Labyrinth (1986)
Directed by Jim Henson
Frustrated with babysitting on yet another weekend night, Sarah, a teenager with an active imagination, summons the Goblins to take her baby stepbrother away. When little Toby actually disappears, Sarah must follow him into a fantastical world to rescue him from the Goblin King. Guarding his castle is the labyrinth itself, a twisted maze of deception, populated with outrageous characters and unknown dangers.
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6 films that influenced Labyrinth
What critics say influenced Labyrinth
As riffs on Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz go, Jim Henson's Labyrinth is a painfully dated, shockingly un-magical romp through a fragmented netherworld populated by Ziggy Stardust and a horde of little people wearing giant papier-mâché heads.
Similar to the books loved by the film’s young hero, which include Peter Pan, Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and Where the Wild Things Are, Labyrinth is a wildly inventive and imaginative adventure story combined with a parable about maturity.
Movie lovers will recognize elements of "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz" that Henson "borrowed" to make this movie, but they'll also get a kick out of seeing all of the elements in this film that turn up later in the Harry Potter books and movies.
You can see in this adventure everything from "The Wizard of Oz " and "Alice in Wonderland " to "New Zoo Revue " and Pink Floyd's "The Wall ."
And I don't mean having a character who's tied to a definite age entering into a fantasy world, because we've seen that a multitude of times since J. M. Barrie introduced audiences to Peter Pan, L. Frank Baum gave us Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Lewis Carroll penned Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
And I don't mean having a character who's tied to a definite age entering into a fantasy world, because we've seen that a multitude of times since J. M. Barrie introduced audiences to Peter Pan, L. Frank Baum gave us Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Lewis Carroll penned Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
What's happened with Labyrinth in the years since its release is similar to the recent resurgence in interest in Peter Yates' bizarrely unpleasant Krull: story inconsistencies, narrative weaknesses, and all manner of special effects atrocities fall before the remembrance of a child's anticipation and subsequent lack of discretion.
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The attempt to integrate live-action with "muppetry" is ambitious, no question, yet it remains a mystery as to why Labyrinth looks so bad, particularly when compared to the enduring triumph of The Muppet Movie and its sequels.
"The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth," made during his 1980s foray into directing feature films, showcase the lesser-known aspect of his creativity.
While the film is a nostalgic hallmark for many (and so is Pete's Dragon, it occurs), cinematically and artistically, better to revisit Henson's flawed but breathing The Dark Crystal .
Unlike director Jim Henson’s equally magnificent previous feature film The Dark Crystal (co-directed with Frank Oz in 1982), Labyrinth is more traditionally a family film.