A year or two before starting Return to Labyrinth, I wrote the first couple chapters of a Labyrinth sequel novel, purely with no intent to do anything with it. This secret fan fic also starred Toby Williams, but in this version, he was only about 7 years old and living with Sarah (who was a grad student) after his parents died in a plane crash or some other tragedy. In this version, Sarah was having a hard time balancing being a single mother with pursuing her dreams. Goblins started stealing Toby’s toys and eventually tricked the boy into entering the Labyrinth. Presumably Sarah would have followed and many fantastic adventures would have ensued; I never got past the toy stealing.
In retrospect, I can see the foundation for a good story in that aborted fan fic with the Labyrinth offering a fantasy metaphor for dealing with loss and rebuilding family. At the time, I was still too easily distracted by “wouldn’t it be cool if…!” and was completely blind to the meaty human potential. So in 2005, when the opportunity came to pitch an original manga-style sequel to Labyrinth, the only aspect of my earlier scribblings to be preserved was having Toby as the protagonist.
The ch-ch-changes to story and character didn’t stop there, however. With each volume, I would guess that 50% of what I originally envisioned for the next volume stays more or less in tact with the other 50% emerging in the process, whether due to serendipitous discoveries in reviewing what came before (yes, even I get surprised by reading the finished books!), critical choices about how better to serve a character’s development, or based on feedback from the Jim Henson company.
As most of the changes are driven by character development, I find that the “unplanned” 50% ends up informing the next volume more than the originally drafted half. The events in volume 3 (and especially volume 4! Like that scene where…) are a far cry from the events at the end of my first series outline. At the same time, however, I think Toby is becoming more Toby-y, Moppet more Moppet-y and everyone else is more themselves than they ever were in the beginning. As RtL is the longest project I’ve ever been involved with creating, I don’t know how common this process is (versus a stricter adherence to an original outline) but I certainly enjoy working this way.
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well, if you have an Idea, rite it… that is how you can keap up with your dreames.
I may just be 13, but that is what I now. I dream of becoming a violinest, but I have to try.
every one hase a dream in ther haert. you have to work at it and let it blosume.
when I rite my one storys for my french class, I alwase start out whit somthing that I’ve sean or herd. It may just be a little girl falling from a tree, or a lion that escaped from the zoo, or even a fight betwean friends, but it can alwase end up leaving what you think at first and becoming somthing itierly new.
wy did I rite this???
oh well!
It’s good to say what you feal.
I did not even reade it all.
got lost.
well what!!?!?!?
I’m babesitting!
my cosinses are not going to go to bed by them selves!
I wish…
dont wory! I’m not going to call for the gobblins!
I used to write fanfics all the time until I realized how crappy my story ideas and writing were and aborted/deleted them all. Your concept of the Labyrinth sequel fic sounds good though; do you still have the first two chapters? I’d be interested in reading them if they are still in existence.
Hopefully in the future I can get some of my works published. Working as an elementary school teacher will barely keep a roof over my head (right Sarah?) so I need something else to do in order to pay the bills. Well, I suppose I’d better get through college first then see what happens from there.
I wish the goblins would come and take ME away…right now!
Yes, it happens that way sometimes.
I wish you luck in creating volume 4. Volume 3 was wonderful, again, I say, I adored it.
I have a question that is a bit off the subject of this post, and if you would be willing to answer it (I would be honored.) If not, I’ll understand:
I have drawn a mini (one page) funny that I would like to present you with as a gift “no strings attached”, I promise. It is based off of 3 frames from page 115 in volume 3. I drew it to be a “what if” humor comic. I don’t want to post it on deviantart, because I don’t want to step over you, break copyright laws, or offend you. I have probably done that enough already. It doesn’t involve anything offensive, obscene, or mocking of your story, the artwork, or you.~ although it does have some lyrics from David Bowie’s “Fashion”, which I’ve given him credit for at the bottom of the page.
“Return to Labyrinth” is your baby and your hard earned creation, which I am aware of. I don’t want to steal your fame. So, please forgive me if I have caused problems, I never meant to.
If you enjoy humor and Jareth slightly out of character, then I think you will enjoy the mini comic…. (He gets a bit frazzled at the very last frame…)
I was asking around on the art website I upload to, and another person said I should ask you first, which I fully agree.
I have decided, instead, to ask you if you would like me to present you with the one page funny I drew, and you can decide whether to post it on your site.
I wish there were a place I could post it in private where you alone could access it and not 100,000 people. It is a Sarah/Jareth comedy skit (Think “MST 3000″ like).
In the future, I won’t be drawing many more comics based off of your works, just because it serious copyright infringement and I respect your authority as a professional writer. In all honesty, my “Sarah’s Grand Re-Entry” doujinshi was meant to stop at page 16. (I just wanted to make the YouTube video from the song.) I know you’re probably getting ticked at me tapping your media, and I understand that. You’re stories are inspiring, however! I thank you for all the times you’ve blogged my videos and answered my posts.
If you would like the mini-comic, please let me know on your site or wherever is most convenient (if you choose to answer)… I won’t post it on deviantArt unless you give me permission… which I’m not going to ask for, since I’ve decided not to post it there. I would rather just give it to you as a gift and you can keep it or blog it as you wish. Then, people can find it here instead of giving me the glory..so to speak.
I don’t want anything for it. If you would like it, it yours to keep.
Thank you again, for everything. You are one of the greatest writers I have ever known in my lifetime. I hope to meet you in person someday.
well, I invent my fan fic storys, but they rarely make it onto paper. (i invent them in the midle of classes, mosly my science calss. I don’t even have to try in that class.
)
please do post that fanfiction, if you can. it would be a wonderful and well-recieve treat
Jake,
thank you for taking a brave step and really working on this project. With a artists’ point of view you have made this work. Hind sight is always 20/20. Creativity is really soul expression. When we create something ,it can feel very much part of us. ( art, music, literature) like a birthing process. Fanfiction is a way for us to express our love for the creative spark that spoke to us in the beginning. Sharing the muse?
Anyway, I might hope to suggest that you may take this( with permission from the-powers- to- be, )and make a pre-quel about how Jareth became the Goblin King in the first place. Let ’s face it , he is a great persona of a “rock star” king ,Goblin, randy guy , bad boy,wizard, tight pants, etc and I think his character deserves a beginning. I love the story Brian Froud ( in his The Goblins of The Labyrinth Book ) talks about Jim Henson and riding in the limo and talking about Goblins. Inspiration sparked and thus we have this great movie and all this fanfiction!
The muse will find a way to express itself through all vessels that are open to imagination and creativity.
May the muse be with you!!
Hey Mr. Forbes:
I have a bit of interesting little news for you:
Since I like “Return To Labyrinth” so much, I’ve recently started on writing the script for an animated movie version of this series, with the hopes of eventually maybe getting it produced by Tokyopop, the Henson Company, and the Disney Company as soon as I’m done writing it. But that’s still going to be a long ways away–first I have to finish writing all of the dialogue down, and then I have to write all of the descriptions and actions of the characters, and then I have make changes to all of this, and I of course I won’t be able to finish it until Volume Four comes on later on.
Please note, though, that while I stuck closely to the original manga for the most part, I have also made some changes and additions to it either in order to make it into a real movie or to suit my own moral principles and storytelling sensibilties. Some of these changes just involve removing some extra lines or short scenes in order to put it into an actual movie running time, and others involve adjusting the dialogue to some extent so it’s a little more natural.
Here, however, are some of the more major ones:
The motivations for some of the characters (especially Candlewic and Mizumi) are explored in more detail.
1) I’ve created a narrator character for this film in the form of “Klort”, the Goblin Chancellor (my original invention and intended to be voiced by Terry Jones), a goblin official with a title that sounds impressive but has actually little to no real power behind it (sort of like the Governor-Generals of Canada and Australia), and therefore has very little to do when it comes to the affairs of the Labyrinth. As a result, Klort plays no real role in the plot of the movie (which is why he’s qualified to be the narrator), and so far he only briefly interacts with the rest of the cast at two points: during Jareth’s ball, where a sings a song dedicated to Toby that is both a welcome and a warning to the boy (and he actually has to remind Jareth who he is), and during Toby’s “rite of passage” ceremony at the coronation, where he gives the lad a hint to solve the challenge. It must also be noted that Klort has an entirely different outlook on things that the rest of his kind–where most goblins have a twisted and backwards moral and social code, Klort’s is akin to that of a highly moral human being’s, and so therefore he’s able to relate to the humans watching this movie in a way that most of the other characters can’t.
2) Whenever one of the primary or secondary characters is formally introduced, the action is briefly frozen in its tracks in order for Klort to appear and tell the audience who they are, what they’re like as a person, what their individual motivations are, and what sort of role they’ll be playing in the movie. Once he’s done this, Klort leaves and the action immediately resumes as if nothing has happened.
3) Irene, Toby’s mom and Sarah’s stepmom, has her portrayal in the story changed in order to make her much more sympathetic (and Sarah’s line about Irene not being a mother to either her or Toby has been cut out altogether.) This is because, with all due respect, I don’t think you’ve been very fair to her in this series. In the original movie, Irene doesn’t strike me as a bad woman–she’s trying to fair and accomodating to Sarah, and understand what’s she’s feeling, and while she’s not going so far as to take the place of Linda, Sarah’s mother, she would at least like to be Sarah’s friend. But Sarah still loves her mother while at the same time being very upset about her abadoning her and her father, and she’s upset that her father has apparently replaced her mom with someone else, and so she’s not in a mood to hear Irene out or even give her a chance. In fact, I think Sarah’s the one who’s being unfair to Irene. So writing this script gives me the chance to rectify this.
4) At the other end of the spectrum, Spittledrum has been refashioned into a blatantly and utterly unsympathetic character who’s asking for (almost) every single indignity that’s inflicted upon him (and therefore is closer to the original intent for him). Furthermore, any instances where Spittledrum is actually pleasant or polite have been changed so that he’s instead angry or insulting at these points.
5) The bit during Jareth’s ball where Moulin dances with Moppet has been removed in order to remove any suggestion that Moulin is a lesbian or that Moppet is at least slightly bi-sexual.
6) Some words that others might consider inappropriate have been removed and replaced with less offensive synonyms.
7) The introductions of some of the characters have been altered–Spittledrum and Candlewic only appear in shillouette during Toby’s play (and therefore, when Toby first meets them is when the audience first meets them also), and the first scene with Mizumi in it is primarily played in darkness so that we only meet her and Esker at this point (Moulin and Drumlin are instead introduced when Mizumi receives her introduction to the ball).
9) Moulin, Drumlin, and Esker take part in the coup alongside Mizumi. It’s only in the fourth and final act of the film (correspondent to Volume Four) starts that Mizumi devours Drumlin and has Moulin imprisoned.
10) Spittledrum, after at first opposing the coup like in the manga, is swayed by Mizumi’s promises of power and getting rid of those he hates (especially Jareth and Toby), and quickly agrees to side with her. He even gets a large part of the goblin armed forces to take part in it as well. It’s only near the end of the film, while everything is crashing down around the villains, that Spittledrum begins to foolishly berate Mizumi and Candlewic eventually stabs the mayor in order to shut him up.
11) It’s Skub’s father, in this version, who is injured during the coup for defying Mizumi and is subsequently taken in by Skub.
12) The flashback sequence in which Jareth and Mizumi make their wager has been altered so that Jareth has more dialogue and is on more equal footing with Mizumi in controlling the situation. He also gets the last word this time.
13) New recordings of the songs “Chilly Down” (peformed by the Fireys again) and “Underground” (performed by David Bowie again) play during the opening credits and closing credits respectively.
14) I have ideas for three new songs in this script. One of them is the one sung by Klort during the ball, another is a typical “villain’s song” sung by Mizumi, Moulin, Drumlin, Esker, Spittledrum, Candlewic, and the treacherous goblin soldiers during the coup (a sort of Broaday/Disney hybrid like you were originally going to give to Jareth in Volume Three), and a third one is a “power ballad” sung by Toby, Moppet, Skub, Hana, Sarah, Klort, and an increasingly guilty-feeling Moulin at the end of the third act.
I also have most of the casting choices laid out for this film. Wherever possible, I have kept the actors from the original film in the same roles here, and most of the new characters are voiced by professional voice actors (sort of a field day for them in many ways). I have also cast you as the “Librarian” in the Ministry of Prophecies, and your illustrator, Chris Lie, as the Bricklayer.
I’ll post up a link to my script on this site once I’m done with the first draft.
So, what do you think? Do you like my idea here? Is it okay with you that I’m doing this? Do you think making a movie out of this is viable? And none of the changes I’ve made are because I have something against you. I honestly have not against you personally.
Please let me know what you think of this!
What if You made a spin-off with your old idea only in that version Toby could still be high school Sarah could have a high paying job and how it starts out is that Sarah meets a new client in big building & he turns out to be Jareth & he’s there to warn her of danger. There could also be parts were 1. Sarah in coma 2. Jareth triyng to protect them from an evil queen & is wounded 3. Toby can go back & fouth between Undergrond & human world