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| I'm with the horse by the last 30 minutes |
Watched: 03/22/2026
Format: YouTube
Viewing: Unknown
Director: Wolfgang Petersen (I know, right?)
An absolutely seminal movie of my youth - I really grew to dislike this movie over the years. Sorry, nostalgia fans.
I saw it in the theater opening week, and Gmork, that big wolf, scared me so bad, I remember exiting for the men's room. But that was fine. I know I saw it a couple more times, but it wasn't one that landed with me as a kid. I didn't identify with Bastian or Atreyu, they were just kids in a movie with neat FX.
When I was 14, I was signed up to babysit a kid, and somehow got my hands on a copy of the movie so we watched it - and I realized - "hey, this movie isn't very good". Like, it looks neat, it has some memorable set pieces. But there's no story in the Neverending Story (1984). I mean, there is - but it's all meta stuff about a kid who reminded me of the kids at school who just never got their shit together and always looked like they might cry (middle school was going to eat Bastian alive).
The *idea* of a movie where someone watches someone else and, in turn, acknowledges that we're watching the kid watching sure helps explain the symbolism of the Auryn (that snake necklace). But it's handled so clumsily with Bastian acting like a full-on nerd in the attic, even as a kid, I thought he was maybe a little extra. Now, it's just full cringe-worthy.
I do appreciate that the movie is very German and not concerned with making the aesthetics overly appealing. Sets are ugly, characters kind of horrific, and it's about the creeping Nothing - not a conscious force, exactly. Just something that consumes - nihilism made manifest. Heck, the movie gave us the death of a horse on screen that you'll still see referenced daily online, like nothing else bad happened in a movie in the 1980's.*
The movie's puppetry is a reminder of how good we had it with the Henson workshop - Falkor moves like he has a neurological disorder, and can only lift his head. Similar with the wolf. Green screens do so much heavy lifting in this movie, which is fine, but it's obvious they've got a neck and head that work and not much else.
In 2026, of course, Falkor comes off like a creepy neighbor you don't want anywhere near your kid. And we have to marvel at the detail someone decided was necessary on the boobs of the statues of the Oracles.
I am very confused, also, how Gerald McRaney tells Bastian he needs to have his feet on the ground, when Bastian is using his mother's name - which was apparently "Moon Child". Which... what? What was going on in the Bux household? How did this kooky businessman/ Haight-Ashbury romance start, and can I see THAT movie?
Anyway. I want to live this movie more. I just... do not. The visuals remain 1980's spectacular, but I am not going to SpaceJam Fallacy this movie into something it's not.
The turtle had the right idea - don't care, send annoying kids to go talk to someone else very far away.
*I will never separate my viewing of the horse scene from the repeated and unwelcome viewings of Run Wild, Run Free at my elementary school.
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