Jones was put to work on Lee’s script. He was surprised to discover that it was essentially a “poetic novella”. Most of that was thrown out by Jones, who envisaged the film as having an environmental message. He was also keen to keep the Goblin King off-screen for most of the movie. This would have left David Bowie, and his trousers, at a bit of a loose end. Henson was not enthused. Labyrinth has also contributed to the mythology of Bowie, known to many younger people less as the Thin White Duke and more as the mega-mulleted weirdo who steals baby Toby for the goblin hordes. Following his death in 2016, one of the ways in which fans paid tribute was by attending Labyrinth screenings.

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On a hot summer night in 1985, in a studio at Atlantic Records in Manhattan, David Bowie was trying to make a baby gurgle. Jim said he wanted it to be more a young girl’s coming-of-age story,” Jones remembered to Empire, “and he wanted to show the centre of the labyrinth sooner, because he wanted to play around a lot there. I really thought we shouldn’t see the centre of the labyrinth before the girl does, otherwise what’s the hook for the audience? For Bowie, Labyrinth was an opportunity to indulge his theatrical side – the ripple of panto that ran through so much of his work. He’d always wanted to make a record for kids. Now he finally had a chance. But for Henson the movie was a shot at redemption. At its heart, Froud and Henson believed, Labyrinth is a movie about a girl growing up. In a way, Connelly’s character Sarah is a mirror image of Jareth: both are immature, temperamental and peevish. Jareth, after all, only takes baby Toby because Sarah, in a strop, wishes he was gone.For this costumes Zaldy and Bush used the most advanced technology. Michael Bush affirmed that it was the first time he put crystals on the Billie Jean costume and that during the working you must wear sunglasses because the crystals reflected lots of light. Zaldy also told that he had worked with Swarovski and that he created the "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" costume with 300000 crystals. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Jones and Henson agreed to disagree, and went their separate ways. George Lucas, creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, was co-producing Labyrinth, and weighed in with his own contributions to the script. These were incorporated into one of several rewrites, which tilted the plot closer to Henson’s initial vision. In European fairy tales, that’s what goblins do – they steal babies. I painted a picture of a baby surrounded by goblins, and then continued to paint other conceptual things, just ideas for characters. And the story developed from there.” The impact on Henson was devastating. He had long craved recognition as a serious artist, rather as merely the creator of the Muppets and of Sesame Street characters such as Cookie Monster and The Count. But Labyrinth had crashed and burned just a few years after another mega-flop, 1982’s The Dark Crystal. “Jim Henson” and “serious cinema” were becoming a contradiction in terms.

Pants – MJcostume

Such were the challenges that had attracted everyone to the project. “The reality of the art and science of puppets, and trying to create realistic rather than abstract puppets, was really what Jim and I had been working on from the very beginning,” said George Lucas at the time. Lots, it turned out. Labyrinth’s fatal flaw was that, although the production design and cast were top-notch, the script was threadbare. Really, it was just an idea – Bowie as King of the Goblins, with the story and dialogue an afterthought. They brought me the concept,” said Bowie. “[Henson] showed me The Dark Crystal,which I found a fascinating piece of work. And I could see the potentiality of making that kind of movie, with humans, songs, more of a lighter comedy.” Working from this initial idea, Froud and Henson handed off the task of putting flesh and bones on the script to Dennis Lee, the poet and children’s author. But after Lee had submitted his draft, Henson felt more work was needed. So he reached out to Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Coincidentally, Jones had been trying to get hold of Henson, with a view to collaborating on a big screen version of his children’s tale, Erik the Viking. Costumes for the Show [ ] Zaldy Opening Songs Outfit (Wanna Be Startin Somethin', Jam, Drill/They Don't Care About Us, and Human Nature/Stranger In Moscow) [ ]Keep collections to yourself or inspire other shoppers! Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections - they may also appear in recommendations and other places. Zaldy Opening Songs Outfit (Wanna Be Startin Somethin', Jam, Drill/They Don't Care About Us, and Human Nature/Stranger In Moscow) How can we make these look like real creatures? It’s a struggle because it’s a technological exercise more than anything else. Jim’s ability to combine old puppet techniques with state-of-the-art [ones] was his genius. He really understood how to [do] make-believe and then make it real.”

pants’ and the chaotic making of Labyrinth David Bowie’s ‘pervy pants’ and the chaotic making of Labyrinth

To be precise, there weren’t any gnomes in the film for which the song was made, Jim Henson’s fantasy adventure Labyrinth, which turns 35 this week. There were, however, lots of rubber goblins. Bowie, 38 and squeezed into pop’s tightest trousers, played Jareth, their evil king. He’s summoned by Sarah, a spoiled teenager (14-year-old Jennifer Connelly), who wishes that her baby half-brother Toby would be taken away “by the goblins”. The problem was that, after all the cobbling together, the story had lost any sense of fun. Henson remembered only too well that The Dark Crystal had been strung up by critics for being too serious. So he called Terry Jones again and wondered if he might be interested in a further rewrite. Maybe he could bung in some of the jokes that had been subsequently expunged. He’d even give the Monty Python man sole screenwriting credits. One day near the end of February, Kenny Ortega answered the phone in his home office in Sherman Oaks, California, and heard a soft, familiar falsetto on the other end of the line. “Kenny,” the caller said, “it’s Michael.” I was adapting my book, Erik the Viking, into a film, and I thought I’d ring Jim Henson’s office to see if they’d like to do the monsters,” Jones told Empire magazine. You remind me of the man,” Grant (42) tells Temple (18) in one scene. “What man?” she asks. “The man with the power,” he replies, adding: “The power of hoodoo.” “Hoodoo…?” “You do!”

Michael got to try the pants on before he died and saw how the lights worked. He was so thrilled with Zaldy's work that he declared, "It's everything I've always wanted." I had an instant vision of a baby surrounded by goblins, which I thought would look really striking,” recalled Brian Froud, the fantasy artist with whom Henson cooked up the concept. (Froud’s 18-month-old son, Toby, played the infant that Jareth kidnaps and flings playfully into the air during Magic Dance.) Bowie, as ever, was hipper to this than anyone else, which is why he slipped in a reference to The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. And perhaps that’s why Labyrinth has lived on: it’s a rare Hollywood movie that takes seriously the experience of being a young woman finding her way in the world. He was rusty in the beginning, sure, he’d miss some notes,” says the show’s musical director, Michael Bearden. “But he would always say, ‘That’s why we rehearse.’ And the last two or three rehearsals, he was ready to do that show. He knew it, he had that glow, that swagger about him. MJ is the master closer. He’s got amazing muscle memory. When he gets in front of his fans up on that stage, it’s just magic.” Getting away with the red trousers: Diana, Princess of Wales with the Prince of Wales Mirrorpix/Getty Images