Time is weird in the labyrinth, which is something we all know pretty well. It seems to move arbitrarily and is almost certainly at Jareth’s whim, at least to an extent. That makes sense.
But what doesn’t make sense to me are all of the costume changes Jareth goes through. We’re looking at upwards of five changes of clothes in ten hours. People can say what they want about women being indecisive regarding clothing (and be largely wrong) but our resident Goblin King really takes the cake, here.
He changes in between appearing in Sarah’s house and when he Dance Magic Dances across the screen. There’s another change when he’s spying on Sarah in the oubliette. There’s the disguise right before the Cleaners, the outfit under THAT, and the glittering suit during the masquerade. Even before the masquerade, when he’s sending out his poisoned crystal peaches, he somehow finds time to change yet again, this time donning a blue cloak. And after that, he’s in yet another new outfit in the Escher room, this time maroon.
I’ve totally lost count at this point.
And then, in what I can only imagine is a hurried application of leggings and thematic makeup, he shows up in his white outfit at the very end of the film.
I mean, really, dude? Sarah is busy kicking down your castle and you’re focused on changing outfits?
Maybe the outfit changes are indicative of the deterioration of his power as Sarah gains the upper hand, but that really only MIGHT explain the tattered cloak in the last one.
Maybe he’s just a fan of showing off his ridiculously expansive wardrobe. It’s possible, considering that he’s really only got goblins for company, and we see them wearing pots for hats. So, I mean, I’d probably take the opportunity to preen too.
But maybe this doesn’t all happen in ten hours. Yeah, it’s super unlikely that it’s much longer, but let me dream for a moment here.
Aside from Sarah’s parents arriving home at the end of the film (and we only ever hear her father, we never actually see either of them) we have no real guarantee that she or Toby were actually returned on the same day they disappeared. It could be that Jareth isn’t ducking behind corners to do a quick-change. Maybe he’s changing outfits based on the time in his world.
Who knows? Maybe they were gone for minutes in our time. Maybe days. Or maybe… Just maybe they’ve been gone for much, much longer.
