Wolfgang Peterson’s “The NeverEnding Story” is a rare children’s film that I respected in my youth for how smart, serious-minded and frightening it seemed.
Now, 40 years old and still a pop-culture milestone that has expanded beyond being an “’80s movie,” Peterson’s film stands out for being wildly ambitious for its time, accessible and enchanting to its intended audience but edgier than expected.
We meet Bastian (played by child actor Barret Oliver, who always comes across as authentic), who awakens from a dream and is greeted by a downbeat breakfast. Bastian’s Dad is portrayed as a sour, grieving and private man, played by a pre-“Major Dad” Gerald McRaney.
Both are grieving the loss of Bastian’s mother, though neither can bring themselves to say it. Later, while hiding from school bullies, Bastian discovers Coreander’s Bookstore run by the peculiar Mr. Coreander.
More on him later.
Bastian swipes a book that Mr. Coreander has been taunting him to read, called “The NeverEnding Story.” Bastian then goes to school, ditches his classes, hides in a massive attic (apparently, this school has a storage unit so massive it could house Quasimodo), and reads “The NeverEnding Story.”
Once Bastian is consumed with his book, so are we, as we witness the world of Fantasia, the world-gobbling force of The Nothing, a hero named Atreyu and a talking wolf with glowing green eyes, named Gmork.
The fantasy sequences are initially goofy before taking on a grandeur and pathos. The characters, ranging from the stunning Rock Biter to the Iggy Pop/Mad Hatter fusion of the Night Hob, are vivid, strange and would be at home in worlds created by L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll.
Artax, Atreyu’s noble horse, has an especially powerful scene, while details like wearing the Auryn (Atreyu’s snake-linked necklace) and facing “Morla” gain dire importance.
Peterson crafted an exhilarating, daring film, the kind of fantasy epic that knocks us out with its vivid animatronic puppetry but has the tenacity to kill one of the most lovable characters in the first act.
Some of the creatures are rendered to epic scale, like the side view of a giant turtle, but Falkor the Luck Dragon’s words rarely match his mouth movements. If you can look past that, Falkor is still the stuff of wonder.
On the other hand, the movie didn’t need the batty old couple and sometimes feels more episodic and plot-heavy than it really is.
A delicious idea emerges here – if our minds can go to fantastic places, then can’t these places exist in the space where our most lucid dreams and memories reside? The way Bastian interacts with “The NeverEnding Story” is how most children relate to the books that leave them spellbound.
It’s not a collection of pages we read, but a legend we experience.
Bastian converses with his book in the same way I used to talk to my volumes of Choose Your Own Adventures, particularly when I made the wrong choice, picked a page that resulted in instant death and had me starting over on page one.
The scene where Falkor first appears and saves Atreyu from a swampy death and the fearsome jaws of the Gmork is simply awesome. Outside of “Superman: The Movie” (1978) and “Flight of the Navigator” (1986), these are some of the best flight scenes of their day, back when actors mimicking flight in front of a blue screen was top-tier F/X.
There are also visions of swirling clouds and a statue whose eyes open and obliterate trespassers with laser beams (an image that terrified me during my grade-school years)
Peterson’s “The NeverEnding Story” (1984) is among the most baffling follow-up movies ever made by an acclaimed director, breaking out after his first big international hit. In this case, Peterson, the German wunderkind, whose “Das Boot” (1980) is among the greatest of all submarine war thrillers, decided his next movie was going to be based on the 1979 German children’s novel, “The NeverEnding Story,” which is around 400-pages long.
It was a lavish production that only covered the first half of the book. Rather than emerging as an embarrassment or foley, Peterson’s film is among the titans of 1980’s fantasy films. Although it’s not quite on the level with “Dragonslayer” (1981) or “Return to Oz” (1985), it holds its own amongst the likes of “Legend” (1985), “Krull” (1983) and “Willow” (1988).
Jost Vacano’s wondrous cinematography and the aggressive editing by Jane Seitz makes this feel timeless, even as the scenes taking place in “reality” feel very Reagan-era. The sad, sweet moment where the Rock Biter mourns not being able to save his friends is key. Yes, there are victories, but Peterson’s film is about childhood guilt and regret.
Among the observations that come up: “People who have no hope are easy to control” and “As people forget their dreams, The Nothing grows stronger.” Perhaps it’s on the nose and lacks the poetry of the dialogue from Ridley Scott’s “Legend” (1985), it’s all far less preachy about the virtues of reading than “The Pagemaster” (1994).
Atreyu’s final, scary confrontation with the Gmork is riveting, while the climax is an earnest attempt at a cosmic blending of world collapsing and bridging the “real” world with the written one. Despite the ambition of this sequence, “The NeverEnding Story” can’t go meta and break the fourth wall between us and the fantasy genre, but give it credit for trying.
It’s still impressive for any pre-“The Lord of the Rings” (2001-2003) fantasy epic.
Bastian’s emotional and physical isolation is the center of the story. Yet, this aspect is undermined by the last scene: As a child, I loved the adolescent revenge that takes place on a large scale (so did my eight-year-old when I showed this to her for the first time). Now, it feels like a cheap, dishonest finale, removed from what the film is actually about.
Allow me to finish with this idea: back to Coreander’s Bookstore, where Mr. Coreander knowingly tempts and prods Bastian into swiping The NeverEnding Story. Knowing what we know about Fantasia, how you can exit and re-enter the world at any time, experience narratives that come and go and characters who survive from a literal re-write.
I think Mr. Coreander is Bastian as a grown up, entering into this point in time to give himself The NeverEnding Story when he was a child. If books are a portal that allow us to immerse ourselves, place the story back on the shelf, then re-enter, time and time again, why wouldn’t Bastian use his newfound powers that way (and certainly in a more productive way than weaponizing Falkor in that awful closing scene)?
There was a pair of sequels and an animated series but that, as they say, is another story.
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