Perhaps the most beautiful fantasy movie of all time describes the fictional plot of Neverending Story, a film base on a German fantasy novel by Michael Ende, plublished in 1979. It was my favorite back then when I was just a kid and remains as my much loved fantasy motion picture up until now. It was a 1984 film yet the special effects still mesmerizes my whole being until this time. Neverending Story is truly magical and superb, such magnificent masterpiece from the world renowned award-winning German film director, Wolfgang Petersen. Bastian and Atreyu will live through our hearts and they will be known by my great- great grand children for as long as I live.

The movie adaptation enfolds just the first half of the book. Most scenes in the entire film were shot in Munich, Germany, except for the scenes done by Barret Oliver which was shot in Vancouver, Canada. Michael Ende, the book’s author objected the production of this adaptation since he felt that the film’s content diverged distantly from his novel. He almost succeeds in stopping the entire production but later he lost the case. Neverending Story was Germany’s highest budgeted movie of all time. Given that the movie wraps merely on the first half of the book, some plot and characters like the giant shape shifting Ygramul and will-o’the-wisp Blubb were discarded and changed, most likely due to complexity in rendering them throughout the time when the movie was filmed. There were several more alterations from the original novel but still, the movie sparks and shines all throughout the entire scenes.

The Summary:

Bastian Baux played by Barret Oliver is a young boy whose mother died early and was raised alone by his father. One day, on his way to school he was bullied, while running and hiding from those bullies, he bumped into a bookstore. There he saw a magical book and tries to borrow it from the librarian while he’s tending a telephone call. He was warned that the book is not safe, still he sneak out with it.

He began to unravel the story within the book and stayed in the attic of his school. The story within the book starts with the creatures that live in Fantasia. They were talking about the strange force called “The Nothing”. They are heading towards the Ivory Tower to meet the Empress of Fantasia portrayed by Tami Stronach, seek for an answer and some help as well. Regrettably, they learned that the princess is terribly ill. At that time, the Empress summoned for Atreyu played by Noah Hathaway, a warrior from the tribe of the Plains People. He was given a magical medallion called the Auryn which will be Atreyu’s guide on his quest to find the Empress’ cure.

Atreyu and his horse named Artax began their journey. They first head to the Swamps of Sadness to find Morla, the ancient one who can assist Atreyu on his journey. Meanwhile, The Nothing summoned a wolf-like creature called G’mork to kill Atreyu. Unfortunately Artax was conquered with sadness and depression, he sinked down into the bottom of the swamp and drown, Atreyu left heartbroken upon the loss of his beloved horse. Atreyu met Morla afterwards but he said he doesn’t know how to help the Empress, instead he told Atreyu to find the Southern Oracle. Thus, he was saved by Falkor afterwards when he was almost overcome with sadness and started sinking in the swamp.

Falkor brought Atreyu all the way to the Southern Oracle and was taken cared by his keepers, the two old gnomes named Engywook and Urgl. Atreyu was given an advice by these two on how to get pass through the Southern Oracle. When Atreyu reaches the Southern Oracle, he was told that in order to save the childlike empress, he must give her a new name and the only person who can tell him this new name is a human child, who can only be found outside the boundaries of Fantasia. Atreyu flies with Falkor to find this human child, until he encounters G’mork and defeat him in the end. But he hasn’t find the human child, The Nothing had already destroyed Fantasia and all there is left is him, Falkor, the Ivory Tower and the Childlike Empress. The human child they were looking for turns out to be Bastian, as the Ivory tower began to fall to pieces and by the pleading of the empress to call out her name, Bastian hurriedly open up the window, and screams the name “Moon Child!” out into the stormy night.

Indeed the splendid attributes of the movie makes it classic and timeless. There have been several movie sequels for NeverEnding Story; the late Jonathan Brandis even starred as Bastian Bux on the follow up movie, but still the first installment is unbeatable and incomparable. There are rumors spreading that another movie sequel will be out sometime 2012. I don’t know yet, some say it’s a remake of the 1984 adaptation but it’s still unconfirmed, we’ll see though.

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