Getting old. It means looking at the younger generation and thinking “I bet we lose the next war.” This is my twenty-first year of teaching, and let me tell you, the prognosis for America’s kids isn’t great. I work now for an online high school, and a few weeks ago a parent asked me if we could do an intervention for her son – one of our (shitty) students, because he wouldn’t stop playing video games and log into school. Hahahaha. An intervention!
But how will he attend the intervention if he never logs in???
Parents ask me regularly how to get their kids to do the things they’re supposed to do. [Shrug] “Hit them?” How would I know? I’m not their PARENT!!!
To be fair though, I have mostly taught history, which is by far the biggest sham of a subject we have in schools. Why do we still teach students about the Crusades? Think about it.
Or let me put it another way. In the 1860s in London there was a doctor in London named John Snow.
Pretty close. He actually saved more lives, but he looked like this.
He developed epidemiology, the basis for all medicine today. Well, not the really advanced stuff like essential oils, just everything else. His work has saved perhaps billions of lives. He is mentioned in zero high school history books, but all students everywhere spend at least two weeks learning every gory detail about Hitler’s favorite recipes for holocaust ovens.
History is porn for people who can’t admit they hate themselves.
Is it fun?
Here are the first few lines of The NeverEnding Story.
“Morning, Bastian.”
“Morning, Dad.” [Long Pause]. “I had another dream dad… about mom.”
“I understand, son. But, we have to get on with things, right?”
This is 1984, and Bastian’s dad has a mustache and fersure fought in Vietnam. Emotional intelligence isn’t his dump stat, it just hasn’t been invented yet.
[Blender continues].
Is this movie fun? Was it fun in 1985? I don’t know. I never watched it as a kid. I saw that scene where the knight gets vaporized by the lasers and like, shit my pants. Haha. Too scary for my Mormon ass. It doesn’t seem very fun at first, but then, it’s not really supposed to. Bastian gets bullied by other white kids, hides in a bookstore, and skips school to read tomes in the principal’s upstairs sex dungeon until late into the witching hours. To his credit, Bastian’s dad doesn’t seem to mind.
But then some of it IS fun. Snail Wonka is fun.
And Falkor is fun in a Mickey Rooney sort of way.
The sphinx has perfect boobs…
Goddamn
…and that’s fun unless you’re a scared seven year old who is scared of the idea of a scary statue that kills you if you get scared.
And this stone troll on a bicycle is even fun and I’m pretty sure he’s voiced by the same guy that later voiced Treebeard. Let me check.
Nope. I was wrong. Mountain-Face here was voiced by Alan Oppenheimer, who also voiced Man at Arms and Skeletor on He- Man. Did you know that Gimli voiced Treebeard? Me neither.
Are the characters gewd?
About thirty minutes into the film, we’re introduced to our (other) protagonist, Atreyu. She is a smoking hot teenage girl, shown here with her clinically depressed horse, Artax.
The two of them are given a quest by… like… this one guy: to save the princess, duh.
Now yer talking.
All in all it’s a recipe for adventure, unless of course you suspect that being an emotionally sensitive horse is problematic in the Swamps of Sadness. In which case, you’d be right.
In the 1980s, clinical depression was still called “alcoholism.”
But like, really, there are only three characters in this film; two once Artax checks out like a big quitter. The zany characters from the beginning never really show up again. You don’t actually meet the princess til the verrrry end. There’s a dark wolf that stalks Atreyu but, kind of recreationally. It would be like if Fellowship of the Ring began at the council of Elrond, but then the camera just followed Legolas as he failed upwards. On a snowboard.
Does it hate women?
Not really. Not by 80s movie standards. Good for this movie.
No one gets raped. There are no female sex symbols (except Atreyu, of course), no evil sorceresseseseseseses, and no nameless lady NPCs. That might not seem impressive at first glance, but consider the other fantasy movies that came out within one year of The NeverEnding Story:
I need to watch Barbarian Queen. For academic purposes.
Is there more?
Well, there were more sequels. A lot more. And apparently there’s a new one coming out (?!?!). Who knew? I know who should play Bastion… Young Neil from Scott Pilgim.
Is it worth watching?
Yessssss??? Maybe? Ya. It holds a very distinct place in the evolution of fantasy/sword and sorcery movies. It has cool set pieces.
And zany costumes.
It has an iconic theme song that plays over the ?intro credits? That can’t be right.
It was a fantasy movie for kids, before fantasy movies were for kids, and it’s sweet and heartwarming even when it falls on its face. Like a special olympics figure skater.
Falkor really does look like Mickey Rooney.
Fight the sadness, you crazy diamond.
