The NeverEnding Story

[Neon Ignition]

Multiple "Neverending Story" Films Planned - Dark Horizons
Another reboot is on the way aiming to re-tackle the first books storyline. It never ends does it?

[Asura]

Multiple "Neverending Story" Films Planned - Dark Horizons
Another reboot is on the way aiming to re-tackle the first books storyline. It never ends does it?

Nah, actually, I could totally go for this one.

The Neverending Story is a great 80s kids fantasy movie, perhaps one of the best; and a new version should be brave enough to break and do its own thing, or it'll be a crappy also-ran (or a cheap naff thing like the third movie).

But this is one of those movies where the the book has a very good, important, inspiring message for young people that the movie completely, totally, 100% entirely missed.

The book contains many of the surface-level elements that found their way into movies 1&2, but the underlying story is totally different. In the book, the kid goes to Fantastica (they changed the name in the movie), which is the world of human fantasy, and he's tasked with going on an adventure like in the movie - but the story eventually transitions to the point where his fantasies become grander, more epic - but darker, violent and twisted as he grows older. He's warned by the Empress that by staying in Fantastica, he's in danger of his fantasies consuming him; soon, one day, he'll become emperor, then a day later he'll lead rebels to stage a coup, he'll lead armies, conquer worlds, all in an insatiable desire for greater and greater fantasy, while forgetting that he's from the real world, and ultimately he will, one day, have to go back. There's a point where he ends up in a city of humans who have lost themselves in Fantastica; it gets pretty dark.

So the book is about how fantasy has value, but that too much fantasy is bad for us (it can, when taken to extremes, pull us away from the people and things that really matter).

In essence, this is almost the complete opposite of the movie that they made, which was entirely about how FANTASY IS AWESOME DAD, WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN