The beloved favorite 80s movie for many a Millennial child, The Neverending Story is filled with magic, adventure, and wonder. It made kids cheer, laugh, cry, and even cower in fear, which is a feat that most children's movies, save from the Toy Story franchise, have been unable to do since. Even though it's such a beloved piece of childhood for so many, that doesn't mean it's without its problems.
Many issues that the film has are explained away in Michael Ende's book, which was the source material the movie was very loosely based upon. But the film veers so far from his writing that as a standalone, it really often makes no sense.
The Nothing Isn't Nothing
When the Nothing arrives to destroy everything in its path, it certainly isn't nothing. It's a bunch of dark clouds, fierce winds and chaos. It's more like a spring day in a Midwestern town in Tornado Alley than "nothing." When it arrives, Atreyu has to hold onto things before he's swept away into it.
The Nothing leaves nothing, or nearly nothing, behind following its destructive path, which makes its name a much more accurate description of what's left behind it as it passes through. A more accurate name for the phenomenon might be Dorothy or F5, given its tornado-like effects.
Even The Good Guys Are Creepy
The Neverending Story is filled with creepy creatures, which is one of the many reasons why we love it. Looking back, it's clear that there were far more creepy people and creatures in the movie than we realized, starting with ominous bookstore owner Carl Conrad Coreander who beckons Bastian closer and ending with Engywook and Urgl, who simultaneously feed Atreyu disgusting things before throwing him into the worst danger yet. Even Falkor, the cool luckdragon, is incredibly foreboding.
Perhaps these off-putting characters helped parents teach kids "stranger danger," since creepers don't always look like creepers... Nope, that doesn't work, because in The Neverending Story, everyone looks like a creeper.
Bastian's Dad Is Heartless
Much of Bastian's troubles in the movie stem from him having to cope with the loss of his mother. He has nightmares, struggles at school and isn't even interested in the riding lessons he had desperately wanted. Instead of helping him process these strong feelings and being there for his son, Bastian's dad tells him that he can't let the loss of his mother keep him "from getting the old job done," as if they'd lost a goldfish instead of his own wife.
Granted, modern dads are much more woke when it comes to parenting, but this is so cruel and callous that we almost expect him to appear as a villain later in Fantasia, a la Jason Isaacs' performance as both Mr. Darling and Hook in Peter Pan.
The Entire Thing Is A Swamp Of Sadness
Most kids' movies are filled with laughter, vibrant colors and engaging material. There may be some depressing moments, but they are few and far between. Not so for this one! Most of the movie is dark, depressing and slow as the audience rumbles through one loss after another, witnessing the land's leading brain give up because "nothing matters" and everyone from Artax to most of the characters we've met succumb to the Nothing.
As adults watching The Neverending Story, we have to wonder how we made it through the film without crawling under a blanket fort and hiding for a week afterward. It's that depressing.
Bastion Escapes In The School Attic
It's already pretty messed up that Bastian skips class just to avoid a math test, but instead of leaving the building and finding a more familiar spot to cut classes at like a normal kid, Bastian grabs the key to the school attic and hides in there. How does he even know to do this? Why would the attic of the place he's actually avoiding even come to mind as a decent hideout?
Then there is the attic itself, which is full of a bunch of weird, creepy stuff to begin with. It's much more like the attic of someone's creepy grandpa who used to hunt wolves than a room that belongs in a school.
Characters Give Up And Off Themselves
In an existential theme that is way too dark and deep for a kids' movie, the characters we have nostalgia for are so much darker than we recall. Morla's funny sneezing distracted us from the fact that the giant turtle had given up on life and welcomed the end of Fantasia. It didn't even care whether or not it cared.
Then there's Artax, who simply abandoned his will to live in the Swamps of Sadness. He had no injuries, no illness; just a deep pit of despair that he succumbed to, leaving plenty of analogies to be made about mental illness, depression and one's demise on their own terms. This is completely out of place in a children's fantasy.
Atreyu's Confrontation With Gmork Is Over In Seconds
What should have been the climax of the movie is not only anticlimactic, but it's over in seconds, negating all of that beautiful tension it built throughout the film. Gmork is on Atrey's tail so closely that he almost nabs him in the Swamps of Sadness before Falkor sweeps in and saves the day, and there are several moments where it cuts to the servant of the Nothing to demonstrate what a terrible threat he truly is. Those green eyes! That scary maw!
It was all for naught. The final battle had a bit of a monologue/question-and-answer session, followed by a single leap and a knife to the creature's gut. That's it. As kids, this terrified many, but as adults, we can't help but wonder if they just ran out of time.
It Breaks Rules We Have Today
While it makes sense that rules and regulations evolve over time, some of the societal rules that The Neverending Story breaks are weird--and one of them even makes less sense today. The Southern Oracle shows a bit of female anatomy in a children's movie that is edited from everything from movies to Facebook today, and most people find it ridiculous. After all, the same piece of skin on male anatomy isn't edited, and it is only skin.
Bastian's father also drinks a raw egg from a glass, which may have once been considered a healthy start to one's morning but is now regarded as practically summoning salmonella into one's body. Kids aren't even encouraged to eat cookie dough with raw eggs anymore.
Bastian's Name Makes No Sense
At the Southern Oracle, we learn that the Empress needs a new name, and that it can only be given by an Earthling child. It's a dead giveaway, but Bastian is oblivious and mutters about how he could give her a wonderful name: the name of his mother. It's definitely implied that if he were to name her, he would give the empress his mother's name.
When the time comes, he instead calls out "Moonchild!" in a storm, making it super hard to understand not only because of the way it's said, but why it was chosen. Was his mom really named Moonchild? If not, why rename "the Childlike Empress" a name like "Moonchild," which only makes her seem even less powerful?
The Big Finale Isn't Big, Or A Finale
In an epic fantasy, fans want to be wowed by some major discovery by the end of the work. The more magical it is, the better. That's why the big finale, which revealed that the power was in Bastian all along, was a total letdown.
It was cool for kids to see another kid with the power, but realizing that he could've used it all along to save us from the harrowing moments mentioned above is sort of traumatic. Add to that the fact that Bastian called out a name none of us could even understand in what should've been a big moment, or the fact that he'd have many more adventures, "but that's another story," and it doesn't even feel like a conclusion.