Review of The NeverEnding Story (1984) by Vince K — 22 Mar 2010

Child Molestation. Rape. Drug Overdoses. Serial Murder. Bestiality. The Holocaust. These are some of the many themes that you will NOT find in The NeverEnding Story. (Although, there is a town in the film called "Spook City".

) The film is a beloved childhood fable based on the popular German fantasy book of the same name. If you grew up in the '80s, you definitely grew up with this film. Yet another treasure, a gem, from the greatest decade in the history of the world.

Hell, there was those few years there when Atari got boring, Nintendo wasn't out yet, and there sure as hell wasn't anything like the internet, and you would watch your favorite movies again and again.

The NeverEnding Story always fascinated me, everything from the Racing Snail, Rock Biter, Giant Turtle, Oracle Statues that shoot lazer beams out of their eyes, the flying Luck Dragon, and every bizarre looking character in that awesome tall white tower thing.

And throw a reality destroying force called The Nothing into the mix, and man, it's just the stuff of dreams. There was an interesting theme in this I didn't catch when I was a kid - Fantasia had no boundaries, because it is made up of people on earth's imagination; it is limitless.

The only reason Fantasia was threatened by The Nothing is because people stopped using their imagination, or believing in magic. This was the same theme of the South Park 3-Parter "Imagination Land".

And the surreal aspect of having the little boy, Bastian, read the story out of the book while hiding in the stormy attic of his school, and him being included in the story, which was happening as he read it, well, I loved that as well.

He is the only one who can save Fantasia, simply by giving the Childlike Empress a new name (he ends up naming her after his mother, "Moonchild", at the end of the film. The story-within-the-story also follows the Warrior Indian named Atreyu (who is the same age as Bastian) who rides to save Fantasia from The Nothing on his horse Atrax.

His wild adventure includes trudging through the Swamps of Sorrow to find the ancient giant turtle Morlo, getting saved by a gigantic white Luck Dragon named Falkor, passing the test of the Oracles (these awesome gigantic winged statues), all while being chased by the vicious agent of The Nothing, a giant wolf named.