Pop Culture | Movies | 80s
10 Facts About 'Labyrinth' That Will Make You Believe In Dance Magic
One of the absolute classics of Jim Henson's prolific career, Labyrinth is a movie whose amazing cast, intricate puppets, and great music have made it stand the test of time. In fact, people like it so much that it's actually getting released back into theaters!
In honor of this fact, here's some things you might not know about this amazing movie!
It has the first CGI animal in a feature film.
The owl in the title sequence is computer generated, and was actually the first-ever attempt to make a photo-realistic animal out of CGI.
None of the crystal ball tricks were special effects.
They were all done by choreographer Michael Moschen, an accomplished juggler who was crouched behind David Bowie and lifting his own arms up in place of Bowie's. Also, he had no video feed to work off of, meaning he did the tricks completely blind.
Sarah's bedroom sets up the whole movie.
A ton of the characters show up as dolls throughout her room, the newspaper clippings show her mom with David Bowie, and the paintings on her walls show much of the technology found in the Labyrinth.
The baby was a handful to deal with.
Baby Toby apparently screamed a lot and made a big fuss, so for the scene where he's being hypnotized by Jareth, a crew member had to entertain Toby with a Sooty puppet from off-camera to get him to stay quiet.
The facts just get weirder from here people...
A bunch of music superstars were considered for Jareth.
Michael Jackson, Prince, Mick Jagger, and Sting were all considered for the role, but Jim Henson's kids convinced him that Bowie would be the best choice.
Over a hundred latex hands were made for the "helping hands" scene.
That's a lotta hands...
It was Jim Henson's last movie.
He would unfortunately pass away from pneumonia four years later, at the age of 53. His son, Brian Henson, would take over the directing duties of his company's movies.
George Lucas produced the movie but did none of the press work for it.
He was good friends with Henson and said that he didn't want to steal any of the director's thunder.
Did you spot the black crow throughout the movie?
It shows up in several scenes, like when Sarah crosses the bog, in the junkyard, and when she and her friends enter the Goblin City.
"It's a piece of cake" means s***'s about to get real.
Literally every time a character says this in the movie, something bad happens almost immediately after.