Why?

Sir Didymus

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Here is a question that I need an answer to. I LOVE Labyrinth. It is a great movie. So why didn't it do well when it came out? Who couldn't like this movie? Does anyone know why? Did The Dark Crystal do well when it first came out?


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Jackie

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Originally posted by Sir Didymus
Here is a question that I need an answer to. I LOVE Labyrinth. It is a great movie. So why didn't it do well when it came out? Who couldn't like this movie? Does anyone know why? Did The Dark Crystal do well when it first came out?


Sir Didymus
Box office flops. GOod movies, just flops.
 

Cantus Rock

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Because my friend. Intelligently made movies don't usually do well. Even Dark Crystal, an easy to follow plot and lovable characters (and that amazingly awesome trick with the glass ball...I swear the movie takes 4 hours for me to watch because I just watch that over and over and over), is too good to be accepted by the masses. Its not normal fun and fluff the Henson was known for. Thats why the Storyteller (possibly one of the best shows ever made) only had 9 episodes. Its horrible, the savy the masses lack.

-Matt
 

Sir Didymus

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Don't call me stupid, but whats the Box Office? I know im kinda dumb, but I'm not very smart about this kinda stuff. I'm watching Dark Crystal know and I just LOVE Kira. She's my favorite Gelfling. The music is also really good.

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Jackie

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Originally posted by Sir Didymus
Don't call me stupid, but whats the Box Office? I know im kinda dumb, but I'm not very smart about this kinda stuff. I'm watching Dark Crystal know and I just LOVE Kira. She's my favorite Gelfling. The music is also really good.

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It's the office shaped like a box.
 

Cantus Rock

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Yeah...its basically what movie people say when they report the initial earnings of a movie. "How well the movie did at the box office." Or, "It made 3.5 Million at the box office." Stuff like that.

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Sir Didymus

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So Why didn't Labyrinth do well? Did people not want to see it or something?


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Cantus Rock

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Like I said before, it was too out of the normal realm of movie stupidity. It wasn't dumb enough for most people. The people of the world today are blubbering idiots. There are very few exceptions (I think it would be right to say that nearly everyone on this board is part of the small percentage of intelligent life-forms on earth).

I mean, look at Austin Powers movies. Obvious, blatent, stupid humor. What happens? Its a HUGE Success!! This is what the people can understand! STUPIDITY!!! Labyrinth; too intelligent. Now you might be saying to yourself "Too intelligent? I thought it was all pretty easy to understand..." Yes, it was easy to understand. But it was just too well made for the common idiot.

Movie success is measures in 2 ways. 1) How many people see it initially. Not many people did, because it just didn't look like "their type of movie" (aka dumb junk). and 2) How many people see the movie more than once in the theater. Not many people did this either. Because, when they saw it, it was just too well made, and it didn't hit home with them. Which brings me to my final point.

People lack imagination. They can only comprehend 2 types of things; real things(ie. live actors), and obviously fake things(ie. the Muppet Show. Obviously puppets, so everything is OK). When the lines are blurred, people just can't deal with it. Why? Because my friend. Bottom line:

People are Stupid.

-Matt
 

Chilly Down

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I understand people's impassioned reaction to the box-office failure of these films. But while "people like stupid stuff" explains the failure of some smart movies and the success of other movies like "Mr. Deeds," it fails to explain why good movies, like "Monsters, Inc." or, say, "The Muppet Movie" become hits.

I've done no research on the following hypothesis, so don't take it as fact, but here's what I think happened. People went to The Dark Crystal knowing it was a "Jim Henson film" -- and that's all they knew about it. If they read the reviews, if they watched the commercials more closely, they might have been more informed. But a lot of people don't take the time and effort to figure that out. "Jim Henson? That's good enough for me. I love that cute Muppet stuff." So parents around the world brought their kids to see the movie...and five minutes into it, these little creatures have their souls sucked out by hideous, large, deformed skeletal birds. Parents brought their shrieking, crying kids out of the movie theater and demanded a refund.

When Jim directed Labyrinth, he added things into the film that are absent from Dark Crystal: comedy, music, and human stars for the audience to relate to. (For that reason, IMHO, Labyrinth is a much stronger film.) But it didn't matter. Parents saw the commercials and said, "Oh, no. I remember what happened the LAST time I brought my kids to one of THOSE Jim Henson movies!" So as a result, it bombed as well.

So that's my theory, anyway. As for being too dark, Jim was, as usual, ahead of the curve -- this time, just a little too far ahead. In the '90s, we'd get Tim Burton's Batman, A Nightmare Before Christmas, The Crow, Farscape, etc. The world would eventually be ready for dark fantasy; it just wasn't prepared for it in the '80s. Keep in mind that the most successful Henson project in the '80s was Muppet Babies, which was a ratings hit and won multiple Emmys. Whenever he strayed from that path, as with The Jim Henson Hour, the audience turned its back.

And for the record, I like Muppet Babies, and Dark Crystal is a little too oppressive for me even nowadays. I'm just trying to explain what I think were factors in these films not being more widely recieved.

Hope this helps.
 
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