I think I made it through the Labyrinth! What an interesting movie full of amazing puppets, cool songs, David Bowie, lots of creativity, and probably the worst green screen/blue screen moment I have seen in a while! I had a lot of fun with it though and Hoggle is the best character! Thanks for watching! Have a great day! :)
FUN FACT: The Director Of Choreography and Puppet Movement on this film was Cheryl McFadden AKA Gates McFadden, and a year later was cast as Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek The Next Generation.
The scene with the bad compositing was the result of a mistake that took place, and it was too late to fix it before the movie was released. I can't remember the details, but the people involved spoke about it afterwards saying that someone make a single mistake in the post-production process, and it messed up how everything looked in that scene. This is when everything was of course made using celluloid film and so you couldn't just tweak it in the computer to correct things. It's a shame, but overall, I love the movie and it set a new benchmark in puppetry and fantasy cinema. Hoggle was the most complex puppet head ever, and the CGI owl was the first of its kind, so looked amazing at the time. The baby used in the movie was actually the son of the guy who designed the whole look and feel of the movie/the goblins etc.
Fun fact, Gates McFadden who plays Dr. Crusher on TNG was the choreographer for this movie, although, she's credited as Cheryl McFadden (her first name) as she usually is for choreography work. :D
Oh my gosh....when you said you didn't know who Jim Henson was it just made me want to cry! You really are so young! Jim Henson is the man behind Sesame Street! It was his creative masterpiece so if you EVER saw Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch...or any of The Muppet Movies with Miss Piggy or Animal then you have seen Jim Henson at his finest.
Jim Henson creator of The Muppets and also involved with Sesame Street he did do Dark Crystal and quite a few other Fantasy and Puppet based movies and shows
the scene where they use a Green screen to dance with puppets. the technology was actually being developed by ILM at the time so they didn't have access to proper tools, also they shop this so far before the technology they dint actually use a green screen rather a super black felt room and dressed the puppeteers in black, the aim was rather to make the puppeteers disappear rather than typical green screen work done today. there is a very nice hour long documentary on the labrinth that i wouldwatch after the credits on the vhs copy. they really wanted u to know how much work went into the film.
A long time ago I worked for the guy who animated the owl. When I asked "what animation software did you have?" he curtly answered "Vi". For those of you too young or not familiar with Unix, Vi is an ancient text editor. He did all the animation by editing very crude motion functions and manually tweaking lists of numbers he entered by hand. He would save changes in the text editor, launch the renderer and wait minutes to get a few wireframe images that he could flip through rapidly to get an idea of motion (not full frame rate or even the full length of a shot). It would take days to get a full shot in any kind of shaded form and then more days to get it printed to film. To say it was a slow process is an understatement.
Fun facts: Sarah was originally 18 in the script, they changed the character's age to Jennifer Connelly's age because she killed it at the audition at 14. The real name of David's wife (Iman) is "Zara" and the daughter they both had also has Zara as a middle name. Hoggle is played by a woman, the actress Shari Weiser, who wore the suit during scenes where Hoggle appears full-length. In other scenes he is played by a puppet (as they did with other characters in the movie and that trick was also used on Alf) The film had a terrible reception at the box office, ironically it would be a cult film after its progressive success in television broadcasts. Sadly, Jim Henson passed away before seeing generations of fans who would love his film. He became so depressed by the poor reception and the critic´s that he did not want to direct another film. Jennifer Conelly was bullied by her classmates for making a movie with David Bowie (she faced the anger of teenage fans for being lucky enough to work with him). She told that a classmate got so upset that she tore up a poster she had of Ziggy Stardust. Even so, Jennifer said that she had fond memories of her time working with David Bowie and that he was very kind to her. David Bowie's son, Duncan, who is the same age as Jennifer, fell briefly in love with her during the filming shooting, where he also operated one of the puppets in some sequences. Paul Bettany also had a crush on her when he saw her in the movie, but only him had a happy ending. There are rumors of a sequel (hopefully it doesn't happen for obvious reasons).
I was 5 years old when this movie came out😄 this was my introduction to David Bowie😂 (still a fan) Fun fact; the baby is played by Toby Froud, the son of the faerie artist Brian Froud, who drew the concept art for this movie
Jim Henson began a show on PBS in the late 60's called Sesame Street using puppets to teach small children. It became so popular that he ended up branching out into movies and TV shows. He was behind all of that in the Star War's franchise. Yoda was a Muppet
"Everything I've done, I've done for you. I move the stars for no one." Fun Fact: One of the choreographers for this movie was Cheryl McFadden. You and everyone else knows her better as Gates McFadden, Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Dancing Hands Fact: The "Dance Magic" scene consisted of over forty-eight muppets, fifty-two puppeteers, and eight people in goblin costumes. Over one hundred pairs of latex hands were made for the "Helping Hands" scene. Jareth's Balls Fact: The various things that Jareth does with the crystal balls (rolling them around his arms and in his hands and so forth) are not camera tricks or any other kind of special effect. They are actually done by choreographer Michael Moschen, who is an accomplished juggler. Moschen was actually crouched behind David Bowie with his arm(s) replacing Bowie's. Unlike a typical Muppet performance, however, he had no video screen to view his performance. In other words, his manipulations were performed completely blind.
It wasn't green screen, so to speak. It was filmed against a black curtain with all the puppeteers in black spandex socks so they could easily be removed. Not the best way to do it if you want to preserve shadows, since it's black, but I guess it was the easiest way to do it in 1986.
You HAVE to see The Dark Crystal now, seriously one of my favorite movies ever. Artist Brian Froud did the production design on Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, while his son Toby Froud played baby Toby in this movie. A now-adult Toby recently worked with his dad on the Netflix follow-up Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which is really good.
Damn, I forget how young you are. That was the most drab description of Jim Hensons legacy I've ever heard. "I've heard he's a good puppet guy..." He's *THE* puppet guy. And that's still just scratching the surface.
Probably the best combination ive seen so far would be 'Where the Wild Things are', practical suits with simple mouth and face morphing for the facial expressions and talking. Extremely effective. Practical feels 'there', CGI can do what is usually hard to do with practical or that would cause headaches for multipal puppeteers... I just dont know why they do dont it more. Id love to see if they could remaster Labyrinth with some CGI in places, like tweak Hoggles face so the talking is more fluid and less stiff in places... would be interesting.
Sir Didimus has to be my favorite of the puppets, though I love all the hideous little goblins too. The workings of a puppet mounted on the back of a dog are fantastic and he's just so cute!
You gotta do Legend: Director's Cut version (Ridley Scott). If you like 80's fantasy it's top tier and kinda overlooked. Dark Crystal is also a must (Jim Henson).
There's a cool making-of featurette that shows how they did some of the puppetry and practical effects, including the Firey's dance scene. Some people say it kills the illusion, but for me it makes me appreciate the creativity even more. I will always love this movie and I enjoyed your reaction. 😊
My favorite scene was and still is the ballroom. I had such a crush on Jennifer and seeing her in that dress was nothing short of breathtaking. Great reaction!
I once heard someone describe this movie as "It's all about David Bowe's pants." It was, of course, a theatre kid. But I laughed out loud when partway through the movie their friend saod , It really is all about his pants..." I never would have thought of the movoe in those terms. I love this movie. My daughter and I can quote the entire thing. I think if you fall in love with it as a kid it tends to stick with you.
Jim Henson is from my hometown. He’s always been my call to fame. Very talented man. Anyway, the guys that lied and told the truth, it’s easy; ask them: Are you a snake? One will say no, one will say yes. You know which one is correct. Hindsight is 20/20, eh? I’ve had thirty years to reflect, lol.
Here's how she came to the conclusion with the liar/truth-teller scenario. She asked the red one what the blue one would say is the safe door and the red one answered that the blue one would say the red one's door. If the red one was the liar, then he'd say the opposite of what the blue one, who'd be the truth-teller, would say, so the correct answer is the blue one's door. But if the red one was the truth-teller, then the blue one would be lying and would have given her the wrong answer if she asked him instead, so the correct answer was still the blue one's door.
The Fiery gang were done with CSO, but on a black rather than green screen (you can tell as Sarah's dark hair sometimes disappears when it is too similar to the black background). The rest of it would have been blue, rather than green screen in those days. 3:53 Teenagers, particularly girls tend to the overdramatic, while their hormones are all crazy. This tends to mean that girls are over the worst of it by 18 while guys have a few more years of it. 10:45 Sarah did work it out correctly and chose the correct door, which lead towards the castle, but not directly. There are many more perils to go through first. David Bowie can't manipulate glass balls like that, they had a professional juggler playing his hands. Her hair, make-up and the dress in the dream sequence are fantastic. The staircase room is the trippiest yet in an already trippy film. It is based on an Escher print called 'Relativity' which can be seen is Sarah's room. Almost everything in the movie is in Sarah's room in some way. Brian Henson was the voice of Hoggle and I believe he controlled all the parts of the animatronic head, not even the jaw was connected to the actress underneath.
Yep. There is plenty of bluescreen in the movie, but the Fiery couldn't because of the feathers (which bluescreen would either make disappear or put an ugly dark outline). The irony is when people say "that's horrible CG", digital compositing and cgi could actually make the scene look great with relatively little effort. I'm sort of surprised Sony (who I think still owns the rights to the movie) hasn't tried to "spruce it up" but I'm glad they haven't touched the old school special effects.
@@MrTBoneSF Not sure they could redo it with original footage (if it exists), since the Black Screen would cause all sorts of keying(?) issues and the effort required to mask everything out each frame thanks to the black would just be to much. Must admit, my eye twitchs everytime a young reactor calls Bluescreen and Practical effects Greenscreen and CGI (even though there IS CGI in Labyrinth lol)... I mean a person can be ignorant, but there is a minimum limit to knowledge a person should hit when dealing with any medium lol. But seeing a modern Practical CGI blend for the Fiery dance would be interesting.
For those of a certain age, The Muppet Show was must see tv. Its brand of humor was perfect going from childhood into adolesence. RIP Jim Henson, legend.
In The Muppet Show my favorites were those two loudmouthed, elderly hecklers in the balcony; they were the original trolls long before Internet trolling even existed.
A stunt coordinator friend of my was David Bowies stunt double in this. He showed me all the pics of him with Bowie, looked so cool. Said he was an amazing person too
Ahh I was obsessed with this movie as a kid! I would rewind the "Dance Magic Dance" scene multiple times to hear the song again. And I'm always amused when I encounter a random "You remind me of the babe." meme on social media. lol.
I love this movie. I've heard a lot of people note the darker tone, which a lot of older Henson Films had, and the more adult themes as well. They always seemed to cite them as negative things though, as though they detract from the final experience. I personally think it adds so much, its like a Germanic or Slavic fairytale about the fey or something, its such a cool tone.
It's been my favorite since I was 4 years old in 1986. So many behind the scenes info if you have the dvd. The fire gang scared me when I was a kid. That scene was on a black velvet background and puppeteers in black velvet in order for the characters to take off the heads and limbs. Brian Henson did Hoggles voice , among other details. A lot went into making this great movie. My favorite scene has always been the ballroom. The glass balls that David moves around was a different man standing behind David moving them.
The owl at the beginning is CGI. I believe it was the first time CGI was used to animate a living thing in a movie (backgrounds and machines had been done before, if I'm remembering correctly).
I loved this movie as a kid and tend to watch it as a double bill with The Dark Crystal. In case you didn't know, they recently made a new follow-up to The Dark Crystal (was it HBO or Netflix?) with Mark Hamill voicing one of the characters! Some of your sayings crack me up Ollie! My favourite recent one is "What the chicken nuggets?" I'm laughing right now at the thought of it, like a fool.
It was a mistake to try to add the background but as others have said it wasn’t green screen it was a variation on stage puppetry that involves puppeteers in black and a black backdrop and then bright puppets - they tried to translate it to film which is innovative - but it was a fail. Check out the Mummenschanz which is a fantastic human puppetry troop that Henson worked with many times. th-cam.com/video/Ygg3fmKGOMU/w-d-xo.html
Jennifer Connely was and still is stunning :). You should also watch Lady Hawk for more great Jim Hanson puppet I recommend the StoryTeller 1987 which is great tv series of cool fairy tales. There is also a second season of the Greek Mythology
If you enjoyed this movie you absolutely must watch the ‘making of labyrinth’ featurrette that is included with the movie- they show how everything is done with the puppetry and effects. They actually saved hours of footage all that long ago unlike other films of the time and its almost as entertaining as the movie to me.
if you get the chance watch the making of labyrinth. they are all amazing. there are sooo many awesome puppeteers and jim henson and his son, and Terry Jones from Monty python wrote the script etc. to Gates Mcfadden (listed Carol Mcfadden) who choreographed the dance scene ball.
This is very much an 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'The Wizard of Oz' variant, and as a exploration of that, I think it's a good one. There's an undercurrent of burgeoning adulthood that adds to the poignancy of it. The goblin king is both predatory and tragic. It's kind of an amazing film. Id like to recommend you watch The Fall ( 2006), Things Change(1988) and Kikujiro (1999). I think you'd appreciate them.
You might want to find a somewhat obscure fantasy film, "The Company of Wolves" (1984), which sort of starts where this film does, but goes somewhere far darker. For some reason, though, each of them reminds me a bit of the other.
No matter what you think of this movie, there is one sad aspect to it today and that is that no one took the concept of it and went wild with today's possibilities. A story with a labyrinth and go crazy with it. we have seen cities move and change in movies, certainly a labyrinth with strange and familiar creatures, with parts of the labyrinth moving and changing should be possible. Add memorable characters and a gripping story.
Brian Henson said that with all the puppets taking out of set where the goblins were singing and dancing it looked like Swiss cheese. So many holes to move the puppets.
Thank you, Oliver! 🔮 If you'd like to see another interesting one with the incomparable David Bowie, try THE HUNGER (1983). #RolyPolyOllie #JimHenson #Labyrinth #Labyrinth1986
What's interesting is that this movie is a big parallel for abusive relationships, where David Bowie's character represents the abuser, the baby represents Sarah's innocence.
I heard that David Bowie didn't want to do this movie at first because even though it was a musical, he didn't like Jareth at all and hated him. So Jim Henson had to modify a lot of Jareth's original personality.
Don't blame "the computers" for the bluescreen or the Fiery birds (which isn't a bluescreen, but an even older technique with puppeteers being shot against black) because there was ZERO digital compositing in this movie. It's all photochemical/optical compositing. It's also not "early bluescreen" as bluescreen compositing was in use since the 1940s. In the 70s and 80s, Lucasfilm and a few other special effects companies pushed bluescreen as far as it could go before digital compositing came into use in the 90s. They had it perfected for things like spaceships and buildings but hair and feathers were always going to look less-than-good with optical compositing. It's just the reality of optical compositing. Even the one CG sequence (opening shot of the owl) was delivered on film and there's just a simple optical wipe to live action.
I technically only know one fact that makes me still shocked about it to this day. Did you know that during the Magic Dance scene, the baby noises you hear are not from the baby, it was David Bowie himself that did them. The baby wouldn't cooperate and was very stubborn.
You: "Party time in the bedroom, baby!" 😂😂😂😂 Gotta say... when I first found you on youtube, I didn't like your reactions, but you slowly grew on me. You're one of my favorite reactors now. Especially once you started reacting to all the Star Trek stuff. Thanks for bringing Labyrinth back to front of mind. LOVE this movie. Super cheesy, but you can't go wrong with David Bowie.... and Jennifer Connelly is the truth!
I think it's fine if you react to a movie that you saw once as a child and don't know the plot or details of. You're essentially watching the movie for the first time and would have your current perspective on this movie. 😊👍
Check out the behind the scenes on this film its a lot of great info. The "green screen" is the first ever attempt at this. Because of the nature of the fire gang and coming apart rhe way they did they couldnt hide the puppeteers under the stage like in many other scenes. So they used a black velvet screen and had the puppeteers in black body suits on a stage and put the background in after. This was probably one of the first attempts of what became modern green screening. There were 2 puppeteers inside the Ludo Suit and more doing the face and head anamatronics. Hoggel aside from the person in thr costume, and Brian Henson doinf the voice there were 4 puppeteers working to animate different parts of Hoggles face wirh 18 individual motors and they needed weeks of rehearsing to sync up all of his facial movments before even filming. Jennifer Connely was 14-15 when she did this so i cant really blame her for not being very skilled at acting yet. I can understand not connecting with this film as its more geared toward girls as they start to come of age. And it has more in common with alice in wonderland and wizard of oz and sprinkling of other female centric fairytales while being something new. You will probably love Neverending Story more and the Dark Crystal as they are more like fantasy adventures. This while having thar quest to it, its kinda like a fever dream but its a lot of fun
That owl does indeed look awful by today's standards, but it was _the very first time_ an animal was fully rendered 'realistically' in CG in cinema history. It blew minds.
Technical term correction, Jim Henson studios doesn't do puppets, they do muppets.... You can probably forgive the effects on the decapitating dismembering birdman dance..... Consider that the performance they were trying to achieve is usually done on a black screen with blacksuit hidden performers from a single perspective as a stage performance. (Japaneese style practical effects)
If you're a fan of David Bowie I highly recommend checking out the recent, mesmerizing documentary, Moonage Daydream. It's a lovely, lovely, ethereal film.
“Goblin bozo loser” 🤣🤣🤣 When I was a kid I was obsessed with this movie and it was near impossible to find on VHS. Nowadays it’s meh for me but it has a lot of entertainment value because it’s so bad/quirky. 😆
Something in the same vein of weird, trippy, fantasy is the 1970s HR Pufnstuf movie. It has a mix of people and costumes and puppets and is super silly.
As a teen girl, I lusted for David Bowie's character and wanted to be Sarah. It was a journey of growing up for her. Jareth loved Sarah, in his own way, and just wanted her to continue playing in her fantasy world. The owl was him watching her. Also, the cgi owl was cool as shit for the time. Hurts to hear you insult it.
It was not Greenscreen. It was; "Puppets infront of Black Velvet" then double exposed. The owl in the beginning and end is cgi and the crystal ball to snake is cgi. Everything else was an in- camera effect or glass painting or double exposure.
You have to watch The Muppet Movie from 1979! It will blow your mind how they were able to pull off effects in that movie all done practical! Preferably watch this movie if you're also watching some Mel Brooks movies at the time too...while The Muppet Movie isn't a Mel Brooks movie, it seems someone should have told the movie that... Best Regards!
Jim Henson died way too young. I’m gen X and have actually named every pet since I was 3 after muppets (I currently live with Gonzo the dog and Kermit the cat). It’s hard to explain to younger generations because Kermit WAS a green bit of felt on the hand of a genius - but he died in 1990 and they just put the frog on other hands and now Disney owns it - Kermit has a Twitter - he’s a product (and kind of an asshole) - but he’s also a zombie. Kermit died 32 years ago and he’s still making movies.
Quite light at 7pm? You must live reasonably far south. In the UK in summer, sunset will be as late as 9pm due to being further north than most of the USA.
I think I made it through the Labyrinth! What an interesting movie full of amazing puppets, cool songs, David Bowie, lots of creativity, and probably the worst green screen/blue screen moment I have seen in a while! I had a lot of fun with it though and Hoggle is the best character!
Thanks for watching! Have a great day! :)
Now you are ready for The Dark Crystal.
Oh, there are worse green screen moments in the history of cinema, believe me!😂😂😂
FUN FACT: The Director Of Choreography and Puppet Movement on this film was Cheryl McFadden AKA Gates McFadden, and a year later was cast as Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek The Next Generation.
The scene with the bad compositing was the result of a mistake that took place, and it was too late to fix it before the movie was released. I can't remember the details, but the people involved spoke about it afterwards saying that someone make a single mistake in the post-production process, and it messed up how everything looked in that scene. This is when everything was of course made using celluloid film and so you couldn't just tweak it in the computer to correct things. It's a shame, but overall, I love the movie and it set a new benchmark in puppetry and fantasy cinema. Hoggle was the most complex puppet head ever, and the CGI owl was the first of its kind, so looked amazing at the time. The baby used in the movie was actually the son of the guy who designed the whole look and feel of the movie/the goblins etc.
If you liked Labyrinth you’re going to like The Dark Crystal even more, Ollie. My movie judgment has never steered you wrong sir.
Fun fact, Gates McFadden who plays Dr. Crusher on TNG was the choreographer for this movie, although, she's credited as Cheryl McFadden (her first name) as she usually is for choreography work. :D
That is trivia I didn't know I needed!
Oh my gosh....when you said you didn't know who Jim Henson was it just made me want to cry! You really are so young! Jim Henson is the man behind Sesame Street! It was his creative masterpiece so if you EVER saw Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch...or any of The Muppet Movies with Miss Piggy or Animal then you have seen Jim Henson at his finest.
10:55 "Helping Hands" was actually a riff on a garbage bag commercial of the time that the movie was made.
Jim Henson creator of The Muppets and also involved with Sesame Street he did do Dark Crystal and quite a few other Fantasy and Puppet based movies and shows
the scene where they use a Green screen to dance with puppets. the technology was actually being developed by ILM at the time so they didn't have access to proper tools, also they shop this so far before the technology they dint actually use a green screen rather a super black felt room and dressed the puppeteers in black, the aim was rather to make the puppeteers disappear rather than typical green screen work done today. there is a very nice hour long documentary on the labrinth that i wouldwatch after the credits on the vhs copy. they really wanted u to know how much work went into the film.
This is such a damn classic.
The _'As the World Falls Down'_ sequence gives me mad chills.
Tremendous. 🔮
I wore out my vhs copy of that scene.
@@amyjordan195 Understandable! 😄
the owl was not actually a green screen, but one of the very first CGI
A long time ago I worked for the guy who animated the owl. When I asked "what animation software did you have?" he curtly answered "Vi". For those of you too young or not familiar with Unix, Vi is an ancient text editor. He did all the animation by editing very crude motion functions and manually tweaking lists of numbers he entered by hand. He would save changes in the text editor, launch the renderer and wait minutes to get a few wireframe images that he could flip through rapidly to get an idea of motion (not full frame rate or even the full length of a shot). It would take days to get a full shot in any kind of shaded form and then more days to get it printed to film. To say it was a slow process is an understatement.
Fun facts: Sarah was originally 18 in the script, they changed the character's age to Jennifer Connelly's age because she killed it at the audition at 14.
The real name of David's wife (Iman) is "Zara" and the daughter they both had also has Zara as a middle name.
Hoggle is played by a woman, the actress Shari Weiser, who wore the suit during scenes where Hoggle appears full-length. In other scenes he is played by a puppet (as they did with other characters in the movie and that trick was also used on Alf)
The film had a terrible reception at the box office, ironically it would be a cult film after its progressive success in television broadcasts. Sadly, Jim Henson passed away before seeing generations of fans who would love his film. He became so depressed by the poor reception and the critic´s that he did not want to direct another film.
Jennifer Conelly was bullied by her classmates for making a movie with David Bowie (she faced the anger of teenage fans for being lucky enough to work with him). She told that a classmate got so upset that she tore up a poster she had of Ziggy Stardust. Even so, Jennifer said that she had fond memories of her time working with David Bowie and that he was very kind to her.
David Bowie's son, Duncan, who is the same age as Jennifer, fell briefly in love with her during the filming shooting, where he also operated one of the puppets in some sequences. Paul Bettany also had a crush on her when he saw her in the movie, but only him had a happy ending.
There are rumors of a sequel (hopefully it doesn't happen for obvious reasons).
I was 5 years old when this movie came out😄 this was my introduction to David Bowie😂 (still a fan)
Fun fact; the baby is played by Toby Froud, the son of the faerie artist Brian Froud, who drew the concept art for this movie
Jim Henson began a show on PBS in the late 60's called Sesame Street using puppets to teach small children. It became so popular that he ended up branching out into movies and TV shows. He was behind all of that in the Star War's franchise. Yoda was a Muppet
He started before then doing coffe commercials and late night tv.
Nobody ever mentions his best work so I will.. Fraggle Rock..
"Everything I've done, I've done for you. I move the stars for no one."
Fun Fact: One of the choreographers for this movie was Cheryl McFadden. You and everyone else knows her better as Gates McFadden, Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).
Dancing Hands Fact: The "Dance Magic" scene consisted of over forty-eight muppets, fifty-two puppeteers, and eight people in goblin costumes. Over one hundred pairs of latex hands were made for the "Helping Hands" scene.
Jareth's Balls Fact: The various things that Jareth does with the crystal balls (rolling them around his arms and in his hands and so forth) are not camera tricks or any other kind of special effect. They are actually done by choreographer Michael Moschen, who is an accomplished juggler. Moschen was actually crouched behind David Bowie with his arm(s) replacing Bowie's. Unlike a typical Muppet performance, however, he had no video screen to view his performance. In other words, his manipulations were performed completely blind.
It wasn't green screen, so to speak. It was filmed against a black curtain with all the puppeteers in black spandex socks so they could easily be removed. Not the best way to do it if you want to preserve shadows, since it's black, but I guess it was the easiest way to do it in 1986.
You HAVE to see The Dark Crystal now, seriously one of my favorite movies ever.
Artist Brian Froud did the production design on Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, while his son Toby Froud played baby Toby in this movie. A now-adult Toby recently worked with his dad on the Netflix follow-up Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which is really good.
Yes, Dark Crystal is a must-watch, along with the recent(ish) TV series prequel.
Damn, I forget how young you are. That was the most drab description of Jim Hensons legacy I've ever heard. "I've heard he's a good puppet guy..." He's *THE* puppet guy. And that's still just scratching the surface.
I really wish that more filmmakers would use puppetry like this, CGI isn't the end-all.
There's just something magical about Jim Henson's work :)
As much as I like cartoons, there's something about a physical effect that can't ever be replicated
Brian Froud mentioned showing Dark Crystal to new schoolkids, and their reaction was “Cool, what is it? It’s not CGI…. 😳 “
Probably the best combination ive seen so far would be 'Where the Wild Things are', practical suits with simple mouth and face morphing for the facial expressions and talking. Extremely effective.
Practical feels 'there', CGI can do what is usually hard to do with practical or that would cause headaches for multipal puppeteers... I just dont know why they do dont it more.
Id love to see if they could remaster Labyrinth with some CGI in places, like tweak Hoggles face so the talking is more fluid and less stiff in places... would be interesting.
But the owl at the start is CGI?
@@v8matey Nope, it's stop-motion
RIP Sir David Bowie, 2016 we lost a great musician.
Hoggle was actually voiced by Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson), who was maybe 25 around that time. :)
Sir Didimus has to be my favorite of the puppets, though I love all the hideous little goblins too. The workings of a puppet mounted on the back of a dog are fantastic and he's just so cute!
You gotta do Legend: Director's Cut version (Ridley Scott). If you like 80's fantasy it's top tier and kinda overlooked. Dark Crystal is also a must (Jim Henson).
There's a cool making-of featurette that shows how they did some of the puppetry and practical effects, including the Firey's dance scene. Some people say it kills the illusion, but for me it makes me appreciate the creativity even more. I will always love this movie and I enjoyed your reaction. 😊
My favorite scene was and still is the ballroom. I had such a crush on Jennifer and seeing her in that dress was nothing short of breathtaking. Great reaction!
"I hear Jim Henson was some big puppet guy..."
Have I really been alive long enough for Jim Henson to no longer be a household name?? Damn.
💚 Jim Henson is a Legend!!! His scope of work is awesome!!! Looking forward to reaction of 'The Dark Crystal' 💜
I once heard someone describe this movie as "It's all about David Bowe's pants." It was, of course, a theatre kid. But I laughed out loud when partway through the movie their friend saod , It really is all about his pants..." I never would have thought of the movoe in those terms. I love this movie. My daughter and I can quote the entire thing. I think if you fall in love with it as a kid it tends to stick with you.
Jim Henson is from my hometown. He’s always been my call to fame. Very talented man. Anyway, the guys that lied and told the truth, it’s easy; ask them: Are you a snake? One will say no, one will say yes. You know which one is correct. Hindsight is 20/20, eh? I’ve had thirty years to reflect, lol.
True, however there's usually the one question only problem :)
Here's how she came to the conclusion with the liar/truth-teller scenario.
She asked the red one what the blue one would say is the safe door and the red one answered that the blue one would say the red one's door.
If the red one was the liar, then he'd say the opposite of what the blue one, who'd be the truth-teller, would say, so the correct answer is the blue one's door.
But if the red one was the truth-teller, then the blue one would be lying and would have given her the wrong answer if she asked him instead, so the correct answer was still the blue one's door.
Dance magic is my favorite song absolutely David Bowie as the king best part
Ah the magic and horror of Jim Henson's muppets brought to life alongside the magic and surprising horror of David Bowie
The Fiery gang were done with CSO, but on a black rather than green screen (you can tell as Sarah's dark hair sometimes disappears when it is too similar to the black background). The rest of it would have been blue, rather than green screen in those days.
3:53 Teenagers, particularly girls tend to the overdramatic, while their hormones are all crazy. This tends to mean that girls are over the worst of it by 18 while guys have a few more years of it.
10:45 Sarah did work it out correctly and chose the correct door, which lead towards the castle, but not directly. There are many more perils to go through first.
David Bowie can't manipulate glass balls like that, they had a professional juggler playing his hands.
Her hair, make-up and the dress in the dream sequence are fantastic. The staircase room is the trippiest yet in an already trippy film. It is based on an Escher print called 'Relativity' which can be seen is Sarah's room. Almost everything in the movie is in Sarah's room in some way.
Brian Henson was the voice of Hoggle and I believe he controlled all the parts of the animatronic head, not even the jaw was connected to the actress underneath.
Yep. There is plenty of bluescreen in the movie, but the Fiery couldn't because of the feathers (which bluescreen would either make disappear or put an ugly dark outline). The irony is when people say "that's horrible CG", digital compositing and cgi could actually make the scene look great with relatively little effort. I'm sort of surprised Sony (who I think still owns the rights to the movie) hasn't tried to "spruce it up" but I'm glad they haven't touched the old school special effects.
@@MrTBoneSF Not sure they could redo it with original footage (if it exists), since the Black Screen would cause all sorts of keying(?) issues and the effort required to mask everything out each frame thanks to the black would just be to much.
Must admit, my eye twitchs everytime a young reactor calls Bluescreen and Practical effects Greenscreen and CGI (even though there IS CGI in Labyrinth lol)... I mean a person can be ignorant, but there is a minimum limit to knowledge a person should hit when dealing with any medium lol.
But seeing a modern Practical CGI blend for the Fiery dance would be interesting.
For those of a certain age, The Muppet Show was must see tv. Its brand of humor was perfect going from childhood into adolesence. RIP Jim Henson, legend.
In The Muppet Show my favorites were those two loudmouthed, elderly hecklers in the balcony; they were the original trolls long before Internet trolling even existed.
A stunt coordinator friend of my was David Bowies stunt double in this.
He showed me all the pics of him with Bowie, looked so cool. Said he was an amazing person too
Ahh I was obsessed with this movie as a kid! I would rewind the "Dance Magic Dance" scene multiple times to hear the song again. And I'm always amused when I encounter a random "You remind me of the babe." meme on social media. lol.
I love this movie. I've heard a lot of people note the darker tone, which a lot of older Henson Films had, and the more adult themes as well. They always seemed to cite them as negative things though, as though they detract from the final experience.
I personally think it adds so much, its like a Germanic or Slavic fairytale about the fey or something, its such a cool tone.
I much prefer at least SOME dark tones in these tales. Thats how you portray a full story. Life isnt all rainbows lol
It's been my favorite since I was 4 years old in 1986. So many behind the scenes info if you have the dvd. The fire gang scared me when I was a kid. That scene was on a black velvet background and puppeteers in black velvet in order for the characters to take off the heads and limbs. Brian Henson did Hoggles voice , among other details. A lot went into making this great movie. My favorite scene has always been the ballroom. The glass balls that David moves around was a different man standing behind David moving them.
If you look really closely, you can see some of the characters (as toys) are visible in her room before she wishes for Toby to be taken away.
You are showing your youth, Oliver... No CGI involved... Stop-motion and puppetry were the hallmarks if these old classics. 😉
The owl at the beginning is CGI. I believe it was the first time CGI was used to animate a living thing in a movie (backgrounds and machines had been done before, if I'm remembering correctly).
@@itzakpoelzig330 yep, it was the first realistic CGI animal in a film. Not bad at all for 1986.
I loved this movie as a kid and tend to watch it as a double bill with The Dark Crystal. In case you didn't know, they recently made a new follow-up to The Dark Crystal (was it HBO or Netflix?) with Mark Hamill voicing one of the characters! Some of your sayings crack me up Ollie! My favourite recent one is "What the chicken nuggets?" I'm laughing right now at the thought of it, like a fool.
Netflix. And it was a prequel. It also got cancelled (trust Netflix to pull that sort of stunt...)
It was a mistake to try to add the background but as others have said it wasn’t green screen it was a variation on stage puppetry that involves puppeteers in black and a black backdrop and then bright puppets - they tried to translate it to film which is innovative - but it was a fail.
Check out the Mummenschanz which is a fantastic human puppetry troop that Henson worked with many times.
th-cam.com/video/Ygg3fmKGOMU/w-d-xo.html
Jennifer Connely was and still is stunning :). You should also watch Lady Hawk for more great Jim Hanson puppet I recommend the StoryTeller 1987 which is great tv series of cool fairy tales. There is also a second season of the Greek Mythology
If you enjoyed this movie you absolutely must watch the ‘making of labyrinth’ featurrette that is included with the movie- they show how everything is done with the puppetry and effects. They actually saved hours of footage all that long ago unlike other films of the time and its almost as entertaining as the movie to me.
if you get the chance watch the making of labyrinth. they are all amazing. there are sooo many awesome puppeteers and jim henson and his son, and Terry Jones from Monty python wrote the script etc. to Gates Mcfadden (listed Carol Mcfadden) who choreographed the dance scene ball.
This is very much an 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'The Wizard of Oz' variant, and as a exploration of that, I think it's a good one.
There's an undercurrent of burgeoning adulthood that adds to the poignancy of it. The goblin king is both predatory and tragic. It's kind of an amazing film.
Id like to recommend you watch The Fall ( 2006), Things Change(1988) and Kikujiro (1999). I think you'd appreciate them.
Another great early 80’s fantasy movie that has Tom Cruise called Legend has a boy fighting the devil for the fate of the world. Shits dope as fuck
Jennifer Connelly was 14 years old in this film.
8:22 That effect is so good. I know it's there and it still gets me every time.
Imagine seeing this as a five year old :) it blew my sister and me away and it still holds up extremely well.
Jim Henson's son, Brian Henson, was the voice of Hoggle. Shari Weiser was the actor wearing the suit.
If you're seen Sesame Street, you've seen Jim Henson. He created it and the Muppet Show.
Fun fact - the head of choreography for this movie was Gates McFadden aka Doctor Beverly Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation!
You should do Legend. With Tim Curry. Make sure it's the version with Tangerine Dream for the soundtrack.
You might want to find a somewhat obscure fantasy film, "The Company of Wolves" (1984), which sort of starts where this film does, but goes somewhere far darker. For some reason, though, each of them reminds me a bit of the other.
No matter what you think of this movie, there is one sad aspect to it today and that is that no one took the concept of it and went wild with today's possibilities.
A story with a labyrinth and go crazy with it. we have seen cities move and change in movies, certainly a labyrinth with strange and familiar creatures, with parts of the labyrinth moving and changing should be possible. Add memorable characters and a gripping story.
I adore this film, I adored David Bowie, the characters are fun.
Brian Henson said that with all the puppets taking out of set where the goblins were singing and dancing it looked like Swiss cheese. So many holes to move the puppets.
I heard an Jim Henson himself interview said that Michael Jackson was in lead for the labyrinth king but David Bowie got the role
Thank you, Oliver! 🔮 If you'd like to see another interesting one with the incomparable David Bowie, try THE HUNGER (1983). #RolyPolyOllie #JimHenson #Labyrinth #Labyrinth1986
The Owl was the very first time that a computer generated image was used in a movie.
If you enjoyed this then you MUST check out The Dark Crystal!
And the owl wasn't "green screen" either - it was just CGI. One of the first CGI animals.
What's interesting is that this movie is a big parallel for abusive relationships, where David Bowie's character represents the abuser, the baby represents Sarah's innocence.
I heard that David Bowie didn't want to do this movie at first because even though it was a musical, he didn't like Jareth at all and hated him. So Jim Henson had to modify a lot of Jareth's original personality.
No
@@sexysadie2901 No what?
Don't blame "the computers" for the bluescreen or the Fiery birds (which isn't a bluescreen, but an even older technique with puppeteers being shot against black) because there was ZERO digital compositing in this movie. It's all photochemical/optical compositing. It's also not "early bluescreen" as bluescreen compositing was in use since the 1940s. In the 70s and 80s, Lucasfilm and a few other special effects companies pushed bluescreen as far as it could go before digital compositing came into use in the 90s. They had it perfected for things like spaceships and buildings but hair and feathers were always going to look less-than-good with optical compositing. It's just the reality of optical compositing. Even the one CG sequence (opening shot of the owl) was delivered on film and there's just a simple optical wipe to live action.
I technically only know one fact that makes me still shocked about it to this day. Did you know that during the Magic Dance scene, the baby noises you hear are not from the baby, it was David Bowie himself that did them. The baby wouldn't cooperate and was very stubborn.
You: "Party time in the bedroom, baby!" 😂😂😂😂
Gotta say... when I first found you on youtube, I didn't like your reactions, but you slowly grew on me. You're one of my favorite reactors now. Especially once you started reacting to all the Star Trek stuff. Thanks for bringing Labyrinth back to front of mind. LOVE this movie. Super cheesy, but you can't go wrong with David Bowie.... and Jennifer Connelly is the truth!
In the summer,7:00 pm is still light out.
My top 3 fav David Bowie albums
Diamond Dogs 1974
1. Outside 1995
3. Blackstar 2016
I think it's fine if you react to a movie that you saw once as a child and don't know the plot or details of. You're essentially watching the movie for the first time and would have your current perspective on this movie. 😊👍
Can wait for the Dark Crystal reaction. I feel like I grew up i n that castle as a kid.
The unfathomable genius of Jim Henson.
Check out the behind the scenes on this film its a lot of great info. The "green screen" is the first ever attempt at this. Because of the nature of the fire gang and coming apart rhe way they did they couldnt hide the puppeteers under the stage like in many other scenes. So they used a black velvet screen and had the puppeteers in black body suits on a stage and put the background in after. This was probably one of the first attempts of what became modern green screening.
There were 2 puppeteers inside the Ludo Suit and more doing the face and head anamatronics. Hoggel aside from the person in thr costume, and Brian Henson doinf the voice there were 4 puppeteers working to animate different parts of Hoggles face wirh 18 individual motors and they needed weeks of rehearsing to sync up all of his facial movments before even filming. Jennifer Connely was 14-15 when she did this so i cant really blame her for not being very skilled at acting yet.
I can understand not connecting with this film as its more geared toward girls as they start to come of age. And it has more in common with alice in wonderland and wizard of oz and sprinkling of other female centric fairytales while being something new.
You will probably love Neverending Story more and the Dark Crystal as they are more like fantasy adventures. This while having thar quest to it, its kinda like a fever dream but its a lot of fun
The Owl at the start of the movie is entirely CGI.
That owl does indeed look awful by today's standards, but it was _the very first time_ an animal was fully rendered 'realistically' in CG in cinema history. It blew minds.
The Dark Crystal will blow you away. Jim Henson was from another planet.
Ahh, Labyrinth. The film of sexual awakening for so many girls... and a few boys I imagine!
The fiery guys do many things that could not be done by puppets, particularly when they come apart. The are played by multiple dancers.
As a Monty Python fan, myself, I had no trouble spotting Terry Jones' comic influence on the script, and it made for one funny movie.
Technical term correction, Jim Henson studios doesn't do puppets, they do muppets....
You can probably forgive the effects on the decapitating dismembering birdman dance..... Consider that the performance they were trying to achieve is usually done on a black screen with blacksuit hidden performers from a single perspective as a stage performance.
(Japaneese style practical effects)
If you're a fan of David Bowie I highly recommend checking out the recent, mesmerizing documentary, Moonage Daydream. It's a lovely, lovely, ethereal film.
All that, plus a bottled epileptic seizure 😂. Loved it though
Rip Jim Henson and David Bowie, and Rip to Bob McGrath from Sesame Street who died yesterday from complications of a stroke at age 90
“Goblin bozo loser” 🤣🤣🤣
When I was a kid I was obsessed with this movie and it was near impossible to find on VHS. Nowadays it’s meh for me but it has a lot of entertainment value because it’s so bad/quirky. 😆
This is EXACTLY what I wanted to watch rn. Thanks, broski! :)
Something in the same vein of weird, trippy, fantasy is the 1970s HR Pufnstuf movie. It has a mix of people and costumes and puppets and is super silly.
Rip David Bowie one of my favourite movies
Great review. Really looking forward to the Dark Crystal!!
As a teen girl, I lusted for David Bowie's character and wanted to be Sarah. It was a journey of growing up for her. Jareth loved Sarah, in his own way, and just wanted her to continue playing in her fantasy world. The owl was him watching her.
Also, the cgi owl was cool as shit for the time. Hurts to hear you insult it.
David bowie is a legend RIP
Brian was the voice and even controlled the mouth while four other people controlled the other muscles of the face of hoggle.
It was not Greenscreen. It was; "Puppets infront of Black Velvet" then double exposed. The owl in the beginning and end is cgi and the crystal ball to snake is cgi.
Everything else was an in- camera effect or glass painting or double exposure.
I love the soundtrack, and really enjoyed Bowie in the film.
Great movie ❤
You have to watch The Muppet Movie from 1979! It will blow your mind how they were able to pull off effects in that movie all done practical!
Preferably watch this movie if you're also watching some Mel Brooks movies at the time too...while The Muppet Movie isn't a Mel Brooks movie, it seems someone should have told the movie that...
Best Regards!
This movie blew my mind when I was a kid.
David Bowies best movie performance. (And only)
Jim Henson died way too young. I’m gen X and have actually named every pet since I was 3 after muppets (I currently live with Gonzo the dog and Kermit the cat).
It’s hard to explain to younger generations because Kermit WAS a green bit of felt on the hand of a genius - but he died in 1990 and they just put the frog on other hands and now Disney owns it - Kermit has a Twitter - he’s a product (and kind of an asshole) - but he’s also a zombie. Kermit died 32 years ago and he’s still making movies.
Dance magic was the best song. Makes you wanna dance it out ❤❤❤
I'm impressed you managed to watch thatbscene and not notice David Bowie's "situation" even once. Lol How is that possible? I envy you.
You need to watch the Muppet Movie. I think everyone should see it
He says “Your mother is a fragging aardvark”! I have a tshirt that says it..
Quite light at 7pm? You must live reasonably far south. In the UK in summer, sunset will be as late as 9pm due to being further north than most of the USA.
🤩J-Conn 😍 She still looks good today. 😘