Machines in The Labyrinth
The Cleaners

Date: 97-05-19
From: Tamar ([email protected])

hey all!!!

another thing about the movie that have allways bugged me:

i have noticed that everything that is somehow scary in the labyrinth is a fake and actually a stupid machine goblins operate (like the cleaners and the "who goes" monster) does it say anything about jareth himself?

love, Tamar.

From: Guy Dyson ([email protected])

Remember he could do anything he desired, but he had to do it the way Sarah dreamed it would be done. She wanted a Goblin city and so he had no choice but to do everything with goblins. He could have used genuinely scary and dangerous stuff, but that wasn't what Sarah wanted, and she's in charge because she's such a babe, which I think is an unfair advantage, but I'd probably let her get away with it, oh well.

TTFN, hugs n stuff.
Guy.
Guy Christopher Dyson (fdt) http://www.iinet.net.au/~chickens/Springs.html

From: Cyggy ([email protected])

Hey,
He did say,after all, that he was "generous up until now" and that he could be cruel...

--Cyggy

� � � i have noticed that everything that is somehow scary in the labyrinth is a fake and actually a stupid machine goblins operate (like the cleaners and the "who goes" monster) does it say anything about jareth himself?


Humongous I think this says something very significant about Jareth, actually. He is presented at first like an all-powerful wizard - powerful enough to control a storm, to transform his shape, and to move between worlds. Later we see him temporarily control Sarah's memory and re-order time. Yet, despite all his magic, he relies on the Cleaners and Humongous to deter Sarah at various stages. He even uses the Bog of Eternal Stench to impede her progress, although it can be argued that the BOES is a structure of the labyrinth, a permanent and possibly natural feature which was incorporated into the labyrinth.
The machines must have been created for a reason. I remember thinking that the Cleaners were like those giant, black, bug-like things in Dark Crystal. I thought maybe Humongous was something alive. Humongous, at first, appears to be some kind of armoured creature. I would suppose that there is some kind of limit to Jareth's powers which resulted in the creation of these mechanical things. He confesses to Sarah that he is exhausted from living up to her expectations, so perhaps his power isn't unlimited. He pulled out all the stops with Sarah. Hoggle was impressed with the attention that Sarah drew from Jareth, so maybe Jareth was giving her the grand tour of the labyrinth at the expensive of his magical endurance. It may be that Jareth only has so much power, but wants to appear as an all-powerful magician.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

Luna

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This page was last updated or modified on January 5, 1998 by [email protected].