The film is one whose production is just as interesting, if not more so, than the actual adaptation itself. Despite his desperate pleas and attempt to save him, we begin with this shattering death that sets the tone for the rest of the journey that will also soon draw in the unsuspecting Bastian as well. The road to finding it is a grim one as, in addition to being hunted down by a wolf-like creature known as Gmork, there is also an opening scene where Atreyu's horse, Artax, is swallowed up by the Swamp of Sadness. He then gets thrust into the world of Fantasia and the quest of the young warrior Atreyu ( Noah Hathaway) to track down a cure to heal the Empress of the realm of her illness.

Of course, being a kid, this makes Bastian want to read it more, so, he starts reading it in the isolation of the school's attic. He 'borrows' the book from a bookstore despite being warned by the bookseller that it is not one that is 'safe' to read. However, it still remains a charming yet haunting encapsulation of a particular era of filmmaking that saw the fraught first adaptation of the beloved novel of the same name.Ĭo-written and directed by the recently departed filmmaker, Wolfgang Petersen, it begins with ten-year-old Bastian Bux ( Barret Oliver), who has recently lost his mother but discovers a magnificent literary world that allows him to escape from math tests and bullying. As such, it is an artifact of nostalgia that doesn’t quite hold up as well as one would hope it did. An adaptation of the epic children’s fantasy novel of the same name, 1984’s The NeverEnding Story remains one of those films that is etched in the minds of all who saw it in their younger years.

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