasn't notified I think my nan just found me and then just uh like we went I probably went back to coat slats
were there um early learning centers in Portugal. Did we just solve the Meline Macan disappearance?
Yeah,
I think she just f***** off.
The missing piece of the puzzle is a wooden train set.
Yeah,
it always is in murder mysteries then, isn't it?

(07:22):
Solved it. Next.
It's so obvious when you think about it. People are like going to be, oh no, slapping their heads. We madly man the wooden train. Should have known all along.
She went for that f****** cozy coupe. It was her downfall. So,
do we talk about the movie?
Back to Labyrinth. Sarah's really pissed off because she's got a babysit. So, she wishes that the goblins would come and take her baby brother away.
Yeah. And that is that the first time you see the goblins in like full cuz they're sort of hinted at before that, aren't they? Like they're in the background and they're popping around the place.
Well, you do sort of see them because they're you get that shot of them all kind of crammed in somewhere going, she's going to say the words.
That's what I mean. I think that's the first shot of like a fullfaced Yeah.
So, you're getting an introduction to like the sort of the puppets and stuff and I like that and it's very funny because they have the they have a bit of banter and they argue with each other and they're always bickering and it's very funny. It's a very nice way to introduce that silly side of it. I guess
cuz up until that point it was a bit paced. I would say
it was just kind of like a standard 80s coming of age movie up until that until like 8 minutes in.
But I suppose that is you're right though that is them going right This is the person. This is her situation. She hates babies. Understandable.
Well, we don't know that she hates all babies.
She hates that baby.
Can we just talk about that for a second? So,
I don't know. Where's this going?
So, Jarth, the goblin king,
wants to abduct Toby, take him away to the castle, and if Sarah doesn't come and rescue him within 13 hours, then he'll just keep him and turn him into a goblin.
Oh, is that the plan?
Yeah.
Right. He's he he will turn him into a goblin. So is the implication there that all of the goblins were once former babies that were abducted?

(07:43):
I guess so. By
Cuz that's kind of horrifying when you think about it like that.
Yeah, that is horrifying. So Bowie has been stealing babies Jarrett for separating.
He's the child catcher.
Yeah. And was that like a the child catcher is an actual person what caught children then?
No, that's in ch Bang Bang darling.
Oh. I think you're thinking of pedophiles.
Yeah, probably is what I'm thinking.
Which um so is the implication that that's what Jarth might be or is at least abducting children and using them as slaves?
Look, I'm just let's let's talk about let's talk about the elephant in the room. A lot of people don't like this movie because they think there's some underlying like sinister tones. do it.
Yeah. Which there definitely are,
which there are, but it's never sort of overshadowed by I don't really know what I'm trying to say. Look, I don't I feel like I have a good grasp on who Jim Henson was. I don't think he was trying to get some weird um inappropriate romance in like shoehorned into his movie.
No.
And a lot of people like I've seen a bunch of sort of Gen Z on TikTok recently trying to cancel this movie saying it's disgusting. Okay. I'm just like, well, it is in places, but not for the reasons you're talking about. Mostly the bog of eternal stench, but I just I don't necessarily have a problem with that. Everybody's just like, "Oh, yeah, but he's this he's this grown man lusting after and obsessing over a 14-year-old girl." And I'm just like, "Yeah, he's the villain."
Yeah.
We're not romanticizing this. I don't know what you think the film is trying to say, but he's the bad guy.
Yeah. It's not co-signing age gap relationships.
No, it it's not doing that, is it? Do you know what the difficult thing is? Is because maybe it's Bowie and maybe because he that charact not just that it's Bowie, but that it's that character is obviously Sarah is the main character, but the thing you kind of remember most is probably Bowie. It's a Bowie.
His songs are in it. He's the the guy, the magic guy that's doing all the things with the balls and the snake goblins.
Yeah. But um yeah, it's maybe that's partly what it is because it's quite heavily centered around that. Yeah, and you're right. He is the villain. He is the bad guy. You're not once meant you're not meant to go, I hope Jarthif wins, but you're sort of dropped into this world and it's like let's have fun with this world.
But I also I think that is it's sort of talking about some semi-serious stuff in in the themes and stuff.

(08:04):
It doesn't go too deep and it's quite uh frivolous and cutting and and anarchctic in in the in the way that it discusses things. But I also think that it just sort of drops you into it. It just sort of drops you into this weird world and it's like you could go any different way and look at it in any sort of way that you want. But I think to try and cancel it is a bit
is a bit strong. Yeah, me too.
Maybe let's look at like Lolita first.
Well, look,
although I don't know the context on Lolita,
I have a lot to say about Lolita. Look, That movie has been movie that book has been
it's based on book
adapted twice and people still willfully misunderstand what's going on.
Okay.
But that's that's a hill I'll die on another day.
Okay. Maybe when we inevitably cover um Lolita.
We could we've not
No,
it won't be in my season. Put it that way.
Have we done any Kubric?
We have not done any Kubric, have we? Because we haven't done 2001 yet. or your favorite Kubrick
full metal jacket.
Yeah,
The Shining, of course. Of course.
Yeah, we'll get to we'll get to some of those.
We will.

(08:25):
But no, we haven't.
Okay. Maybe. Maybe. Adaptations theme.
Yeah.
Anyway, back to Labyrinth.
Labyrinth.
We were We were talking about some We were going to start talking about some scenes
earlier.
Yeah.
I was thinking thinking about this on the train on the way home from work the other day, like what scenes stand out to me before we watch them.
But that's the problem, isn't it? I started making notes.
Trying to narrow it down is the hard part.
Yeah. And you could just talk for hours about the what went into the scenes and what they are and how funny they are and and stuff, but the very first thing that I thought about and I wrote down was just the worm. And it's all I don't know that seems to be the thing that's the most enduring I think in this movie for me is just the worm. Cuz I I I relate to that worm.
Do you?
Yeah.
In what way?
He's like He sounds like he's sort of from East London, Essex.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello. Come and meet the misses. It's like I know that worm.
You don't want to go that way.
Yeah. I grew up with that worm. That worm is my family and my and me. And I've got a red scarf.

(08:46):
You do have a red scarf. And you spray painted your hair blue at a festival the other week.
Oh no. I did. You're right.
You are turning into the worm. I am turn into the worm. Maybe I should do the worm and turn do go full worm.
Halloween's coming up.
Okay, I'm the worm from Labyrinth.
Okay,
the labyrinth.
Labyrini.
I don't know why that's that's something that always comes to mind first and it's I think it's a way smaller thing in a movie than I sort of remember. It's weird that that's the thing that I think.
Yeah. I mean, that worm has one scene.
Yeah.
And then we never see him again.
Not even at the end.
No. No. It doesn't even come back like should you need us, should you need a worm. No one needs the worm apparently. It's very sad. Actually, it's just a tragedy about how everybody forgets the worm.
Everyone does forget the worm.
Yeah,
it is a tragedy. You're right. Bring back the worm.
Yeah,
maybe maybe Edgars will.
I think Edgars will. I think the whole thing will be told from the perspective of the worm.
The worm's the main character this time.

(09:07):
The worm's the main character. Yeah.
And what's the what's the story?
Um, seagulls are a pain in the ass.
Are there seagulls in the labyrinth?
Yep. there in in the new one.
Yeah.
Yeah. There'll be seagulls.
No, I mean in the labyrinth itself.
Yes. The chickens I will replace with seagulls. Seagulls in the one.
Okay.
Guard your chips. Everyone,
what's what stands out to you then as a
in terms of what stands out? Again, I can't narrow it down.
When someone says to you the movie Labyrinth, think of Labyrinth. What's the very first image that comes into your mind? Do you think?
The first is probably the dance magic dance scene. Dance, magic, dance.
Just I I listen to that song on Spotify an alarming amount very regularly.
Yeah.
I mean, you you hear it fairly often, I think.
I hear it in in my brain as well. It's one of those songs that just don't all my all day long my brain's been going dead. No, not again.
But yeah, and you do play it a lot.
Yeah.

(09:28):
So that you think about that scene.
I think I think so. Yeah, because there's so much about this film that's iconic, but that outfit particularly that Jarth wears. Everybody's got a sweet waist coat in this movie.
Yeah, it's full of sweet waist coats.
I never realized until this viewing, everybody's got a sweet waste coat.
It's cuz they're all um magicians.
Yeah. And it was the 80s.
Yeah. With all the Kaiser Chiefs ruins waist coats and peaky blinders. You can't f****** wear a waist coat anymore. Everyone thinks you're c***.
Especially if you pair it with a flat cap.
Or as a group of you just walking around London in flat caps and waste coast, you're just like, "Let's stay away from these. Let's not enter into conversation with these people." I um I Yeah, the magic dance is definitely high up on my list as well. Things that I think of. Like I say, that song just lives in bam bam just lives in my head all the bam bam.
You remind me of the babe.
What babe? The baby with the power.
What power?
The power of voodoo.
Who? Do
you do?
Do what?
Do what? Remind me of a babe.
We got a little bit confused there. But yeah,
it's so memorable.
Yeah,
the whole thing. Even like the stripey onesie that the baby has on. You see a You see a baby in a stripey onesie, red and white, and you're just like, "Oh, labyrinth." Not that it happens often.

(09:49):
I don't look at many babies, to be honest with you, Sarah. I don't know what you're doing.
I'm trying not to. But yeah, and just like having watched the behind the scenes stuff as well, just about how many puppeteers were involved and the set was not with the baby.
The baby was puppeteered by
the baby
Dr. Beverly Crusher
without context. That's a very strange reference for you to drop in.
I was wondering whether or not to give it more context. People that know.
Yeah. If you Oh, you know, I hate that.
Um, yeah, just just the sheer number of people involved in it and how the set was constructed and how it was basically well, they described it as being like Swiss cheese, didn't they? Cuz there were so many holes for people to stick their arms through and then
Oh god, a structural engineer is absolutely a nightmare.
Oh, we haven't done the calculations on this. We have reducing it from one piece of ply to to to half a piece of ply. There's no way that the structural integrity is going to hold. I bet they were just like, "f*** it. Just get on with it. Do it."
But I I feel like not only that, but just the whole film is kind of a logistical nightmare, right? Because
Yeah, of course. Cuz the puppets, you mean?
Oh, the puppets, the animals, a baby.
f*** yeah. I forgot about the animals. Yeah,
there's so much going on. And as Jim Henson said himself, there's like three things that you never want to work with in film, and he had to do all three of them.
And he did it.
He did it. He did. He do it. He did do it.
He did. He do it. Yeah.
And yes, it was the last film he ever directed,
but I think that was largely because it flopped because it's a big old floppy flop.

(10:10):
Yes. And that's why it's in this season.
Yeah. Um, he took that hard.
Oh, did he?
He did. He was gutted.
I That's I wonder what Do you know what the actual kind of critic's response was to it when it came out? Like, aside from financially?
I don't really. I don't either.
I think some people considered it to be a bit of a mess,
right? Well,
which I find curious because the level of craft that's on show is kind of immeasurable and
there's no flab in it whatsoever.
Yeah, I don't think it's a mess. I think it's a very tight, lean,
consistent film with strong characters and, you know, a a pretty good direction.
I don't Yeah, I don't really
And the characters are They're not they're not like overly fleshed out. You just get a gist of what these characters are and they're sort of more kind of archetypes in a way.
Yeah. The boss.
Yeah. Well, I suppose it is. Yeah. Is that what the where the archetypes come from?
I mean, kind of like the tin man, the cowardly lion, like the people that she meets along the way and they
kind of form
a group,
right? A group of people and you've got personalities.
Mhm.

(10:31):
Oh, I see the connections. You see, I've never seen the wizard of That's the problem. But I'm aware of it that there's there's a a big sunflower in in the field or something, right?
And a tin man.
He's got like a what? What are those? The funnels. He's got like an upside down funnel on his head, and he But it's a metal one.
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember it.
But they're going to see a wizard instead of a goblin king,
right? And they're in Australia,
are they?
I don't know. I just assumed it that they were in Australia.
I think they're in a fictional land cuz her house blow. away. Look, this is a different conversation for a different day.
Is it though? Because it's it's very incapable of what this is.
You mentioned the the kind of the group uh mentality like building your kind of your friends, your friendships,
your found family,
your found family and like moving through on this journey with with with them.
It's uh I don't know. It's very um it's it's all very adult in a way as well. Like it is a coming of age story, but I feel like it does it sort of applies to many different ages like uh the the anti-consumerism stuff. Oh, it's plastic. Give me that f****** plastic.
Plastic.
Yeah, you don't need things. It's it's an interesting movie that I think is sort of sort of changes, I guess, different periods in your life when you watch it anyway. For me anyway. I guess like what it is like Starship Troopers.
Yeah, it's just like Starship Troopers. Yeah. I think there are Defin definitely different readings you can you can have on this film and people do have different interpretations. Uh one of which is just that Sarah's deeply mentally ill.
That yeah that is definitely one I suppose. Yeah.
And her psych is just fracturing.
She's just imagined all this stuff because like it it's I suppose that's heavily implied by the fact that everything that happens in this movie is in her room.

(10:52):
Mhm.
So there is that it is definitely making you on purpose asking that question. Is she inside? Do you think it is like
I don't Yeah, probably.
Probably. Let's be honest. What's more likely
that David Bowie can juggle the crystals and turn him into a snake or that you're probably mental? Can I say mental?
It's not super politically correct anymore.
I apologize.
Um, yeah. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that one. I think it's a fun theory.
Yeah. Not for Sarah, obviously.
Is it fun? It's a bit bleak, I suppose. Would your Would your preferred reading be Yeah. The goblins are real and all babies turn into goblins.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Girls got a dream.
I wonder why I wonder why that was the the kind of the premise of the movie. Like, how did it get to that? Was it Henson that had the original original Nugget or Fra or what? Like, let's steal a baby and turn it into if they don't get it back. It's going to turn into a goblin.
Honestly, I don't know who had what ideas. I do know the story changed or seemingly changed quite a lot from Inception to to what we get on screen.
It's nothing like Inception.
Leo DiCaprio is not even in it for f***** sake.
Yeah. I don't know. To me, it feels very Henson, but then I don't know. Maybe that's just the imag ation that's on show. Maybe that's my bias talking.
I don't know. It was definitely a collaborative effort from what I understand. Anyway, lots of people contributed ideas. In terms of other kind of standout scenes, what else sticks out to you
to me? Um, I suppose Oh, I suppose Boggle. Just in general, the character Boggle.
Hoggle.

(11:13):
Oh, no. Do you know what? Actually, no. We'll get back to to Boggle because I I've got a bit to talk about Gobble.
It's an interesting character.
Yeah,
but the I suppose the sedimus bit, if we're sort of jumping forward a bit and the whole bridge situation maybe when I was a kid, maybe that was my favorite.
Ambroious.
Yeah, I seem to remember just finding that quite hysterically funny, especially when he's like bumping into the
the the the roof and stuff like that and riding the dog as if it's a horse jousting.
It's still hysterically funny.
It is. It is just how relentless that that puppet character is. Like you you pointed out when earlier when we were watching it, uh Ludo sort of flicks him behind a rock and just immediately just springs back.
I love it.
It's so funny. Yeah, it's done so well.
But the sound effects and everything are just
marry up perfectly.
Yeah, I think maybe that that sort of sticks out to me quite a bit because I think maybe that's my favorite funny part of this movie.
Okay. So does get a lot of the the funny lines,
but there is but there's so much else. It's it's hard to pinpoint really. We could probably just this could have been an entire episode of just going through the scenes. I don't really want to do that. Yeah,
but it could have been. We could just be like, "Right, let's break down this thing and
not one of those awful YouTube uh videos where they just explain the plot to each other."
Yeah, we're not here to do that. But there's there's so many really intricately built scenes that you only see once as well. like just the sheer attention to detail like The Worm or I think a lot of my favorite stuff are obviously because it's kind of like um a journey. I was going to say a road movie.
Yeah, it's kind of a road movie.
It's kind of a road movie, but she's she's meeting these people in passing so they often don't return.

(11:34):
Yeah, it's but that's like you say a bit of a road movie and road movies are sort of often like just a metaphor of going through life, right? Yeah.
That's that's the other sort of angle that I sort of look at this movie on is not just the coming of age but the general life journeys you build your family your c like your friends and stuff and you meet people along the way and some of them sort of help you along the path and you don't really see him again some people stick around and that's fine and also like like that that that character who's got the bird hat
he says what does he say um
even when you don't feel like you're getting anywhere you still are getting somewhere or something like that
and I thought oh yeah that's interesting like it's just a very and just the the way of sort of navigating through the labyrinth to try and get to this thing that you think is the like the goal or whatever the aim which is a good thing like don't get me wrong it's good to have that
but it shouldn't just be the focus
it's about the journey not the destination
exactly in the people you meet along the way
yeah
yeah
the um the bird hat head thing was supposed to be in it much more
Oh really that was that's funny character as well
yeah
so stimulating being your head There was supposed to be a bar scene where he was just chatting incessantly at other people.
Really?
Yeah.
I would want to see that.
I know. I know. I don't think they ever filmed it.
Oh, no.
It was uh it was canned. But yeah, good character.
Who's your favorite character?

(11:55):
Ludo.
Ludo. Okay. Why
you Your question might have been might as well have been who is your favorite character and why is it Ludo? Right.
That can't have been a surprise to you.
No, I suppose not. But like bit like trying to pinpoint favorite scene in this.
Also, a lot of the characters, they have different things going for him. I think for me the most memorable is probably Higgle,
but I know that you do love Ludo. And so, I was I thought that maybe you might say Ludo, but what is it about Ludo?
Can we just go back to Hoggle? Hoggle.
Bigle.
Hoggle. I love Hoggle as a character. I think he's got quite a good redemption arc.
Yeah.
Visually almost as grotesque as Guildor.
No. or could have been in this movie.
Yeah. Yeah, he could have done.
He could get to uh the labyrinth if he could only just remember the tones.
There's a crossover in there somewhere. Yeah.
Yeah. Ludo's just
he's a friendly beast. He's a friendly giant.
Lovely.
Yeah.
And he's misunderstood. And I think I'm always drawn to characters like that.

(12:16):
Okay.
When I was in college doing film and media studies, I did a I think I've talked about this before. I did a whole kind of essay, really long essay about the small-mindedness in small soldiers and how we shouldn't judge people on their appearance alone and just
gorgone.
Yeah. But they were the they were the ugly ones in inverted quotes.
And so I think I've always been drawn to characters that are misunderstood.
Yeah. And but Ludo does look like a beast and he has big teeth.
Teeth. Yeah. Horns.
Does he have horns? Yeah.
Yeah. I think he has a bit of
He's got bigger ears.
Yeah,
big floppy ears. Oh, he's lovely.
And that that scene when he's introduced as well, like I can see you getting all emotional.
I knowing him. I don't like it.
I feel very protective over Ludo.
I didn't realize until our viewing today that it was him summoning the rocks.
That's what There's literally dialogue about it.
Yeah, you're right.
He does it three times.
I guess I just always I always thought that those rocks were acting independently and they just rolled towards Sarah. I thought the rocks were sentient.
Well, I think they might be, right? Cuz how else can he summon them?

(12:37):
But collective conscious can
Well, yeah, but there's got to be something to communicate with.
Yeah. So, the rocks are sentient and they're obeying orders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rocks friends.
Yeah.
I love it.
Our friends.
It's so random. Like we've got this We've got this big gentle giant, this kind of scary looking monster, but he's a real sweetheart, but something's missing. How about he can call rocks?
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, what was that conversation about?
Yeah. It's took him weeks to crack that. They're like, "Oh, got it." Eureka jumped out the bath.
Oh. To be a fly on the wall.
Yeah. I would love to. You're right. I'd love to see a making of the movie Labyrinth.
Just the brainstorming sessions.
Yeah. Yeah, that would have been great. Who's your favorite character?
Oh, I I like I I think I respect and enjoy the movie of Log because it's such a a character with like a redemption arc like you say, but also it looks cool. Like it's it is an oddlooking puppet and a lot of work went into it. You mentioned I think the five people that were involved with that.
Yes, there was um obviously there was an actor inside the the outfit inside the head and I believe she was called Sher Weiser Viser I'm not sure
um unsung hero of the movie if you ask me because the the difficulty she must have had
navigating the set

(12:58):
with that head on and fake hands as well and like
matching the movements to the four puppeteers who are doing the voice and you know somebody's controlling his eyebrows somebody else is controlling his mouth.
Yeah.
So voice.
There were so many little motors inside that that head.
Yeah.
Crazy.
That must have been really hot and heavy as well. Like physically just difficult to do.
But I really enjoyed the the movements. I feel like all of those elements came together like just
in such a great way
to breathe life into that character
to Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. Like to the point where that character feels real.
Abs. Yeah. 100%. It's so impressive. Like I just watch it and I'm like this just feels like a real character to me.
I can't feel that way. about all of them though. Like I'm I just get lost in I've got goosebumps. I just get lost in it. Like I'm never sat there watching it going, "Oh, you're looking at puppets."
Yeah.
I'm just in it.
Yeah, I suppose. So
they feel real to me. And I think that's the difference between puppets and CGI is that there's something tangible there and it doesn't really date like like effects work.
Not at all. It does. This this there's a couple of moments in this movie that have dated.
Yeah. But they were they were pretty pioneering for the time and you can definitely forgive it that it's fine. There's stuff that came out 30 years after that looks way worse.
Yeah.

(13:19):
Bird demic looking at you.
And um yeah, it's so it's so impressive.
Yeah. On a technical level, all of it is just
just what an achievement, man.
I think I respect that the character more boggling because
it's getting worse.
It's very obvious. Not that I'm thinking about it, but I suppose I just know from my research last couple of days. I'm like, "Oh, that's such an impressive character." The way she acts it as well,
like when she's doing the hops
and just spraying like the fair's very physical like kind of humor
that goes with the head movements and the the voice and everything. It's great. It's great. I think that character is amazing.
Agreed.
Yeah.
Do you have a least favorite least favorite character or and or least favorite scene or set piece?
Baby. Toby.
Yeah. Yeah, agree.
Back off the baby. You don't need a baby in this movie. What? What can Jar can steal something else?
The dog.
The dog. Merlin.
Perfect. Yeah.
Did you know that Merlin um the character the wizard
um his other name was Ambroious?

(13:40):
Oh,
so that was the joke,
right? Oh, I did not know that.
I thought it was um a type of rice pudding.
Uhhuh. Ambroious custard.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, Least favorite character is baby. Least favorite scene?
Uh, baby,
just anything featuring the baby.
Anything. But that would include the magic dance bit. So
maybe I couldn't. Or do you know what?
And also the Mc Cher inspired staircase, the impossible room. Like
Yeah,
that would emit that entire sequence.
It would. You'd have to drop all of that and I'm not willing to do that. I can endure baby for to have those scenes.
I don't It's hard. That's a hard question cuz you know what? I don't really have a car character that I don't I suppose initially I don't like Boglin at all.
You're getting further and further away from his actual name. By the end of this episode, you're just going to start calling him Steve.
Now he's called Steve, right?
Yeah. Initially, I don't like that character, but I suppose you're not meant to. That's kind of the point.
He's abrasive and unhelpful and
a coward.

(14:01):
Yeah.
But then is kind of the opposite of those things in in some ways.
He redeems himself and he sees the truth. value of friendship.
Yeah. He still wants a f****** plastic bracelet.
Plastic. Yeah.
He hasn't learned all the right lessons. You don't need that. You need it. You need that as much as you need a Polly Pocket. Sir,
friendship and also consumerism.
Yeah.
Yeah. But I don't I don't have a least favorite character. The stepmother, maybe. Cuz she's she's nothing. She's a nothing character. She's just there to serve a purpose to explain who Sarah is. She swiftly f**** off. Yeah. Here we go.
So, I don't know. None. Have you got a least favorite character?
Go on.
It's five that are tied.
Oh, it's the Blood Hound Gang.
The The Fire Gang. That's right. Chilly down with the fire gang. I hate that song, but it's f****** catchy, man.
I hate it, but it's so catchy.
I didn't I don't That scene gets a lot of uh a lot of people have a problem with that scene now, don't they? Or is it the effects or is there something else that is it?
I think Well, in we were just talking about some of the effects that haven't dated quite as well. That's certainly one of them. I think I keep wanting to call it green screen, but it's not. It's effectively black screen, wasn't it?
Yeah. I guess I didn't fully understand what they did, but I know that they shot the the dancing puppets while in a black room while everyone was dressed in black to operate the puppets and stuff.
Each one had three different operators. Yeah.
Which is crazy. And from a again from a technical perspective, I have nothing but admiration for the people involved in that scene. I just f****** hate those characters.
Do you?

(14:22):
They can rot in hell.
I think they pull off their heads though and use them as drones.
I hate them. I hate them.
That's the perfect design when you think about it.
I would love to be able to pull off my use it as a drone.
Just like do some reconnaissance up ahead of me before I enter a situation.
It's what you need. It's evolution. Yeah. It's part of the human evolution process. I'm telling you. In 25 years, we'll be able to take off our heads and control them with a remote control.
Spinal column will be meaningless.
Yeah. pretty much right.
Circle spine. Who needs it?
Elon says we don't need spines anymore.
Elon says we don't need empathy anymore as well.
Yeah,
look where that's got him.
I would say Elon's never needed a spine.
Let's Maybe let's not get
He's a f****** jellyfish. I hate him. Anyway,
he's not a mammal.
He's a mollisk in the shape of a man,
but Labyrinth.
Labyrinth. Yeah.

(14:43):
Yeah. Um I don't know. I don't think
Elon Musk is your least favorite Labyrinth character.
He's my least favorite character in life, I think. Well,
I'm sorry. We were moving away from that and I brought it right back to
You did. You did. I'm going to take it back to Red Dwarf again
because we have another connection to Red Dwarf.
It's always Chris Barry. There's always Chris Barry's connections in this podcast. One thing we can promise you is movies that don't fit the theme and a Chris Barry reference somewhere along the line
and some inappropriate jokes.
Yeah.
Yeah. Danny John Jules voiced one of the fire game.
Oh, he was a voice. I was listening and there was a couple of moments where I was like that could be I wasn't sure which one it was.
Right.
But I sort of caught a couple of bits of dialogue where I thought it could be could be that guy.
But they all talk about taking off their heads and there is it's impossible to to tell really. There are too many. Five is too is five is probably too few for a gang. But it's too many for this film. You could have had three of them.
Five is an okay number for a gang. You got to start somewhere.
It was like two, then that would be a pair. That wouldn't be a gang.
I just I don't think you can really call yourself a gang until you get to like 10.
Then you might be getting into gang territory. But before that, you're just a group, right? Like a face.
I disagree. I think five people can be a gang.
So if there are 10 people that read books or five people that read books together, It'll be a book book gang.
Book gang. Yeah.

(15:04):
Right.
Okay.
See you later, sweetheart. I'm just going to book gang.
What now?
What color bandana do you wear for that?
We have to We just There's no bandanas, but we have to wear roller skates and dungarees.
I love it. I'm in.
Are we happy?
I'll make badges. You sort out an itinerary.
Right.
Back to the I feel like there's a bunch of really iconic stuff that we haven't even mentioned. So, I want to load I want to speedrun some of it because I think it deserves a mention. I love Alf and Ralph.
Oh, remind me who Alf and Ralph are.
The um they're at the door. One of us always tells the truth.
Oh,
one of us always dies.
The card people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Apparently, they were Alf and Ralph and Alf and Alf B and Ralph B.
Right.
But then that was changed to Alf and Ralph and then the bottom ones are Jim and Tim. Of course it is. Yeah, that was going to be what I guessed.

(15:25):
I just love that these characters who names we ne whose names we never learn are have names.
Yeah.
Like Jim Henson's just like everybody's everybody's worthwhile. They're all valid.
Yeah.
All puppets matter.
Yeah.
Um so I do love them. They're funny. The Helping Hands straight after that. I think it's a fantastic setpiece. She chose down.
Yeah. After she says it's a piece of piece of cake and there's a bit of hub. there. She gets dropped in a hole.
Did you notice the number of times people say it's a piece of cake and then something terrible happens immediately after?
Yeah.
I love it.
It's like Jurassic Park. This Jurassic Park was inspired by Labyrinth,
was it?
Yeah.
Yeah. It's in the same universe.
Yeah. Michael Cryon definitely didn't write the book. Did he write the book? It doesn't matter. Go back to the hole. Yeah. The the whole the hole of hands.
Mhm.
Yeah. That the tunnel of hands.
Helping hands.
Helping. Yeah. And it drops. It's like a 40ft rig or something. that
they dropped Jennifer Connelly into

(15:46):
and she's just falling and they're grabbing her 75 75 extras or something in that.
Wow.
Again, like logistically like how many cups of tea you going through that day? Loads.
I don't think that's their biggest concern.
No,
obviously hydration is important.
Should be a production probably 20 quid ahead for per plate. It's cost a fortune in some of these days.
So you think that's where the 25 million budget went?
It's always catering. Yeah. or John Travolta's feet.
Yeah.
So, there's that. Then, shortly after that, we've got the ooiet.
The ooiet.
The ooliet, which I thought was like a nonsense word that was made up for this film. Uh, turns out it's was a real thing,
right? And it means a dark cave
with
it means it's real in it.
An ooliet was basically um a a prison that only had one way in and out. And that was a hole in the top.
Oh, like um Dark Night Rises.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was in an ooiet.

(16:07):
He was born in the dark.
He was born in aniet.
It doesn't. No, it's not quite as catchy.
That was the first draft.
Yeah.
Something's not right.
They refined it.
Tom, what do you reckon?
You were born in a dark.
Yeah, that's that's the one. Yeah, let's release that. I didn't know what an ubette was until this movie. M
and I still didn't think it was real until just now what you said
it was generally used by um people who wanted to forget about their prisoners because I think like uh there's a loose translation. It's derived from a French word. Loose translation is like to forget or something.
Okay.
Where you dump prisoners that you don't want to have to worry about. You just leave them to to starve and die.
Wow.
Horrifying.
You don't have to physically murder them yourself. But you can bury them somewhere so when they die you don't have to think about it.
Yeah.
Which is worse.
Yeah.
We've then got the door knockers.

(16:28):
Yeah.
Which we do definitely need to talk about.
Yeah. We got to talk about the knockers. You own You have some knockers.
I do have knockers. Yeah. You bought me some knockers.
I did got you some knockers, didn't I?
They're on the fridge.
Not every woman can say that.
No.
Yeah. They're great. And I I really relate to the deaf one.
Yeah,
because the number of times I in my daily life I also go is alarming.
Yeah.
But I do like them. And I love just the background s*** with Ludo f****** around with the the knocker.
Yeah. Putting it in his mouth.
I love it.
Copying what the door the door guy does.
Yeah.
What did What were their names? The knockers. They just called the knockers.
I don't know if they they must have names
like Terry and June. Yeah.
Yeah.

(16:49):
Um, we've got, you've already mentioned the introduction of Sedimus, got the bog of Eternal Stench.
Yeah, of course. Revolting. It's
grotesque. It's revoling. What do you think the Bog of Eternal Stench smells of?
Uh, the Travel Lodge.
The Travel Lodge in Kingston.
Yeah,
you better hope they're not listening.
The Travel Lodge after I've been there. That's my qualifications once I've left.
What are you eating? Uh,
it must be a grotesque scene.
The worst smell imaginable because
they really do a good job of like making you feel that smell, don't they, by the visuals.
Yeah, it's horrible.
Like the little like it's it's some sort of marsh that has buttholes.
It's horrible.
It's Yeah, it's like algae with like lily pads but with anuses that just farting out
gas.
Yeah. Horrible.
And the bubbling kind of water that's like a sewage kind of a sewage thing.
I've never seen Jw I've never seen a body of water with so many prolapsed anuses.
No.

(17:10):
And I probably never will again.
This is the most prolapsed anuses that I've ever seen in a movie. I think
I bet that's not true.
No, it's probably not. Actually,
a movie that had a mainstream release Maybe qualify it with that.
Yeah.
The sort of movie you can uh eat popcorn with.
Well, you only need one hand to eat popcorn.
That's true.
So, we've got the um Sarah eats the peach and has the ballroom hallucination.
Yeah, I guess so. Bogle gives her the peach. He's like a
bobble. Now,
he didn't even want to give her the peach, but he does it cuz he's still scared at that point.
Mhm.
And um she hallucinates the masquerade ball, which is where the word for mask comes from as if you educated me to today. And I thought about it, I was like, "Yeah, that does make sense." Actually,
apparently that was the easiest scene to film because it didn't involve any puppets, children, or animals.
I bet they flew through that. I bet that was such a lovely couple of days. Put this in the middle of the schedule so that we can relax a bit.
But I do love the attention to detail. Obviously, it's it's pretty obvious that everything in this movie, as you've already said, relates to stuff that's in Sarah's bedroom. But down to like the gown that she's wearing and the stuff in her hair, she looks just like her mom did in the picture and her mirror.
Yeah, I thought that she that the picture of in the mirror that we see at the end, I thought that did looked a lot like Jennifer Connelly, actually. And I wondered if there was like some time
loop thing going on, but probably not.
It's one of those time loop situations, you know.

(17:31):
Yeah, you probably heard about it.
Garbage lady, obviously voiced by the woman who also did the voice for Bellina. in um Return to Ours,
right?
Another 80s flop that I love,
which could have been on this season.
Could have been. Yeah,
we'll cover it at some point. And then the last one, I guess the most memorable in the finale is the Mecca Goblin.
I love that. Like, I still love that. Just where the doors kind of slot together and then out pops it. f****** genius. f****** genius.
It's way better than Megazord
by a country mile. There's no contest.
I I always forget about that though when when that scene comes on, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, it's this bit. I forget about this." But it's so cool. Just the design of it. You're right.
Like it would never work.
No,
because where the the goblin that was piloting it was smack bang in the middle of its head. So where was that previously?
Where was his head?
No. Where was the goblin? Just off to one side.
It was It was It was half Yeah, it was half in It was still like fused. It's like a Pacific Rim situation. I guess it's like right down the middle
and half of his body would have been on each side of the door. So and then when they join they like come to life.
The goblin.
Yeah,
the little goblin that was piloting it in the head.

(17:52):
The little goblin. Yeah.
So that was in half as well.
Yeah. The big thing was in half and inside it was in half.
I thought I was overthinking this, but maybe I've been underthinking layers. And then inside the goblin there was another thing controlling the goblin and that was in half. Yeah.
Oh, was it like um like Men in Black? Was there a little alien? in there.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like Men in Black and it kept going all the way down infinitely.
Yeah. So, do you know some of the other people that were considered for Bow's role?
I Yeah, I've heard a couple. What What What research did you happen to
Well, the main one that I kept seeing mentioned was Michael Jackson,
which would have made that whole that he takes children uh slightly more problematic.
A bit more of a problem. Yeah,
I think Jenz might have more of a case for canceling the movie on that basis.
Allegedly.
Allegedly. Yeah, of course. Sorry, forgot.
Yeah, I don't I mean I hate it. It's never going to work, is it?
It would just be such a different film.
Yeah. It would be Moon The Moon Boy. What's that called?
The Moon Boy.
Moonraker. Or was it? No, that's the James Bond one. Moon Walker. This must be called Moonwalker, mustn't it?
Yeah. Is it called Moon Walker?
I don't know.

(18:13):
The Joe Peshy Michael Jackson thing where he turns Michael Jackson turns into a spaceship or something.
I feel like Do you know what?
He was in The Whiz, which was another adaptation of The Wizard of Oz.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
All yellow brick roads lead back to the
Michael Jackson.
Um, also Sting.
I don't have the vitriolic hate of Sting that you have. And I don't know where that comes from, but I do despise the man.
Yeah, but I uh I He's not He doesn't have anything, does he? Is he He's not really a character. I was I think he's quite boring.
Yeah, he doesn't exactly strike me as charismatic.
I don't see that at all.
No, he's done a couple of movies. He was in that June.
Oh, yeah. Of course he was.
Is it Who did that? Was it Croninberg? Lynch. Of course it is.
Yeah,
the Lynch D June. And um different David. One of the Davids.
Yeah, one of the weird Davids. That's why I confused him.
And he did uh he was in that Guy Richie movie, Lock Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels as the dad of Nick Moran or something, I think.
Oh my god. Yeah, you're right.
But he wasn't like he's in it and then he's not. He sort of disappears. But it's not like I watch it and go, "Oh, you could you are such a talent. You could do anything you want."

(18:34):
You should have been in Labyrinth.
You should have been in Labyrinth playing the Jarth role. I wouldn't even cast him as the
struggle. I could see it.
He does look a bit like Sting, doesn't he?
Maybe it was in in homage.
Maybe Sting declined their offer and they were like, "f*** it. We're redesigning Huggle."
Yeah. Sorry, I haven't got I haven't got time to do your little puppet movie. Yeah, I'm doing Tantric Sex 25 hours a day.
That's why I hate him. He takes himself so goddamn seriously.
Yeah.
Get a life.
Get a life, Sting. Um, also, apparently,
you told him make. Yeah, cuz he's listening alongside Stam Winston's kids. And who else from last week?
Oh, no, not last week. Tank Girl. Sorry.
Tank Girl.
Um, yeah, Mick Jagger was also considered.
Uh, out of the the out of all of them,
out of those three suggestions, Jagger's the best.
Yeah. Although, did you see him in Freejack?
No.
Maybe maybe not on that basis.
But if it was between Jackson and Sting, I'd take Jagger probably.

(18:55):
Yeah, me too. But again, I just David Bowie really made this role his own.
I can't see anyone else doing that.
No,
not even like uh there is obviously there's been a sequel in development for for ages.
Mhm.
Now, and the last version of it was Robert Edgars was uh Edgars
was um linked to it and probably about the time that Noseratu came out and they were promoting that.
I think it's official now.
Yeah, I think it's official
cuz a couple of other people like I know Scott Derekson was attached at one point. Fedy Alvarez, I think, as well. So, I think like it's it's they've signed on the dotted line now for
Egos. It does. Yeah. Well, it feels like something's going to happen, but who knows?
I think the hardest job is going to be casting the Goblin King.
But that was going to be my question. If it is going to be a sequel and you're going to replace who like no one else could have played that character the way that he did, who who are you going to possibly I I think you just stay away from that character. I don't see a way of doing it. Who do you who do you cast if you're doing it?
Do people have any interest if there's no Jarth, though?
I don't know. It's a It's a tricky one. Is it worth doing without Jeriff?
Maybe not.
I don't know. It's It's a It's a hard one.
I'm not overjoyed about the prospect of it, but knowing it's in Robert Edgar's hands, I'm more optimistic than I was.
Alvarez feels a bit of an outlier to me. Like, I don't love that
he did a better job with alien than I thought he would.
Yeah, if I'm being honest,

(19:16):
on the whole, I quite like his movies, but I don't know. Maybe he he'd be uh too tempted to go too dark with it. Maybe there'd definitely be loads of goo in it. Way too much goo.
I feel like Robert Edgars is probably pretty close to being like a modern orur these days, though, cuz he's
like Fedy Alvarez is a decent filmmaker. Robert Edgars has a vision, you know?
Yeah. And it and it's often kind of like a fantastical situation. or like just a weird
he builds these very off thebeaten path but believable worlds.
Yeah, he does. And he seems to do it with quite little as well. It'd be interesting to see what he does if they give him a bunch of money and loads of puppets to work with.
Unless they go CGI.
Don't if it's CGI, I'm not interested.
Yeah, I tend to agree with that.
I'm a slot for puppets.
What can I tell you?
So, um, so Bowie in a sequel Mhm.
A serious question though. Who do you put in that one?
Tilda Swinton.
I think that's the obvious answer, isn't it?
It has to be. Who else?
I I I've thought about it for a while, ever since that news was announced a few months ago, and I can't come up with anyone better.
Unless you go in a completely different direction where he's creepy in a different way, and you get like a Desmaltian.
That's a That's a That's a shout actually. I like that. Yeah,
maybe.
Yeah, it could just be a Goblin King. can be like a like a mantle that people take. Like it doesn't have to be Bowie. It can be a different Goblin King, can't it? Oh, that's what's happening.

(19:37):
I hope so.
It has to happen. Deschin is a great show.
But I I I just worry I fear that they're going to go in the direction of someone like Bill Scarsgard,
especially because Edgars has worked with him before
or Ralph.
And I Yeah.
And I don't get me wrong, I'm a big Bill Scarsgard fan, but not not in that.
Yeah. I don't know though. Like it I said I thought that about Noseratu.
Yeah.
Gave him the benefit of the doubt because it's Edgars
and um he's it as well, isn't he? And because of what he did cuz when they go back to that as well, like when they cast him like who like who's this guy? And like f****** hell, he nailed it.
It was almost Will Poulter,
right? But I think that he could have done that as well. I liked that casting. Actually, I remember when they cast Will Porter and I was like, "Oh, I love that casting." And then they swapped out for Bill Scarsgard and I was like, "I don't know about that."
But he nailed it.
He did it. failed.
So, it's like, yeah, I don't know. I could be kind of interested to see what he would do with it, I guess.
Well, time will tell.
Yeah. I don't know if is it really going to happen, though. I'm a little bit skeptic about it. I don't know if it's it's a lot of resources. It's a lot of money. The the original Labyrinth cost 25 million.
Yeah.
Which I get. I don't know. Is that a lot of money in 1984? I guess relatively. What was M's
for a movie about puppets? Probably.

(19:58):
I Yeah, I don't know. I wonder what Bow's fee was.
Yeah,
cuz he had done some acting, but he was like his fame was stratospheric by that point.
He wouldn't have needed to to do the movie.
God, no.
So, pro. I don't know.
I mean, he'd always had an interest in acting. Like, most of his work on stage was acting.
It's all performance, isn't it?
Yeah, it's all performance art. But I don't know. I think he'd sort of expressed an interest in going in a different direction cuz he'd never done a kids film before. Yeah.
So maybe he would have accepted a lower fee because he was just invested.
Maybe. I know that Jim Henson was keen to go go with um with Bowie and he did pursue him for a little while.
Well, he wasn't initially. His kids talked him into it.
Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Well, great shout.
We've got Brian to thank.
Children make a good decision for once.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh but yeah, I think when he showed Bowie versions of the script, he just quite liked it and quite enjoyed the kind of silly nature of it and the I guess it must have just admired the creativity.
So yeah, no there's no one else.
It's tough, isn't it?
Yeah, it is tough.

(20:19):
So ultimately, do you think Labyrinth should have had a much bigger box office because it was a flop? I think they made like what was it like 3 million opening weekend or something?
I know that it was 25 million budget.
I think it made 13 worldwide overall.
I think I read like 30 35 or something. Really? Yeah.
There was some um conflicting information though, so I don't who knows like for sure.
I also read that it didn't do great in the States, but did better in like overseas and particularly in the UK.
It does, like I said, it does feel sort of more of a British thing.
Yeah.
In a lot of ways, the worms the worms British.
It's very offbeat.
Yeah.
Even like the The false alarms, the big stone faces.
Yeah.
I mean, the regional accent. I love it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, go on.
Yeah. It is very English. It is very English. I think it's I think it's such a tragedy that it knocked Jim Henson's confidence so much.
I know.
That is a shame.
Yeah. I know. Much like a lot of the films that we've covered this season, shortly after release, it did start to pick up momentum and gain a bit of a cult following. Um, which is I think the only reason any of these films are still remembered because the people who love them really f****** love them.
Yeah.

(20:40):
Are like rabid about it.
They're the ones buying the the arrow and
Yeah.
re-releases and then
please can somebody just do like the sweetest release of this movie. Please.
What's there is one, isn't there?
I've got the Mondo steelbook which is pretty cool.
That is cool. Isn't there um I remember seeing a purple one I think like a box set thing somewhere.
I took maybe that's just a DVD with a commentary that I was looking at or something.
Yeah. This
is there. There's not obviously there's not a director's commentary.
There's definitely not a handsome one. No, that would have been epic.
It would have been way ahead of his time.
Well, yeah. We're just going to record you talking over the movie for no real purpose. Yeah, but it might come in handy in the future.
He was pioneering for
Yeah. Well, yeah, he was.
There must be versions where like historians or people involved with the production that the kid probably has done. commentaries and stuff and there's probably like screenings and stuff and Q&As's because it's very popular.
Yeah.
Like it's it has an enduring
thing about it, doesn't it?
Yeah.

(21:01):
Yeah. And I think like I say the people who love it really do love it
and I'm very much one of them.
But I wonder I wonder if that is going to die out at some point. Like you mentioned about the children trying to cancel it cuz it's inappropriate. But
yeah,
does that mean that it's I don't know in 20 years are people going to be like what's f*** Labyrinth. I can't see it. There'll be other versions of like Labyrinth 2 and three will be out by then.
I think as long as people are breeding, I could have said procreating, but I decided to say breeding.
Yeah,
because we're all animals.
That works.
Um, as long as people are having kids and introducing their kids to the things that they loved when they were young,
I think it will have some sort of enduring legacy.
Yeah.
I don't think it will be forgotten. about anytime soon. At least I hope not. Um, but obviously we talked a little bit about themes at the start and funnily enough, I think nostalgia is kind of one of my biggest takeaways of this movie because yes, it's about this 14-year-old girl kind of quote unquote growing up and putting away childish things. But then the scene at the end where they're like, "Should you need us?" And she's like, "I do need you for no reason at all. I need you." And it's like, "Yeah, we do." That's nostalgia. That's what nostalgia is. why we embrace things like Stranger Things because it reminds us of the media that came out in our youth. That's why some people, not me, have collectibles and toys in their house.
I I don't know. I think that to me is like the most that's my biggest takeaway.
Yeah.
Is like don't And especially coming from Hensen, like I think I think a strong message from him was always like don't forget your childlike innocence and whimsy and embrace it. You don't need to be like that all the time, but don't forget that part of yourself.
Yeah. No, I totally agree with that.
And I kind of love that.
Yeah. It is a very nostalgic movie and it's these things are always sort of propped up by we we've got like you mentioned sort of the Q&A things that happen all the time, the the secret cinemas, uh all of that stuff like just proves that people are still interested in this stuff.
Well, there's the labyrinth experience that seems to be happening. yearly now in High Wickham,
right? It's yearly, isn't it?

(21:22):
Yeah, there's um there was the Labyrinth thing recently that we tried to get tickets for but couldn't. It was like a screening where the there was a a live musical accompaniment. Oh, yeah. Maybe.
Yeah, that sounds.
So, yeah, there's a there's a lot of stuff still going on.
There is. You've never been to the Labyrinth Experience, have you?
No.
Would you like to?
Yeah.
Yeah,
of course.
Oh, good. Cuz I booked it the other day.
No, you didn't.
Yes, I did.
Did you really?
Yeah.
Are you kidding?
No. I'm serious. I got us the Ludo pass. We're going on a Saturday.
Are you Are you genuinely being honest?
I'm being I wouldn't mess with you like this.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
Are we going to dress up?

(21:43):
We can. We could dress up if you like.
You can be the worm.
I can. And I'm going to do the worm.
We're going to do the worm.
Do the worm as the worm.
I'm going to do the worm as the worm the whole way there. We're going to drive to High Wickham. But I'm doing the worm.
Really? You're not.
I wouldn't mess with you like this.
Oh my god. Gosh,
that'll be fun.
I'm so excited.
Yeah, good.
I'm doing a happy cry.
Good.
Oh my god, I can't believe you booked it. I expect to end this episode.
I feel like I feel like one of those TV shows when you bring on the kid, you're like, "Oh, we took you to Disneyland or whatever."
You're my Oprah.
Yeah, there are worse things to be called an Oprah.
Yeah, for sure. Oh.
Oh my god.
So yeah, I guess we'll we'll report in on that and see how that goes.

(22:04):
That's exciting.
Will you feel nostalgic that day?
Yeah.
Are we going to watch it before we go?
Yeah.
Yeah. Or we going to watch it when we come back?
And we'll listen to the soundtrack the whole way there as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh, I'm excited.
Good. Good.
Yeah. I don't I don't really have a good way to end this show. other than saying I can't overstate how magical
I find this movie and it's almost really hard to articulate why because everything about it is so great everything we we haven't even really mentioned Jennifer Connelly she's fantastic
yeah
she's great in it and to be 14 as well like
still going you mentioned earlier when we were watching it that was it her first movie that was the Arento one
I don't know It was her first, but she'd already done our Denza.
Yeah, I can't imagine this would have been a hard sell after doing a movie where she could communicate telepathically with insects and acting alongside a straight razor wielding chimp.
There are too too many things in that movie. They're asking too much of the audience. I'm sorry.
But not of Jennifer Connelly cuz she's a goddamn professional, right?

(22:25):
Yeah,
she is a professional. Yeah.
H Yeah. It's to me it's
Is it perfect this movie? It's as close to perfect as I can possibly imagine. Yeah,
I have I I've been trying to think of things that I don't like about it. Like I don't like I say I don't I don't have the enduring kind of nostalgic love for it quite as much.
I do have a bit of it because it was just around like I say when I was a kid but it's not a love more of an appreciation
I guess. But I do think it's great but and thinking about it like are there things that I can criticize and I'm struggling.
It's difficult to Yeah,
I'm really struggling. There's usually in films that you can sort of pick something that wasn't right. A million things in driven
and tangle.
Yeah. Untangle. Many episodes this season, but this is uh one of those movies that is uh it definitely shouldn't have flopped cuz the quality is too good.
But also, if you look at all the separate elements, it shouldn't have worked either.
How do you mean?
It's bonkers.
The the the the kind of thing
it's about a teenage girl who goes on a an odyssey where She collects friends who aren't people, they're puppets. And also, there's a a goblin king who
kidnaps baby. Yeah. He's also international pop star David Bowie.
Yeah. It's like it's asking a lot of you, doesn't it?
It is. It is.
And a lot of it on paper shouldn't have worked.
Yeah.

(22:46):
But just I don't It's like lightning in a bottle.
I was This exactly the phrase I was thinking of. It definitely feels like one of those situations that if they had made this like a month, three months before 3 months after they maybe would have not captured the the thing that they captured in this.
Yeah. Or if it had been Sting,
they could have gone horribly wrong.
Yeah. And it would have to be honest. It would have been a Eric Staltz situation I think from Back to the Future. Although shot a month and then gone the f*** off Sting, but some of the back of his head is still in it.
But maybe Butterfly Effect if Sting had been Jarth and I'd watched it as much as I did as a kid. Maybe I would love Sting now.
Maybe you would love Sting. Maybe you'd be obsessed obsessed with Sting.
I'm not obsessed with David Bowie.
Well, okay.
He's not above criticism.
No. Well, that's true.
Yeah. He did some not great things.
I've heard that some of his albums aren't great.
Yeah. And I don't love every song that he put out. Obviously,
I'm not I'm not like a big Bowie person. I don't really know much about his,
but I think this is where it started for me. I can I can trace it back to this film.
And so, this is where your obsession with Bowie started. It's not an obsession. We've just we've just cleared that up.
Okay. Okay. Fine. I'm glad that you you you're not so um frosty about that. Um so, but this is when you first came to know about Bowie and then you learned about his music and after that
went to see him when I was 20.
Oh, okay. Was that like a big venue? Big like Wembley sort of
Oh, it was Yeah. Manchester Evening News Arena was massive.

(23:07):
Yeah. I thought it would be.
And I was sitting very far away. He's very small, but it was still one of the greatest nights of my life.
Yeah, I bet that was I bet that was cool. You were Yeah. Okay. What's your favorite era of Bowie? Is it this ' 80s era because of Labyrinth or
do you sort of
do you separate them like the the actor from the musician or are they is it kind of the same person to you? How do you
Well, it's all Bowie even though I know a lot of his music was done in character and it's hard to say. I like I'm very fond of late 70s, early 80s. I like the Berlin era stuff.
What's the Berlin era?
Um when he lived in Berlin for a long time and like recorded albums there and was sort of super influenced by the musical trends that were going on there at the time. And yeah, I don't know. Station to Station, man. Such a good one.
Such a good one. Yeah, it's just he's one of those celebrities that even though he's He wasn't an angel. Like he had some black marks on his conscience. I think that I'm not going to go into detail, but you know, he was of that era. They definitely f***** underage groupies.
Okay,
let's just say that and leave it there. Allegedly, if anybody from the estate of David Bowie is listening,
I like I said, I know nothing almost nothing about any of it.
There's there's been stories.
Oh, there have been actual stories. Okay.
Um, which is obviously not great and I don't believe anybody is above critic. ism.
No,
but I just think he was just a once in a generation talent.
I think he was such an interesting person. I really do.
Is he above criticism?
Not like social criticism. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, can he be cancelled? I mean, he's dead.
Well, postly,

(23:28):
yeah,
be difficult.
But would if he was alive, would you would do you think that he could have been cancelled?
No.
Or would he have been immune to it?
I don't think cancellation is real.
Well, I You know what I mean?
I think if you're Graeme Lahan, you can cancel yourself, you f****** moron.
Yeah, but then you can just go on podcasts and moan about being cancelled and make money from doing that. So,
my wife left me. God.
Yeah. Do you know why?
You're a prick.
Yeah.
No, it's cuz I got cancelled. Yeah. Do you know why
you're a prick? But you're right. It doesn't exist.
But I don't know. I don't I don't get sad when celebrities die.
Well, maybe I get sad, but I'm just I move on with my day.
But did you when He died. That hit me hard.
That was a sad sad time. Yeah.
Yeah. I think for me it'll be Martin Short.
Yeah. Oh

(23:49):
yeah. Uh assuming that he goes before I do. Maybe not. But um yeah. So you're not obsessed with Bowie at all, but you were devastated when he died.
Look, obsessed is a strong word. Okay.
Labyrinth is one of your favorite. Is this in your top 10, would you say?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
A lot of your favorite movies are kind of dark fantasy, aren't they? I kept
I do love dark fantasy. Yeah,
I kept thinking about Nightbreales.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The whole um for me thinking about Night Breed going into the labyrinth before just getting it's different. I suppose like Boon's it's like I've got to get to the Night Breed or whatever. Mid Midian and and the guy that cuts his face off. It's like this thing that they've got to get to. The labyrinth isn't quite that, but the whole other worldliness of it made me keep thinking about it. Probably because We watched it very recently, but I kept thinking about that and and thinking about how quite a lot of your favorite films are kind of dark fantasy kind of uh have a dark fantasy spin on them
and it's very much part of who you are, I think.
Yeah,
it's interesting to watch. It's interesting to watch these movies with you.
Okay.
I like watching Labyrinth with you. It makes you very happy,
doesn't it? It does.
You do. You dance a bit.
Gleeful.
Yeah. And I can see you get every time you probably get emotional with the ludo a bit. And you've seen it how many times?

(24:10):
I I couldn't even tell you at this point.
Yeah.
It's got to be a hundred.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's crazy. I'm glad you finally got to cover it.
Me, too.
Yeah.
I've been excited. I don't know. This one didn't feel as daunting as as like The Thing, for example.
Yeah.
I was just excited about this one. I wasn't nervous.
What was the difference, do you think?
Um, don't know
cuz I don't know. I can see like they're very similar. movies in that like
the way they were received and then
quite quickly I guess cuz I remember growing up it was oh you've seen Labyrinth and like everyone's talked about lab the Labyrinth and it was great
but uh I don't I suppose I didn't I had no no awareness of what flops were back then when I was a kid
but yeah
speaking of flops
we've got one more
y

(24:31):
one left
just one
and it's your choice it's back over to you so what are you beating us to next week.
I'm going to end the season with And you're welcome. Maybe our first computer game movie. Maybe there was another one. I don't know. Um, but we're doing Super Mario Brothers 1993.
Of course we are.
Johnny Legs.
Johnny Legs.
Johnny Legs.
Bobby Hoskins.
Yeah. Uh, other guy. What's in speech? Oh, Denny Hopper.
Denny.
Denny Hopper. Yeah. And
do you think because Deni Vner is pronounced that way, you think all Dennis is a Deni?
Yeah. Deny Hopper.
Denny the menace.
Denny Taylor.
Deny Liry.
Let's save that till next week, shall we?

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Labyrinth - S10 E81

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Labyrinth - S10 E81