Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb and oh we have one of my favorites here for you today, one of my favorite movies, and I think it was a pretty solid episode as well. Hopefully my enthusiasm and Joe's enthusiasm for the peace shines through. This is going to be our episode covering The Never Ending Story, the classic, really generation defining nineteen eighty four fantasy film. We originally published this episode four seven, twenty twenty three. Please enjoy.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be covering a well known classic. We are finally getting around to the nineteen eighty four fantasy film The Never Ending Story, something that I know many people of my generation grew up watching over and over on VHS tapes. But Rob, I think, if I understand correctly, both the movie and the book here are very dear to you.
Yeah. Well, I don't have as long a history with the book. The book is one that I ended up purchasing at some point. It was on the shelf, and then I finally got around to reading it as well when I got back into the film with my son a few years back. But I instantly it was one of these situations you never know exactly what the source material for something that you hold dear is going to be like. But I was really blown away by Michael
Inda's novel. In my experience, it delivered everything I wanted to of the never Ending Story as I knew it, but then adding all of these other dimensions to it, and of course an entire half a book plus on top of what we see in the film, which.
I haven't read the book, but from what I understand, the other half of the book not featured in the film, goes in a much darker direction.
Yeah, I think that's fair to say. I've made the comparison before to like Doune and Doune Messiah, where the first half of The Neverending Story is basically done about a hero's ascension and then the second half the Doom Messiah portion of the Neverending Story. It is kind of about the complications that occur when one achieves this power, like what does that disrupt? What new challenges are presented? And so forth. So yeah, I've been wanting to cover
the Neverending Story on Weird House for a while. You know, it's certainly a mainstream film and one that I think many listeners have already seen, so it's weirdness doesn't emerge from its unfamiliarity. It's, in many ways, I think, a generation defining film. Like you said, it's one of these films of the sort of the dark fantasy films of the nineteen eighties, alongside the likes of The Dark Crystal and so forth that made a huge impact on a
lot of young viewers. But I feel like this one hits a little differently than just about any other particular dark fantasy film of this time period I can think of, Like you know, did a Dark Crystal Return to Oz? Yes, they all have these fantastic, rich worlds. They all present, often a young viewer with the with some dark imagery or ideas, But there's nothing quite like nineteen eighty four as the never Ending Story.
Well, one thing I didn't realize until just this moment when you made the comparison is the thematic overlap between the Never Ending Story and Return to Oz, which are both essentially stories that integrate a fantasy world with the mundane human environment in the imagination of a child, and that human child character is essentially being like, there are there are adults around that child trying to tell them not to have an imagination anymore, and the child is
rebelling by dreaming up all of these fantastic places and creatures and adventures.
Yeah, I mean the adults are also helping to foster a traumatic world that is sending the young person even further into the world of fantasy. So this one should be a fun one to discuss here. I tell you what, I was trying to think of an elevator pitch. At first, it was difficult because I mean, it's the never Ending Story. It's like, all you have to say is that, and I have this instant, crystallized idea of what it is.
But when I thought a little hard, I was like, oh, it's essentially Feris Buehler's day off, except for book nerds.
That's very good. And in fact, I was going to get into this later in the discussion, but maybe it's good to bring up right here at the top. When I think back on my childhood feelings about the never
Ending Story. One way in which I think it is distinct from a lot of these other fantasy films is that in this movie, the things about it that stuck with me the most were actually not the fantasy elements, not the creatures within Fantasia, but like the scene where and we'll describe the plot in more detail later, but like the scene where the human child Bastion goes into the bookshop and speaks with the man bookshep, or the scenes where he has snuck away from school and I
guess he's still in the school building. He's snuck away from class and he's just hiding out reading a book by himself. Those scenes, when I was a child, they had a really powerful sort of magic about them, just like the excitement at the idea of being alone, away from the scheduled existence of like school life and activities and all the things adults are telling you to do, and just getting to hide with a book and read and these sort of dusty corners. It was almost intoxicating.
Oh, I absolutely agree. And yeah, these scenes the bookshop and the school attic where Bastion holds down and reads the never ending story. Yeah, both of these sequences in the film I think are very true to how they're presented in the book, And yeah, as a child and as an adult, there's something about that, like, yeah, just like hiding away and reading and then and eating that sandwich, the scene where Bastian's like, yes, oh yeah, I'm hungry. I'm going to get out my lunch from today and
eat it. Like I get a little snacky every time I watch that sequence.
So not so much about the sandwich itself, but I thought of the comparison of the reading scenes where he's hiding out with the book are almost as like carnally appetizing as really good food scenes in other movies, like you know, the cooking scene and Goodfellas or something where you're like looking at delicious foods and you're like, oh, I've got to go eat now. This movie does that for hiding away with the book.
Yeah, the attic especially is great because you look at the other environments that the real world Bastion has to encounter like that. We'll talk about him in more depth in a minute, but like the kitchen of his house where he has sort of breakfast with his dad, or certainly the school hallways, like these are so dry and
sterile and just you know, just devoid of joy. But here in the in the attic, we have this kind of like transitional realm, this place where they the boring and like anti creative forces of his life, where they set aside all of these like remnants of imagination, and so you see things like animal heads and what like Knight's armor and so forth in the background, like all these and even just like suggestive shapes where it's like this is like a lost temple of the imagination.
Why are there swords in the attic of the school?
I don't know, but yeah, it works absolutely because yeah, there are other aspects about that. As I was, I rewatched it with my son, which was very nice, and maybe he even brought it. It's like, well, why why has no one noticed that that bastion has not come home? Like it's night time out? Is his dad really working that late? Well?
Maybe, I mean you kind of have to press that don't think about that button then, yeah, because otherwise it's like, oh, yeah, there's gonna be an emergency here. Everybody's like where has the child gone?
Yeah, all right, well, let's go ahead and listen to the trailer audio for this film.
What is the secret of this Enchanted book. What wonders are hidden within its pages? What magical spell does it cast on all who read it? What is the secret of the never Ending Story?
It is impossible.
You will enter a world where a young boy's imagination becomes a vivid reality. The world of betray You and our tacks, the rock Biter and a good and kind gnome a world that is vast and eternal, out, treacherous and dazzling, unforgettable and free. Or anyone who's ever made a wish, believed in a fantasy, or had a dream, this is the never Ending Story.
All right. I think that captured some of the sweeping music, some of the energy of the picture.
Now, Robert, I don't know if we've ever discussed this before, but I made a connection in my brain between your long running relationship with this movie and the kind of music that is featured in the soundtrack of this movie. I bet we probably got some of it in the trailer there, though I hadn't listened to the trailer ahead of time, so I don't know. But is there a relationship between the never Ending Story and electronic music scores? In your mind?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's gonna be fun when we get into the musicians, respond onstable because you've got a couple of really big names here. You I mean, you have Claus Dollinger, who is like a great German synth composer and saxophonist. He's the guy who scored nineteen eighty one's Dost Bout. And then you also have Giorgio Moroder adding these additional synth tracks and also that really catchy theme music for the US release of the film.
And yeah, especially Moroder. Moroder is a huge name in electronic music in Italo disco. I mean, he's just he's a titan of the sound. So yeah, well we'll get into him in a bit, but yeah, it's you can't just take Marouder out of like eighties films and expect anything to sound the same. It's definitely a movie where like the ideas of the book, the music, and also
something very distinctive about the visuals all come together. I think we've talked before about sort of the sameness of the visual flare of a lot of films, certainly of the of the modern period. Know how, certain like monsters will sort of look the same, space suits will sort of looked the same, and nothing else really quite looks like this movie, and part of it has to do with the uh, the artist that was involved in designing these various creatures and scenes.
That's a good point. So I was going to raise this when when we were talking about the plot, but actually we could address it now. So yeah, I couldn't help but compare this to a new fantasy film that I saw over the past weekend. I went and saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie, which I quite liked it was. I thought it was great. It was funny, you know, tightly written, well structured, plot zipped right along, had a really nice cast. So basically thumbs up to all that.
It was a grand old time. But I do have to admit I was not crazy about the way the movie looked. Not because it looked bad. It didn't, you know, like there was nothing ugly about it. It's not like Jason X or something. But it just looked the same way most big budget, mainstream genre movies I see these days look so like I feel like all the Marvel movies I've seen look this way too, And I don't know.
I'm not involved in cinematography, so I don't know exactly what this quality is maybe if you out there listener, you know more about cinematography and I don't know how movies are color rated and all that kind of stuff, like could explain what this thing I'm talking about is.
It's this quality of big mainstream genre movies today all looking very smooth and digital somehow, like everything feels very evenly well lit, and everything looks clean, and everything's just kind of like sealed and seamed up and kind of paved over with this digital sheen, like the whole movie has been face tuned. You know those face tune apps like people can use on I don't know if they use.
On Instagram like a face or something.
Well, no, I don't mean fully like, I don't mean the ones that like give you a cat face people. There's some kind of apps people, I'm gonna sound really stupid people who actually know what these things are. But basically, there are these apps people use to make their faces look quote better. I don't know if they actually end up looking better, but like with the other you know, they'll run a selfie through them and their face comes out just looking like smoother and more sort of evenly
lit and more. I don't know, like it sort of takes out some of the texture and the individuality of the image so.
That they come out as a lie. Okay, that's fitting for what are we discussing later on?
Well, I don't know. So I mean, I don't want to sound overly harsh, because again, I mean, I liked the I liked the D and D movie. I've enjoyed plenty of other movies that did look like this, But I feel like the lack of visual distinctiveness does kind of take away from my enjoyment. And I couldn't help but keep making that mental comparison. When I was rewatching the Ending story here and there are all these scenes where I don't know, like you there, there's a lot
of playing with light and shadow. You can identify individual sources of light to the surfaces within the sets and and on the people feel like they have texture. There would be bumps and wrinkles and things, and there's a there's a feeling of dust and age and just generally real life. And uh, the Never Ending Story has that has that to the gills. You know, it's all over the place that that that sense of reality and texture
to it. And that's what I feel like is lacking in a lot of these big budget movies I see today.
I think as a solid point. I mean, I agree too that I saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie and I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun. But yeah, I would stop myself from comparing it to films like this, just because I was just like, it's it's great if you compare it to like all the other films that are coming out these days. But yeah, like you said, the light and the darkness, the sense of like physical reality that you find in a film like this, it just doesn't compare.
Yeah, I also didn't mean to imply that in every other respect than the visual they are similar. They're also different in other ways.
Fun flick, though, recommend Under the seconds whatever the rest of the name of it is called to adventure I I can't remember the colon, but.
You know what to talk about thieves, Gil honor among thieves.
That's it, all right. Well, if you want to go watch an ever ending story before proceeding with this episode, we'll lucky for you, it's widely available both physically and digitally, even if I'm not sure it's actually streaming anywhere at the moment, I think it was on a streaming service and then it like cycled out of that streaming service. But it's highly available. You should be able to find it wherever you are going to get your physical or
digital media. All right, well, let's get into the people behind it. Let's start at the top with the director, who also has a writing credit. It's Wolfgang Peterson, who lived nineteen forty one through twenty two, twenty two German director who rose to international acclaim with his third full length film, nineteen eighty one's Dots Boot. This is, of course,
the German submarine movie. This film, The Neverending Story would be his follow up film from nineteen eighty four, though in nineteen eighty five he also directed Enemy Mine, which is a science fiction film that I also quite like. I wouldn't put it on the same level as this film by any means. It also has, for my taste, the best teaser trailer of all time. But don't watch the full trailer for it, because it's also one of these films where the full trailer for Enemy Mine ruins
absolutely everything that happens in the picture. Oh No, So, anyway, I like Enemy Mine, but critics and audiences at the time apparently did not, and Peterson did not return to filmmaking till nineteen ninety one with a psychological thriller titled Chattered, and then nineteen ninety three's In the Line of Fire, which was a bit of a hit with everyone but also certainly wasn't really weird.
Wait a minute, in the Line of Fires that the one where Clint Eastwood plays a secret service agent who failed to save JFK's life. And then am I getting this right?
Yeah? And John Malkovich is trying to kill the president.
I think for no particular political reason, he just wants to.
Yeah, I saw it, but I don't remember much outside of that. But the interesting thing about Peterson's filmography is, yeah, he hits comes out strong with Dallas Boot. He does this pair of pictures, a fantasy film and a sci fi picture, and then most of the rest of his filmography, the rest of his career, it's films kind of like it's films like In the Line of Fire, which, again, In the Line of Fire apparently did great business and people liked it, critics liked it. But is this anybody's
favorite film? Does anyone consider nineteen ninety five's Outbreak, Break another Peterson film, or nineteen ninety seven's Air Force One their favorite film.
He did Get Off My Plane.
That's the Harrison Ford one, right.
Harrison Ford is the president. What is another president? It's a Harrison Ford. His Air Force One gets attacked by I don't know, terrorists of some kind. Is Gary Oldman one of them?
I think, oh, that sounds about right.
Yeah, yeah, But so Harrison Ford at one point famously says, get off my plane.
Yeah yeah. He also did two thousand's a Perfect Storm, which I also saw. He also did a two thousand and six remake of the Poseidon Adventure titled Poseidon. Oh, and he also did the two thousand and four film Troy, which has I think bred not as I say, no, Brad Pitt playing Achilles.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the Troy. I watched part of that on television in Iceland. I think, yeah it. I remember thinking it didn't look great though. I think it's one of those like two thousands movies that, like the movie itself doesn't look that good, but it's got a deep, great cast. I think it had maybe Eric Bana as oh what's his name, the the the hero of Troy
of the Other Side, not the Greeks. So what's his name, Hector, that's it Hector, Yes, yes, I think it had and it had Brian Cox, maybe his Agamemnon, and I don't know a bunch other.
It has a great cast, as I recall seeing. I haven't seen the film, but yeah, yeah, so I get the impression that, like with Peterson, again, not to cast any doubt in his later career, because it sounds like it. You know, it was tremendously successful, but it's like the with Enemy Mine and an Everthing story. He made a film for Bastian and with the rest of his pictures, he made films for Bastian's dad, you know.
Yeah, these are these are orange Juice and an egg in the Blender movies.
Yeah. So, but anyway, John taking anything away from him, Like I said, I I haven't seen Daf's Boot in forever, but I remember liking that one even as a younger viewer of films. And we'll come back to that one because the score on that one's also really good. All right. So again Peterson also has writing credit on this, but so does Herman Weigel born nineteen fifty German writer and producer on a number of mostly German screenplays German language
screenplays in his filmography. He was also one of the associate producers on nineteen eighty six is the Name of the Rose, and he's still active. But as we mentioned, this is of course based on a book. It's based on a book by German author Michael Inda, who lived nineteen twenty nine through nineteen ninety five. So he's yeah, the true master of mind, I think behind this film
author of the book which came out in seventy nine. Again, this film is an adaptation of the first half or so of the novel, and the remainder is equally great, but kind of a different tale. You know, what happens next is kind of about like what happens when the dreamer is truly ascendant and the potential pitfalls of the fantastic, but it's still great. Indo was a German author, the son of a surren list painter that was banned under the Nazi regime. Perhaps like fatherlike son, because in his
writing often features surreal and paradoxical elements. There are often a lot of real mind twisters that he unleashes on you, certainly in The Never Ending Story. His other novels include Momo, which I'm currently reading with my son, and also a book called Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, which I don't know anything about, but yeah, definitely has a
following outside of this film, especially in Germany. The book was tremendously popular in Germany and in the famously disliked this film adaptation, which I think is just going to happen sometimes with adaptations, no matter what the creator, the author is so tied to it, it's just not always going to I personally love both the film and the novel. I think the film does a fine job with the material, even if the original book is ultimately more thought provoking
and less diluted. But it's still like nothing.
Else, you know. Despite the fact that I absolutely do love this movie even without having read the book, I feel like I can detect places in the script in the film where the story is kind of patched together, kind of quickly duct taped together to cover up some gaps, like I don't know, do you know what I mean? Like there are parts of it that just kind of feel like, uh, Okay, we maybe couldn't afford to do this shot or something, so we had to like stitch these two parts together.
Yeah, yeah, and certainly you can see that comparing the book to the movie, like their whole encounters that are cut out, and by a little luck dragon magic, you're able to sort of stitch everything back together again. Now, it's worth noting that The Never Ending Story spawned two sequels in nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety four, as well as in nineteen ninety five animated series and a two
thousand and one German language live action TV series. I can't speak for the TV shows at all, but as far as the sequels go, I did watch I think maybe half of Part two finally, and it at least tries to adapt some aspects of the second half of the book. It stars Jonathan Brandis as Bastian. It has some cool creatures in it, but it's just the same magic is not there. And then Part three, I've not seen it all, but it looks kind of awful, even
though it does have a good cast. It's got Jack Black in it, It's got Freddy Jones and Julie Cox in it, and Jason James Richter of the Free Willie franchise plays Bastion.
Does it have an Orca?
No, no, Orca, just luck Dragons.
Then I'm out.
All right getting into the cast of this movie. First of all, playing Bastion Bastian Balthazar Bucks. His full name in the novel is Barrett Oliver born nineteen seventy three, former child actor of the nineteen eighties who really lit it up for a short while there. This was his first film role, followed by the nineteen eighty for Tim Burton short Franken Weeny, which is really good, nineteen eighty five's Daryl. That's dryl like it stands for something, but
I don't think I ever saw it. It's about a robot or a computer.
I'm guessing you don't know what Darryl stands for. No, it's do all robots yodel loudly.
Oh okay, Well that makes sense.
I have ever seen it.
I get it confused with wargames, I think anyway. Also, he was in nineteen eighty five's Cocoon, and I also find it amusing that in nineteen eighty four he appeared both in an episode of Highway to Heaven and the TV movie Invitation to Hell.
Now wait a minute. Before he starred in Daryl, didn't he also star in Larry and then another movie named Darryl.
No No, No, No No. He came back for nineteen eighty eight's Cocoon The Return, and his last film credit was nineteen eighty nine's Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. He went on to become a photographer in his adult life. But that's just one of the major child actors in this film, because Bastian, of course, is our character in the real world, but in the realm of Fantasia, we were following the adventure of a Treyu who's played by Noah Hathaway.
I don't know why I thought this, because they don't even look that similar. But I think when I saw this was when I was a kid, I thought these I thought it was the same actor playing both roles.
I might have assumed the same thing. Yeah, I didn't. When you see a movie like this young enough, you don't really you know, you're not gonna pull out IMDb and start figuring out who's playing who. But anyway, Yeah,
Hathaway was another major eighties child actor. He started off as Boxy on the original Battlestar Galactica series and did various TV roles until nineteen eighty four, when He started in both this and also was in the nineteen eighty four Saul Bass short film Quest, which I think will cover the next time we do a short film episode of Weird House Cinema.
Oh boy, Saul Bass, director of I was about to say them, not them Phase four.
Yes, the other Ant movie, the Ant movie we've done. Yes, now as far as Hathaway goes. In nineteen eighty six, he played, of course, Harry Potter Junior in Troll which we may have to come back to that one as well. We've seen its unofficial sequel, Troll Too, which does not have Harry Potter Junior.
Troll Too is, of course a B movie classic. I remember the last time I tried to watch the original Troll it was it took some effort getting to the end.
Oh yeah, I've never seen it. It has a great cast. Okay, what Julia Louis Dreyfus is in it? I guess so yeah, anyway, I need to see it at some point at anyway. After nineteen eighty six, Hathaway didn't act again until ninety four, and then again it was like the twenty teens before
he acted again. Has stated that most of his dialogue in this film is dubbed Alic should also add that in the book A Treyu has green skin, and I think I've read that they did some test shoots with Hathaway in green body paint and then decided it didn't look right.
I read that too. I read that he compared it to he ended up. He said, he ended up looking like a fun guy.
All right. Another character we have as the bookstore owner Carl Conrad Coriander, played by Thomas Hill, who lived nineteen twenty seven through two thousand and nine. This is probably his best remembered role, but he had a long running recurring role on TV's New Heart, which he just referenced
to earlier. He also pops up in nineteen eighty four's v The Final Battle, and I had no idea this existed, but I read that he voiced Uncle Ben in the nineteen eighty one radio drama of Star Wars, which features Mark Hamill as Luke. Anthony Daniels is c three po But then like they didn't have some of the other like someone else is doing Han solo. Brock Peters is
doing the voice of Darth Vader, so sounds interesting. Hill was also in the supporting cast of the Clint Eastwood jet movie Firefox from nineteen eighty two.
I haven't seen it. Is that about a helicopters.
Or it's about something that's kind of like an SR seventy one Blackbird, like a big black jet that the Eastwood is flying. And I remember seeing the box art for it as a kid, and I was like, this movie looks so cool. I absolutely must see this film. And I can't remember I've ever did or not, because I don't think it quite fulfills that promise to youth.
It reminds me of my relationship to a movie called Navy Seals. So I was like, well, this is just it's called Navy Seals. It's got to be the coolest movie ever made. It was not all right.
We mentioned Bastion's father, who is not in the film much at all, but I guess kind of has his character has important weight. And this is played by Gerald McRaney, another notable TV actor. His first film role was nineteen sixty nine's Night of Bloody Horror, followed by Women of Bloody Terror, and in nineteen seventy he had a role in an episode of Night Gallery. So I had a pretty horror based beginning, but then it's from there it
goes into a lot of increasingly successful TV work. He of course was one of the Simons on TV Simon and Simon in the eighties, and he has at least one off roles in just a ton of TV series all the way up through recent shows like This Is Us and ncis Los Angeles.
I don't know why. Bastioni's father kind of reminded me of of Louis del Grand, the guy who plays the you know, the guy in Scanners. So it's like when he's leaving for work that morning, he's leaving because he has to go do a presentation in the auditorium at Concept.
A similar look, the mustache, the balding.
Had the never Ending Scan.
Yeah, all right, let's seeho else do we have here. We have Tammy's Stronach as the childlike Impress born nineteen seventy two. This was her first role and her most notable one. I think she's been active in like documentaries and so forth on The never Ending Story, and she has a film coming up called Man in which that she acts in and was also an ep on. Looks like as a good cast. We have a character in the book called karn and this character, I'm sorry, the
character in the book is a centaur. In the movie, he's kind of a dude with like a super tall forehead, like kind a kind of a point on the top of his head, and he's like speaking on behalf of the childlike Impress.
Yeah, it took him as kind of I don't know, a lieutenant or the steward of Gondor. But for Fantasia, while the Empress is sick and he's sort of watching over things, and he's the one who explains to everyone. He is master exposition. He lays out the lore.
Yeah, and clearly I think based on Kyron the centaur from Greek mythology the teacher who what todd Achilles actually, But yeah, and he has a bigger role in the book, but in this he's just has this one scene. But anyway, Moses Gunn plays him in the movie. Solid character. Actor appeared in such Flix Says nineteen seventy is the Great White Hope seventy one, Shaft seventy five's Rollerball nineteen eighties, the Ninth Configuration, fire Starter in eighty four, Heartbreak Ridge
in eighty six, and on TV. He was very active and has a great villainous role on a Tales from the Crypt episode titled Fitting Punishment, in which he plays this mean funeral home director. And I think we've mentioned that episode before because it also has an actor by the name of Teddy Wilson in it who is in
Devil's Express. All right, so mostly human actors we've been talking about here, but of course this also has some voiceovers in it because you have multiple non human characters that are portrayed via some fantastic puppetry and so forth. And that includes the character rock Bider, the luck Dragon, Foulcore, the villainous Gomork. There's also a narrator there. It's funny because they are like two different narration systems going on
in this movie. At one point Bastion is narrating and then later we just get some other dude narrating.
Yeah, that was a little confusing, but okay, So this does confirm my suspicion just from listening that basically all or maybe actually all of the voices were done by the same person.
Yes, yes, Alan Oppenheimer did the voices, and I believe uncredited for all of these creatures. And this is something that always floored me, and I think it is perhaps just a snapshot of the time period and how voice acting was approached, because obviously, if The Never Ending Story was made today, and certainly if they end up remaking it at some point, as they've been talking about for a while, you'd have some big name actors playing all of these characters. Like I can easily imagine you got
Liam Neeson playing Falcore. I'm gonna say Werner Herzog as the Gomork. Maybe Dave Bautista is rock Biter, you know, the drill.
You may be being a little too optimistic. I think maybe it would be Chris Pratt as Falcore, Adam Sandler as rock Biter.
Oh no, no, no, no, yeah, surely not. I mean, I'll credit it to Sandler, but no, I can't. I can't imagine it. But at any rate, you mean you would have somebody playing those voices. They would probably be someone with with outside star a power. But yeah, in this it's just veteran actor and voiceover actor. And I think by certainly by this period, like almost entirely voice actor al Allen Oppenheimer just voice doing all the voices.
You could just this is a time when you just had one guy come in and you're like, hey, can you do voices for I don't know, like a dog, like luck dragon, a giant rock creature, and some sort of villainous werewolf. And also we might need some narration. Can you jump in on that tune? He's like, yeah, I can do that, and no need to hire anyone else.
I am truly impressed by even though I did detect that at least some of these voices were the same person. I mean, he's got to do a lot of them, so I'm impressed how many different voices he can do.
Yeah, and you look at his credits and it's extensive. He has three hundred and thirty five credits on IMDb, spanning seven decades, all the way back to nineteen sixty three. I mean, Oppenheimer was on a late series episode of The Andy Griffiths Show, for example, But then around nineteen seventy three he starts doing voice rolls and becomes a
major force there. Certainly a lot of it is that kind of additional voices credit you see from older animated specials, you know, where they just brought some people in it had them to do some voices. It might be a minor voice might be like the secondary character, but they just get that additional voices credit.
I don't know why, but I always like to see an arc where somebody goes from you know, doing in front of the camera work to doing voice acting and then they really are a hit as voice acting, you know, Mark Hamill kind of arc.
Yeah, yeah, and yeah. I mean, this guy's work has been great. Certainly not going to read through everything that he was in, and I'm not even gonna read through the list I put together for my notes here, but one of the big ones is that he voiced both Skeletor and Man at Arms in the nineteen eighties, he Man and The Masters of the Universe, as well as very spin offs of that show, and then he pops up
in just about everything you know. Veris like an episode of Batman, the animated series, Chippendale Rescue Rangers, Duck Tails, video game voices for stuff like The Fallout and Balder's Gate franchises, and more recently the Toy in the Toy Story franchise he voiced Old Timer. So yeah, he just has done so much a big name in the voiceover voice acting area. Now on the acting side of things, though,
I will Mention briefly. He had a small part as the chief supervisor in nineteen seventy three's Westworld, and he plays Duncan in a great essentially film stage adaptation of Macbeth from nineteen eighty one that starred Jeremy Brett as Macbeth and Piper Laurie as Lady Macbeth. Oh, I've never heard of that. It's pretty. It's like I said, it's not very cinematic. It's very much a film like stage performance.
But if you're at all, if you're like a kind of a Macbeth completist, I guess, or you really like any of these actors, it's worth checking out, all right. He doesn't play much of a role in the picture, but we have a character by the name of Teeny Weeney who rides a racing snail. He's played by Deep Roy born nineteen forty nine, a Kenyan British actor who, at four foot four, has been a go to actor
for creature performances and diminutive character performances for decades. He's worked in Star Wars, Dark Crystal Flash, Gordon Gray Stroke, The X Files, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Star trek in more, he also pops up
very briefly and returned to oz Ah. Yes, there's another character early on called Knighthobb who's kind of this bat writing goblin, who also doesn't have a tremendous role in the plot, but was played by Keelo Bruckner, who lived nineteen forty through twenty twenty, German actor whose biggest splash certainly this was his biggest splash outside of German film
and television, but he has extensive German language credits. So if if anyone out there has certainly more familiarity with German language film and television than we do, maybe you are more familiar with Kelo Pruckner's work. We also have
a couple of gnomes in the picture. We have Indy Wook, the gnome, played by Cindy Sidney Bromley, who livedeteen nine through nineteen eighty seven, British character actor whose credits include nineteen sixty two's Night Creatures, nineteen sixty seven's The Fearless Vampire Killers, the excellent nineteen seventy one and very cinematic adaptation of Macbeth eighty one's Dragon Slayer, nineteen eighty one's An American Werewolf in London and eighty six is Pirates Now.
Inge Wook's wife is another gnome named Ergel, played by Patricia Hayes, who lived nineteen oh nine through nineteen ninety eight. Outside of this film, her other big role of this time period was the good Witch for Raziel from nineteen eighty eight Willows. She's the good Witch. She has a memorable battle in the movie against the bad Witch, Jeene
Marsh's Queen bav Morda that is just absolutely brutal. So it can't help but compare it to the Gandalf Sarremon Wizard duel from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings like that. It's a great sequence, but it's very I don't know's it's I'm not sure how to describe it here. It's it's very clean, it's very honorable, whereas the fight between these two witches is just absolutely brutal and eye gouging
and they're just trying to absolutely murder each other. So, yeah, Willow is not a film without its faults, but that whole sequence is great. Okay, one more cast note before we move on to a couple other individuals, but one of the three bullies in the film that are after Bastion early in the picture and then get their come up and slay it in the picture is played by Chris Eastman, who also played the bully Belch in the nineteen ninety TV adaptation of Stephen King's It, which alone
is pretty interesting. Like this kid had the like the bully market cornered for a short while while he was acting as a as a youth. But then on top of that, he's also I believe, currently on the board of the Canadian Anti Bullying campaign. I am someone, So I don't know, like how can it did? Like I don't know the fullback store here, like if he felt like he had to do this because he played two different cinematic bullies or what the deal is?
The guy who played Scott Farcas is also on that all right.
Earlier I mentioned the visual style of the picture and how there's something about this movie that stands out, you know, it doesn't have that same it doesn't resemble other pictures. And the individual of note here is Count de Uido Rico who was born nineteen forty six. He was the conceptual artist, creature designer and scenery designer on the picture he is a German educated Italian artist and illustrator who's yeah, I think his work is just really key to the
distinctive look of The never Ending Story. Outside of this movie, he also worked. He has Skies and Clouds artist credit on nineteen eighty's Flash Gordon, which I think totally makes sense because both of these movies are full of swirling, psychedelic, brightly colored clouds. His work is very surreal. He's an artist and author of children's books as well, such as nineteen seventy He Ates the Rainbow Goblins and he If
you look him up, you can find his website. His website features various concepts he developed for The never Ending Story, including some concepts for a more humanoid werewolf style Gomork, which I think is very interesting that I think he based on a picture of himself, So it's always neat to see those early mockups of what things might look up look like in a film and then realize where
they deviated and where things stayed the same. You can see too, his designs for the urn, the the amulet that the that the childlike Empress gives the Treyu in the picture that is also the emblem on the on the cover of the never Ending story text.
Oh yeah, these illustrations are fantastic, and his his Gomork, sort of his more man Gomork certainly looks much sadder than the than the purely malicious wolf that's in the in the movie.
Yeah yeah, but it's especially interesting to keep in mind and when we come back around to like how the Gomork is depicted and how the camwork describes itself in the movie versus the book. All right, So moving on finally to the score. So this is one of those situations where the score was partially changed for audiences outside of in this case Germany. So in the German cut of the film, the entire score is Class Dollinger, but for international audiences some tracks by Georgio Moroder were added
along with the theme song, which Moroder was behind. It reminds me a little bit of the situation in the nineteen eighty five Legend, which had a score by Jerry Goldsmith for the European release and then Tangerine Dream for the American release. That always puzzled me regarding Legend. With this film, I'd say there's less of a like a sharp division between the scores, like both of them are very situated and based in electronic sounds. So starting with Dollinger.
Claus Dollinger was born in nineteen thirty six, great German synth composer and sad phonist. He composed the score for Peterson's nineteen eighty one U Boat film Dos Boot, which is just a great synth score on its own. I was relistening to some of it. I haven't seen the movie in forever, but it has a really killer lead melody that incidentally got a techno remix in nineteen ninety two by the group U ninety six, so we can look that up as well.
U Boat jams.
Yeah. Yeah. His work on The Neverending Story is also great, with such tracks as Fantasia and the Dad's like the mysterious intrigue of the book. And then there's the track Bastion's Happy Flight, which just giving the title that you know exactly what scenes I'm talking about from the latter portion of the film that give us that care free exhilaration. And then of course we also have the Gomork music. Anytime the Gomork is mentioned or reference, there's really startling,
scary music that Dollinger was behind. But then we have Moroder born nineteen fifty who did the synth editions and the theme song, so he is the father of a disco himself. Italian composer Giorgio Moroder gives this the signature techno pop tracks for the US version, including the Swamps of Sadness track and the Ivory Tower track. I mean, if you really get in deep, you can definitely tell the difference between Moroder's work and Dullinger's work, but I
like all of it. He also did synths on the theme song, and it was behind the theme song The Neverending Story, sung by English pop singer Limol born nineteen sixty eight, or perhaps Limeol. I'm not sure exactly how this particular artist, Moniker is pronounced.
I think it's an anagram for the name Hamil, which is the singer's actual name.
Oh for real, Yeah, okay, it's kind of like the Fantasia version version of his name. Yeah. And of course this track was popular again in recent years because they featured it prominently on a season of Stranger Things.
Oh, I guess it didn't make it that far.
I have to say, I don't. I mean, you can't really take the theme song for the neverding story out of the situation. But it's not my favorite thing that Moroder has been involved in.
I mean, it does say the name of the movie a bunch of times, and that's a good move.
Yeah, yeah, so yeah. Maroder is a legend, a true synth god, italo disco mainstay. His nineteen seventy seven electro disco album From Here to Eternity is pretty incredible and in film and TV. His other notable works include he scored the original Battlestar Galactica in the seventies. He scored nineteen eighty three Scarface. In nineteen eighty four, he created a score for nineteen twenty seven's Metropolis. I think I've seen this. I'd have to go back and look at it.
He scored nineteen seventy eight's Midnight Express, eighties American Jigglow, eighty two's Cat People. In eighty three, he scored the mega hit Flash Dance, including writing the theme song Flash Dance, What a Feeling, which is just an all timer, Like, you can't listen to this song and not get into it. As forgettable as the movie may be, Uh, it's a pretty great track.
I don't think I know the song what a.
Feeling Du dun u da da dun dun d d dun d.
Okay, maybe I hold on, Okay, I'm looking it up. Oh, I absolutely know this song, Okay, I just didn't know what it was called or what it was from.
Sorry, no, no, no. It's like like, like I say, it's not necessarily a movie that you or I would have a lot of feelings about, but the song what feelings are. Yeah. He also scored nineteen eighty six's Top Gun, including writing the theme song danger Zone sung by Kenny Loggins, Wow Highway to the danger Zone. Yeah. And he also scored over the Top from eighty seven, which I think that's the arm wrestling film that I've never seen, but I know some people find amusing on some level.
Sylvester Stallone, is it?
I think so? Yeah, it's a Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling picture.
That one's kind of a bore until you get to the scene where he arm wrestles Brundle Fly. That that's a real twist.
I was fixing to say. It's like I think of arm wrestling in motion pictures, I'm going to think of the Fly or I'm gonna think of what is it arms of Steel had some.
Hand hand of steel, hands of Steel. Yeah, yeah, the I wonder if the scene and hands of Steel was inspired by the Stallone.
Movie might have been. Yeah. So anyway that the music for this film is great. Uh, you know all on all this the score is just an embarrassment of riches. I was talking with JJ prior to come in here. I've never actually seen the German language cut of the film. Uh, and seen like the film with without the Morauder additions to it, But that would be an interesting exercise at some point. Yeah, unlike say the Jerry Goldsmith cut of Legend.
I'm just not gonna do it. I'm sorry, I'm just Hanjurine dream all the way.
Yeah, I know your proclivity's there. Okay, well wait, are are we going to the plot now?
Yeah, let's jump in. Let's in the book.
Okay. Well, so the movie does start off, at least in the version I watched to revisit it with the title theme, the Moreauder song with the with the you know, the never ending sorry gets your blood pumpin' ready ready for an adventure. And so our main character Bastion, when we first meet him, he wakes up from a nightmare. He's in bed, he's obviously been having bad dreams, and he immediately finds comfort in a book. So it's a
good way to get things started. We know, we know what he's all about from frame one.
That's right. The books. Books are his refuge. Books are his sacred space.
And the next morning, Bastion and his father are in the kitchen together. They're having breakfast. We find out that Bastian's mother has died and his father his father. Well, first of all, before I sort of alluded to this earlier, but there's something strange going on with Bastien's father's relationship with the blender, in which he I think we see him pour orange juice from a pitcher into the blender and then crack a raw egg in there and then just blend and drink.
It yep yep, drinks it down, gulps it down, and then has like a one minute conversation with his son about his disappointment in him, and then he's out the door. It's like a Bastion is like not only a latch key kid. He has to like lock up and leave for school in the morning. But yeah, my son and I were commenting on this as we were rewatching the film. You know, like, what a like, what kind of a breakfast is this? I guess it's like a true work
best breakfast, right, I mean, he's such a workaholic. All he has time for is that raw egg and that orange juice. Just gulp it down and.
Co he needs to take a vacation to Hawaii and explore his wolfy side.
Now, you mentioned that that Bastion's mother had died, and it isn't important to note she did not just die. This scene would be very strange if she had just passed away. But we get the impression that it's it's been some time, like long enough that Bastian's father is like, you need to get past this, get on with it. You know, we got to move on with life. And you know he's still still is dealing with it to a large extent, and his father is like, no, put
it behind you. You need to grow up and get with the program.
Right, And this is reflectively so he's like commenting on I think he got a call from one of Bastioni's teachers about how he hasn't been doing his homework. Instead he's drawing horses in his math book, and then Bastion's like, not horses, unicorns, and then his dad's upset. He's like, hey, so you're getting in trouble at school. You're not even trying out for the swim team. You say you love horses,
but you're afraid to get on a real one. So why don't you, you know, get your head out of the clouds and put your feet on the ground.
And so this is all we see of Bastian's home life, but it's it's well done, Like he gives us just enough notes to sort of build things out with.
And Bastian's father is not portrayed as like mean or evil. He is trying to be helpful. What this is what he thinks being helpful is is like telling his son he needs to like be realistic and stop daydreaming and all that.
Yeah, and like also clear, I mean, you get the impression that he is also dealing with the grief of this loss in a very particular way, and on some of it like thinks that, well, Bastian should do this too. This is what is sort of working for me. If he would only just do the same thing, then then he could move on as well.
Anyway, Bastien is on his way to school, but then he hits another obstacle. Gang of bullies, three bullies that you get the feeling that they mess with him all the time. They want to rob him, they want his money, and they end up throwing him in a dumpster in an alley.
Yeah, yeah, I hate these bullies there. They're the worst.
He climbs out of the dumpster and then of course they're not done bullying him. They're like, hey, get back in there, and so he runs away and they chase him and eventually he ducks into an old bookshop to hide. And in this scene, the old man who runs the bookshop, this is Corianders. He's very curmudgeonly, but there's something exciting about this space. It's full of stuff that seems old, seems to contain secrets, and we know Bascian actually does love books. And the man who runs the shop does
not expect this. As soon as the kid walks in, he looks at him. He's like, oh, this is a kid. Sorry. The video arcade is down the street, that's what you're looking for.
You can easily imagine a version of this where it's the comic book guy from the Simpsons gatekeeping on poor Bastian.
Worst generation ever. But yeah, so Bastion protests, He's like, no, I like books. I like books like though the one you're reading now. But the old Man's like, no, not like the one I'm reading now. All the books you like, you like Tarzan and Treasure Island and all that those books are safe. This book not so much.
Yeah, and of course we'll learn why this book, the Neverening story, is not safe, and certainly that's a huge plot point in the film. But also I felt I feel like this kind of flows over into the way received this film as a young viewer, that the film
itself was to some degree unsafe. And granted, any film, if you're young enough and you don't grasp the conventions of story and genre, any film can feel unsafe because you don't know that like the hero is supposed to win and so forth, or that certain things are not going to happen in a PG rated or G rated picture. But I felt like even early on, I could tell that this film was somehow buckling the against these restraints.
You know that it wasn't a completely safe world that I was immersing myself in and for for goodness sake. I mean there's sphinx nipples in it later on, which also seemed to contribute to this feeling.
This scene in the bookshops setting up the intrigue that will follow in the rest of the plot, I think is very good and I would place it in a league among the best scenes of this type. Other examples would include the scene at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark where the men from the government arrive and pull Jones out of class to ask him about
the arc and they have that reef conversation. I know that that scene is often held up as like a really great example of screenwriting, of like covering a lot of ground and raising tantalizing mysteries in a very short amount of time. Yeah, and I would say this scene is much like that. It does exactly the same. So the book's not safe. What's he gonna do? He steals it? Of course, he leaves a note. He's a good Yeah.
The old man finds a note saying okay, I will return it, but he runs off with the book because he's got to read it now. It's not safe, That's right. I mean, I think a lot of us can relate to this like the books you're told not to read that you shouldn't read when you're younger, Like, of course, those are the ones that you're going to get back to.
Like I think I probably mentioned this before, but I distinctly remember I started reading a copy of the Silence of the Lambs when I was like in middle school, I guess, and then and my dad took a look at it and he's like, no, no, you can't read that, and stuck it away. It was like the only time you ever did that. But of course I couldn't not read the rest of the book. I had to go and I found where it was hidden and had to sneak it out and finish reading it at night and
then put it back in its hiding place. You know, I've actually never read one of those Thomas Harris novels, but I've heard people say that like they're trash, but they're exquisite trash, like really top tier.
Yeah.
I don't know, it's been a long time, but I mean I enjoyed. I enjoyed reading Red Dragon in Silence, and then eventually I read Hannibal and I remember not liking it at the time, but but I don't know it's it's a weird book. Maybe I wasn't ready for it. I don't know.
Anyway, back in the plot, Bastion, so he's got the book. Now he makes his way onto school, but of course he's late and he peeks in the window at the classroom. They're doing a math test. Brother, that's no good, so instead of going into class late, he just skips, skips it entirely, runs to the school attic. That interesting that there even is such a thing. There's an attic at the school and there's like a glass case containing the key to the attic, where the glass is already broken.
Wonder if that means like he he has snuck in there before.
I don't know, or it was just somebody else had snuck in there. I'm not sure what the exact situation is, but you know, he knows what to do. This is probably a place he's fled to before, and it is it is like the physical incarnation of the refuge that he's finding in books, and as we discussed early in the episode, yeah, it is like it's like a temple to the fantastic in our real world. It's kind of a transitional realm between our world and the realm of Fantasia.
That's right. So he just settles in in this hidden place. It's very cozy where no one can find him and it's quiet, and he takes out the book and he begins to read. And yeah, it as I said earlier, it's just it feels so good. Especially when I was a kid watching this, it was like, I want that.
Basically what transpires next is basically what transpires in the book. We get this initial chapter that doesn't include a Tray you a tray who's not introduced yet. Instead, we meet the Nighthob, meet teeny Weenye. I think in the book there's also a Willow of the Whisp. Rock Bier is here, and they're just talking about what's going on in Fantasia, and they talk about the nothing, this force that's kind of gobbling up the fantastic realm.
Yeah, when we first meet the rock Bider, I think the Nighthob and teeny Weeny are sort of camping together in the woods, and the rock Bier is this giant figure made of rock that rolls in with a manual steamroller bike or something.
Yeah, and these are great creatures and there's a good stick in here.
But they're all facing the same problem. The Nothing is consuming parts of the world. There's some kind of force that's annihilating everything. They're trying to escape it, and I think ultimately they are headed towards the Ivory Tower, the home of the Impress of Fantasia of this world, because there they're going to find out what can be done about the Nothing right.
Right, And it's here that we're going to a scene where a Treyu is introduced. He's summoned, he's given the quest of helping to heal the when we find out that the childlike Empress is sick and that she alone is not going to be able to save everyone. And then also meanwhile, Bastian narrates this bit where we learn that the Nothing has sent its own servant out on a quest, and this servant is the Gomork. This is a first, absolutely terrifying glimpse of this massive wolf creature.
You know, the strong elements of the of the were wolf and also the giant wolf of fin Rear of Norse and as all mythology.
Mm hmmm, yeah, the Goomork is extremely scary. I remember, I remember that fear, that like bone deep fear watching watching the Wolf as a child.
Now green eyes, Oh yeah, green Eyes has green eyes in the book as well. I astud mentioned in the book as in the film, the Fantasians at the beginning are discussing the nothing and what someone asked, well, what does it look like? And they're like, well, you know, it's it like a hole and they're like, well, it's a hole would be something, but this is nothing. They go into it a little bit more in the book and they point out that it's like going blind when
you look at it. So just a little hint of sort of the paradox nature, paradoxical nature of Michael Inda's work at times, like the idea of like what is it like to look at something where there is nothing at all? It's not like seeing an absence, It's like blindness. It's something that can't even really be put into words.
I mean, this reminds me of things we've discussed on Core episodes before, where there are you know, neurological conditions affecting, say the visual processing centers of the brain where you can have you can have essentially blind spots in your vision, and you might imagine that manifests as like okay, you're looking around and there's like a dark spot in the middle of your vision where no light comes through, but instead for some of these conditions, instead what you get
is the sensation that you're seeing a continuous scene, but in fact it's like stitching together these two places that don't actually connect in space. So you might like, I think one of the examples we talked about is like you might look at a dog and instead of a blank spot over the dog's face, the dog just has no face.
Yeah. Now the movie doesn't really attempt to bring this idea to life. We basically see all these like swirling storm clouds and nebula effects going on where the nothing is moving in and I don't know, we can either think of that as I guess it's just something visual to represent the nothing, or perhaps this is supposed to be like sort of the event horizon of the nothing.
Yeah, I think the event horizon is a good way way to put it. It's often, yeah, represented as like a storm and these winds and clouds and all that.
All Right, Well, at this point we have we have assigned our main quest to our fantasia hero a tray. You, it's time for him to set off and get some answers.
So he goes to many different places, but he can't find a way to stop the nothing. Oh and we should mention he's equipped with They get the agents of the Empress give him a talisman called the.
Orneah, which is like the sort of intertwined serpent symbol that looks very cool.
So he's got the orn, he's got his loyal horse attacks and they're riding around trying to find answers. And they go to one place, they find nothing. They go somewhere else, they find nothing, not the nothing, just no answers, and eventually they end up in the swamps of Sadness. And here's where we sort of pick up on the quest in more real time. And one of the first things that happens here is something that I know horrified children of my generation round the world, the death of
our tax. Where so they go into the swamps of sadness and they the story of this place is that if you let the sadness overtake you, you will be sucked down into the muck. And this happens to a tray You's loyal horse here, and it is so sad.
It is, I mean, if you're watching it, as an adult or a child. It really pulls at the heartstrings because our Tax just straight up dies of sadness, with the tray you pleading for him to hang on the keep waffling on. Which is worse, I guess because in the book the horse talks and in the movie the horse is just a horse. But and so it's certainly potent enough in the film because there's something about the communication gap, like how do you talk a horse out
of sadness? You can't like, uh, you know, it's it's he's helpless. In the book, though, they have a whole conversation and and like there's like he's he's like, hey, you gotta, you know, don't you gotta, you know, push through it, you know, don't don't give into the sadness. And so there's this part where quote it goes like this, leave me, my master said the little horse. I can't make it go on alone. Don't bother about me. I
can't stand the sadness anymore. I want to die. And then our Tax explains he is sinking due to his sadness, but the detray you is protected by the orn, and he makes one last request to his master, a Treyo. He says, quote, I beg you to go away. I don't want you to see my end so heavy stuff, agreed.
I think actually though, it might be even worse when it's just the horse that can't talk. Because it can't talk, so you have no closure. There's no last words or anything.
Yeah, there's no sense that the horse is okay with this on any level. Oh we should also mention, Joe, I know you're a big fan of like woodland environments that are created artificially on a set. This is a fantastic swamp set that they've put together here.
You think this is probably indoor, right, I'm.
Almost positive it is, because I think I've seen some behind the scenes stuff about how they pulled off this horse sinking and they had to have like a whole like elaborate system with like an elevator or something.
Yeah, well it's brilliant. It looks so good and so dank like this the swamp is disgusting. But the reason there at the swamp is I think tray you has heard from somewhere that he might be able to find a way to stop the nothing if he talks to a figure known as Morla. The aged one is that.
Right, Yeah, an ancient giant tortoise that has dwelt so long in the swamp of sadness and just lived for so long in general that nothing matters anymore, like not even a little bit. And so it's it's it's very interesting on the page and on the screen. I think they adapt it quite well. Morla talks to itself, it has like two distinct personalities and ultimately just really doesn't care about anything but a tray. You keeps asking, and
eventually Morla shares some wisdom. The childlike Empress, who is not old but has always been young, needs a new name, though no one in Fantasia can give it to her, so you're gonna have to go see the Southern Oracle for more information.
Now, in the movie, we do not find out here that the Empress needs a new name, I think best or not in the movie A Tray You doesn't find that out in the movie until he gets to the Southern.
Oracle, right, yes, I believe that's right, yes.
But instead he for some reason, he's just sent to the Southern Oracle. I can't remember exactly what Morris says, but it's like Southern Oracle can help you. Uh, And it's there's a funny scene where he, of course, he keeps climbing a tree to speak to this gigantic tortoise and the tortoise keeps sneezing and that knocks him out
of the tree. But there is in this scene, there's a moment where bastion out in the real world screams as something that frightens him, and his scream is heard by the characters in the book.
Yeah, this is a key, key scene where Bastionian begins to realize that there is this connection between his world and the world of Fantasia. Now, in the book, it doesn't occur until the next sequence because in the book there's a whole other encounter encounter that follows that's not
depicted in the film. Trayu encounters Yigramol the Mini the horror of which is this strange creature that's like a swarm of hive mind hornets that then takes the shape of a great spider and has a deadly poison that will kill you within an hour, but will grant the victim the power to teleport to anywhere in Fantasia to die. It's weird and wonderful. And it's in this encounter in the book that Bastian's voice is heard by a Trayu and the poison is how he ultimately makes it to
the oracle. And it's also where he meets Falcre, the luck dragon, because Falcre is caught in Yigramohl's web.
Oh, there's a very different meeting scene in the movie. So in the movie, a tray You is leaving the swamps of sadness, but it's just too much. The sadness is overtaking him. He's sinking down in the mud. And at the same time, the Gomork, the horrible wolf creature who every time we catch a glimpse of him, it's almost just a blur, but it's terrifying, and he's racing toward the hero of the Empress, who to kill him.
And right, you know, right when he's about to sink under and the wolf is falling upon him, suddenly a white, fluffy flying serpent just comes in out of the sky and lifts a tray You out of the mud. And this is how a tray You and Falcre meet Ah Falcre.
I mean, who doesn't love Falcre. It's just such a great character and just wonderful creature design.
In the movie, Falcore is yeah, a fluffy, white flying serpent, kind of like the like a like a Chinese dragon design, but very much with a cute dog's face.
Yes, yeah, wonderful, wonderful design. I should also point out that the name is Falcore in the movie Falcre in the English translation of the book, but in the original German it's Fuker, but that was changed for the English translation, I think for obvious reasons.
So a tray you wakes up next to Falcre on a mountaintop and they introduced themselves. Falcre explains that he is a luck dragon. He gets he you know, he gets where he's going with luck, and he has conveniently brought a tray you to the Southern Oracle. I don't remember. Does Falcore ever explain, like really where he came from. It just seems like he just showed up to help.
Yeah, it's just lucky like that. I guess. So's it's something that, like I say, in the book, it makes more sense because they're sort of common prisoners. They meet on the road at a specific place and then their stories have become intertwined. It's a little more rush in this adaptation.
Now here, it's in this part that a tray you and Falcore meet with the gnomes Ingywook and ergyll. Iningywook is like in this room that is kind of dusty and smoky. It's sort of a cave, but with gnarled roots everywhere and old scrolls and potions and all that Inywook is supposed to. He fashions himself as a scientist of some form, and he's always doing quote research, though I think this has played for comedy, like it's questionable of what value his research actually is.
Right, Yeah, he's the foremost authority though on the Southern Oracle and has a lot of wisdom to share, but I mean he's these are cookie characters, like they're constantly fighting with each other, and yeah, it's uncertain how how much knowledge he really has to share about any of this.
But he does actually get a traya there so and Inguwook leads a tray you up to sort of an observatory where they can look down upon the first of the two gates the tray you must pass to reach the Southern Oracle, and the first gate is a pair of sphinxes, these huge statues, and Ingewook explains that their eyes stay closed until someone who does not feel his
own worth tries to pass by. And we get to witness this with sort of a paladin riding a horse to get through the pass and he comes up upon them. He's got his armor gleaming, he's holding a big spear. He looks pretty confident until the sphinxes open their eyes and then boom, they zap him with lasers. He sort of explodes off his horse and dies. But a tray who is like, well, I've got to get through there, so I'm gonna try it out. So we see him
approach and he walks underneath these huge, imposing statues. The designs are pretty scary. It's good.
Yeah, I was thinking they They always have looked to me kind of like Ray Harry hows and creations, like they might come to life at any second, but they don't really, aside from the eyes opening.
I see that Ray Harry house in comparison.
Yeah, as previously mentioned, the sphinxes definitely have nipples. Like I said, that always stood out to me, and for some reason I always interpreted that as a younger viewer, thinking, oh man, this this movie is serious, like this is kind of the whole This film isn't safe, Like clearly that the nipples indicate that this is not just for kids, that this could be who knows what could happen A tray who is not safe.
Yeah, it's true and this is actually in the normal sense. Also a very scary scene a tray who, like, as he's walking up the dead paladin on the ground, his visor flips back when it's blown by the wind and you see like a charred face inside the mask. So this guy's burned up by the sphinxes and to tray you, he tries to walk through, but apparently he fails the test of faith in himself. He didn't have enough confidence, and the sphinxes open their eyes. They try to zap him,
but he jumps. He just barely avoids the blast.
It kind of gets through on this one on a technicality.
So next he's got to face another gate. This is the magic mirror gate, and inkybook explains that when they look into the magic mirror, that people must face themselves. Kind men find that they are cruel, Brave men find that they are cowards. When confronted with their true selves,
most men run away screaming. But something that's kind of interesting when a tray you goes and looks in this mirror, there's a kind of there's like a double exposure effect in the film, where we see a tray you looking and seeing himself what, we also see Bastion sitting there reading the book. Yes, And strangely, bastionen detects this. It's as if he reads a description of himself in the book. In this scene, he gets freaked out and he throws the book away. He says, this is going too far,
but then he's also kind of tempted. He's got overwhelming curiosity, like what if they do really know about me and Fantasia? And so so he goes back, he retrieves the book he keeps reading, and a tray who walks through the mirror.
Now in the book, the three gates are a bit different. I'll note Gate one is that if you're caught in the gaze of the Sphinxes, you have to solve every riddle in the world until you die. Gate two is essentially the same, the test of the true self. But then Gate three is a keyless gate that only opens once you no longer have the desire to pass through. But in the film, he basically comes finally to the Southern Oracle, which is basically the same two sphinxes from before, except now they're blue.
Yes, it feels like maybe kind of a shortcut, but okay, and the sphinxes tell him. When tray Who arrives, they tell him, okay, here's the solution. Here's how to beat the nothing. The Empress needs a new name. And to Trey, who says, a new name, that's easy. I can give her a new name if you want. I can pick any name I want. But the Southern Oracles tell him, Nope, you can't do it. In fact, no one from Fantasia can do it. Only a human child can give her
this new name. And he is like, well, where can I find a human And they say, you cannot find one inside Fantasia. There are no humans here. You have to look outside the world to find them.
Yeah, everyone in Fantasia is a dream, is a creation of the imagination, and a dream cannot itself dream.
So he's got to get outside somehow to find one. But then the Sphinxes are crumbling. They tell him he's got a hurry, you know, we don't know how long we can withstand the Nothing. And here we're on to the next adventure. So a tray You and Falcore are flying through the clouds. They fly over many landscapes, mountaintops, deserts, and they're looking for the boundaries of Fantasia, though neither
one of them knows where that boundary lies. And this scene I thought was kind of interesting because suddenly it's right after this dire scene where we learn about how close the Nothing is to destroying all, but then we go straight to flying around and there's this sense of exhilaration. There's laughter. A tray You and Falcore are both laughing.
I don't know. I thought, it's notable that this scene is fun right after this horrible warning given by the Southern Oracle about impending doom if he does not find
the human child that can name the Empress. I thought, maybe there's something going on here about the childhood experience with adventure narratives, or narratives more generally, the seeming paradox of the way that excitement for the human child who is reading is heightened by increasing the stakes within the story, the situation for the characters becomes more dire, the experience for the reader becomes more fun, And I think that
maybe the film is suggesting something about the ongoing contagion between the worlds here, like Bastion's excitement with the story is infecting a tray you.
I think that's a solid interpretation, because, yeah, within the context of what's actually going on in Fantasia, this is all just a failed surveillance surveillance mission, you know, it's they're just they're trying to find something and they don't find it. But it's a very fun sequence, Like these are great flying sequences. Who doesn't want to fly around on a luck dragon?
After watching this back in the real world, we get a little scene where Bastian wishes that a tray You and Falcore would come and ask him to name the Impress, because he says his mother she had a wonderful name. He doesn't say what the name is.
Yah.
Now, when they're flying along in Fantasia, eventually a storm strikes. I guess this is the nothing. A tray you and Falcor encounter the nothing. It's like a storm and it knocks a tray You off of falcurs back. He falls into the ocean, and in this scene there is suddenly a storm in the real world as well, and it blows the windows open on the attic of the school, so Bastian has to go like refasten them and then
keep reading. And in Fantasia, a tray You is washed ashore on a desolate rocky beach with these great stone ruins in the background, and he encounters the rock Bier. So we're full circle again. Rock Bier was in one of the earliest scenes in the movie, and we learned from him that the rock Bier couldn't protect his friends.
He's looking at his big, strong, rocky hands but saying how even with these hands holding on to his friends, he couldn't hold them back from the nothing and they just fell away into it and now they no longer exist.
Yeah, another absolute heart Renger.
So it's a real dark Knight of the Soul scene. A tray You has lost the r n that fell off when he fell into the sea. He's lost falcrething seems hopeless, The nothing is coming. The rock Bier says he wants to surrender and let the nothing take him h And then a tree walks into the ruins of a city. It seems to be a temple of some sort where he sees paintings of scenes from the adventure. He just went on all the same characters, making you wonder kind of like weight was all of this foretold?
And then there's the encounter with the Gomork. Finally, a tray you and the Gomork come face to face, and the Gomork is so scary.
Oh yeah, absolutely, this is this great wolf there in the shadows, with its gleaming green eyes and its ferocious mauve teeth and this grumbling voice. Yeah, absolutely perfect. And rewatching with my son, it's like he's still he's almost eleven, and he still wouldn't really look this scene dead in the like dead on. You know, it's kind of like looking off to the side a little bit because it's it's pretty potent.
So, I know you wanted to discuss differences between the scene in the movie and the first I guess I'll just describe it in the movie. Is that how you wanna do?
Yeah?
Okay, So in the movie, the Gomork says, you know, I am the Gomork, you can be my last victim, and a tray who says, well, I won't go down easy because I'm a brave warrior, and the Gomork says, well, if you're a brave warrior, then fight the nothing. And a tray who says, I can't fight the nothing, he wants to know why is Fantasia dying? Where is the nothing coming from? And Gomork explains Gomork actually knows. He says, because people have begun to lose their hopes and dreams.
The nothing is the emptiness that is left, despair destroying this world. And Gomork has been trying to help the nothing because people who have no hopes are easier to control, and whoever can control them has power. Now I don't know if this is different in the book, but I think this line from the Gomork about how people who have no hopes and just generally I think are cynical is what he's sort of portraying are easier to control.
I think that is actually truer and much more profound than you might notice at first, because it can easily sound like just boilerplate kind of positivity about life, hope
is good, et cetera. But specifically the claim that people who have no hopes and dreams are easier to control, I think that is quite true, and by no means obvious, because many people behave as if they believe cynicism is actually an empowering type of wisdom, like believing in nothing, hoping for nothing, trusting in nothing makes a person smarter than everybody else around them and harder to control. You
hear a million different versions of this. The person who says, you know, oh, I don't believe anything, anybody says I don't you know, oh I don't believe any politician. They're all the same, or whatever.
You know.
There's a million versions of looking at the world this way. So some people think that makes them, you know, smarter, harder to control. But I think exactly the opposite is true. To embrace the kind of cynicism means you end up with no real power of discernment. You disarm yourself of one of the most powerful armaments you have mentally, the ability to discern truth from falsehood, and you end up with no real agency in the world. I think this type of cynicism not only leads to but is in
itself actually a form of gullibility. And this is not obvious to many. Lots of people think they make themselves more powerful and more autonomous and more insightful by being cynical, But exactly the opposite is true. It is by having hopes and imagination and the ability to put your trust in good things that you become empowered to affect the world, and more than that, that you have integrity in yourself.
Absolutely, I think it's dead on. Yeah, And as I'll discuss in just a minute here, I mean I think all of that is present in the text as well, and that ultimately in the film they do nice job of sort of condensing it down and getting it on the screen in a way that you can easily absorb in this ultimately brief conversation, but a conversation that is still kind of in many ways kind of the heart of the conflict.
Yees. So I found the scene in the movie on rewatching quite powerful, kind of gave me goosebumps and really profound. But anyway, so coming back to like how it actually plays out in the conversation, Gamork reveals, Okay, so he's serving the power of the Nothing. He is its servant, and he was sent to kill the only one who could stop the nothing, a tray. You and a tray who says, okay, well, if we're both about to die because of the Nothing anyway, then I would like to
die fighting. I am a tray you so and Gamork attacks, so they fight briefly, but a tray you kills Gamork with his blade.
Yeah, great sequence, And again it always gives me chill bumps to rewatch that scene now in the book. Yeah, it has very much the same energy, just a little more drawn out and provides a little bit more detail on sort of the thesis statement. Here, it's still a pivotal scene in which the threat to our world Infantasia, is clearly laid out, and we learn about the Nothing, the motivations of the power behind the Nothing, and this
strange creature known as the Gomork. And this is a section of the book that I've gone back and reread in isolation on more than one occasion because it's really good. So just to highlight some of the things that are different, I'm going to read a couple of passages as well. In the book, the Gomork is chained and the location the ruined city is spook City, the land of Ghosts.
The Gomrk is described as a were wolf, and also the Gomork is weak and starving in the sequence, and he expects to die before the Nothing arrives and consumes him, and seems to believe that this is far preferable. He cannot bite through the chain because he was chained here by Gaya, the Dark Princess, who gave up hope and leapt into the Nothing with her people after chaining him, and then he he talks a bit more about the nature of were wolves and reveals more about his own past.
He says, you know, only Fantastica. It's called Fantastica in the book as opposed to Fantasia. There are other worlds, the world of humans, for instance, but there are creatures who have no world of their own, but are able to go in and out of many worlds. I am one of those. In the human world, I appear in human form, but I am not human. And in Fantastica, I take on a fantastic in form, but I'm not one of you.
Ooh, that is creepy.
Yeah, almost kind of like you know, Dark Tower vibes to the sky, you know, he's almost like some sort of a Randolph Flag kind of a character. He goes on to reveal that humans who are consumed by the Nothing, they don't just vanish, they are transported to the human world as lies. The com work says, quote, you ask me what you will be there? But what are you here? What are you creatures of Fantastica, dreams, poet conventions, characters
in a never ending story. Do you think you're real? Well? Yes, here in your world you are. But when you've been through the Nothing, you won't be real anymore. You'll be unrecognizable and you'll be in another world. In that world, you Fantasticans won't be anything like yourselves. You will bring delusion and madness into the human world. Tell me, Sonny, what do you suppose will become of all the spook City folks who have jumped into the Nothing? They will
become delusions in the minds of human beings. Fears where there is nothing to fear, Desires for vain, hurtful things, despairing thoughts where there is no reason to despair.
Wow.
Yeah, So, in short, the Fantasticans are Fantasians that jump into the Nothing will become live. And it's also related that humans hate Fantasia or Fantastica and everything that comes from it, so they want to destroy it. Though in destroying it they are only flooding their own world with more fear and delusion. In this section is also mentioned again that's staring into the nothing is like feeling as
if you're going blind. And also in this sequence the Gamore in the Great Film sequence, the Gamore it mentions that he serves the powers behind the Nothing, and in the book this power is given a name, the Manipulators, and the Gomork says quote, when it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies, because you see, humans live by beliefs, and beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.
That's why I cited with the powerful and serve them, because I wanted to share their power. And then the Gomore taunts a tray you about the sort of lie he may be transformed into when the Nothing takes him and tells him quote, the human world is full of weak minded people who think there as clever as can be, and are convinced that it's terribly important to persuade even the children that Fantastica doesn't exist. Maybe they will be able to make good use out of you. And so
at this point when the Gomork relates his mission. He tells how he was captured by the Dark Princess and never got to find a tray you. A Treyo asked him why, like, why are you so he will want? Are you so full of hate? And the Gomork says, because you creatures had a world and I didn't, again touching on this idea that the Gomork is a creature of the between that he has. He has one form in our world, one form in Fantasia, but he is
not a denizen of either. And then in the final moments of this whole sequence plays out much like in the film, except in the book, a Trayo's leg is chomped by the Great Wolf and so he is like grievously wounded in the process as well, and is like seems like he's going to be too slow to escape
than nothing. But anyway, like like I was saying, like the the ideas that are more expressly presented in the book, I very much match exactly what you're talking about with your interpretation of the scene in the movie.
Yeah, So the Gomork serves powerful manipulators who want to control people, and they do that by militating against hope and imagination and trust and filling the world with malicious lies. It's a powerful vision of a sort of metaial conflict.
Yeah. One thing that is interesting, you know in the book too, is that at this point in the book you are presented with this like greater understanding of the threat of facing Fantasia, but it's ultimately defeated bred it rather swiftly by like halfway through the book, so like the manipulators never really are an issue again, they're not really mentioned again later in the book. So there, I guess firmly dealt with, but it left me wanting more, which again is it's like that's one of the great
things about any work. And it's actually something that Michael
Into plays with a lot in the book. There are always these little moments where it sounds like he's about to go off on another tangent relating like what happened to secondary characters when they left the main events of the story, and he says, but that is another story and we'll be told another time, which I think as this feeling of the limitless nature of Fantasia, that it has no limits because the limits are just the limits of human imagination, which is almost beyond limit.
Okay, Well, after this conflict, the story is not fully wrapped up. Ultimately, a tray You and Falcre have to find a way to stop the Nothing, which they don't quite know how to do. But Falcore does find the orn that has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. He goes picks it up. He comes in and he rescues a tray You from being consumed by the Nothing, and together they fly through space as the land of
Fantasia is literally broken into pieces. The land itself becomes like asteroids floating in the vacuum, and a tray You uses the Oran to find his way back to the Ivory Tower where the Empress is, and there's finally a conversation, a meeting between a tray You and the Empress. A tray You believes he has failed, but then the Empress tells him he hasn't failed. He has brought her the human Child. The Weirdly, in the scene, I think questionable choice.
In the movie, they start calling the child the Earthling, which is not a term they've used before. I think that's an odd choice. But anyway, they're talking about the human child. They say he has suffered with you. He went through everything you went through, and now he's here. But he doesn't realize he's already part of the never ending story. And just as he is sharing your story to tray you, others are sharing his. So here we're
being brought into the narrative as well. And they say that, you know, they were with him when he ran from the bullies, when he found the bookstore and all that. But of course, Bastian we come out to the real world in the movie and he's freaking out. Is he reading about himself in the book once again? And the Empress explains the boy just has to give her a new name, that's all, and then the nothing would be beaten.
It would be so easy for him, but he refuses to believe he really has the power to save her by doing it, so he doesn't do it, and the Empress begs him to save them. Everything's kind of falling down. The tower is crumbling, a tray you falls, he might fall down dead, and Bastian finally overcomes his hesitation. He runs to the window. He throws down the book and he cries out a name into the storm outside, a
new name for the Empress. I think we're to understand it's his mother's name, but interestingly, we don't hear what it is. It's muffled by the storm.
Yeah, it's in the book. It is Moonchild. That's the name he chooses, which I guess is probably not his mother's name in the real world. But I was on this rewatch I couldn't understand what he was yelling either, and I was like, well, I'm just going to use the subtitles handily, click over the subtitles and see what he's saying. But the subtitles for the version I was watching, when he yells his mother's name, it's just like it
just says yelling, so I guess. But as I leaned into it, it's like, I think I can hear him yelling Moonchild. I think he's yelling Moonchild, but it's not distinct.
And this does something sort of everything goes dark and we're down to just the Empress, I guess, in Bastion together in this dark environment. The Empress in her hand is holding a single grain of sand that is glowing. She says it's all that remains of her vast empire. But she says Fantasia can be recreated if Bastian wishes all he has to do is wish for it, and he says, how many wishes do I get? And she says, as many as you want.
Yeah, this becomes crucial in the rest of the novel because we've learned that with each wish he makes, he loses part of his memory of his life in the real world.
M I mean, I guess that's a different kind of story, with a new kind of complexity. But it is a oh, I'm gonna say, a powerfully emotional ending for this story about the joys and potency of childhood imagination. You know, she's teaching him how to change everything with creativity.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's ultimate, a real boost of a story, you know, the power of creative thought, the power of the imagination, the power of actual childhood and one's inner childhood. And then of course we get this very notable scene, right, we get one more great flying scene to end everything out. Yeah.
Well, so Bastian himself rides Falcre. He imagines himself riding Falcor. So Falcre is back, and the rock bier is back, and a tray you and Artax and all the characters are restored just by him imagining them. They're now no longer destroyed by the Nothing. Now they're back to life again. They're carrying on with their lives. It's like the Nothing
never was. But then, of course, the final merger of the two worlds happens when Bastion rides Falcre out into the real world over the streets and terrorizes his bullies like the ones who beat him up earlier, and Falcre chases them into the dumpster. Doesn't feel too vengeful because he doesn't actually hurt them, and Falcre is not going to hurt anybody. Falcor's sweet. It's just they just get scared.
They got to get scared. Yeah, it's a very satisfying scene. I don't think this doesn't happen in the book. I'm pretty sure this is something doesn't happen in the book. It kind of runs completely opposite of the whole world building exercise that Enda's doing here. But I cannot fault it at all for just the pure cinematic experience of it, and also having watched it with my son at two different ages already, like, this is a real satisfying sequence. Kids love it.
So I can tell exactly why I loved this movie as a child. But I loved it as an adult too. This one holds up great. I think it's a beautiful movie.
Absolutely, and yeah, and I encourage everyone out there, if you're a fan of this film and you haven't read Michael Linda's novel, pick it up because it's, like I say, the first half of it is going to give you a great literary version of what you've grown to love on screen. And then the second half of the book kind of goes in a slightly different direction, but is full of wonderful ventures and strange creatures and also lots of thought provoking material. So I highly recommend both of them.
All Right, Well, on that note, I guess we're going to go and close this episode up. We're going to enclose the never Ending Storybook for this episode, but we'll be back in the future. Just a reminder that we're primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
If you want to see a full list of the movies that we've covered on the show, you can go to a couple of places I have a blog at some newtomusic dot com where I blog about the films we're covering, and like with this film, I'll probably put in a bunch of like embedded examples of some of the music that I talked about here if you want to go check that out. I also include a link for the artwork that sort of thing. But also if you've used letterbox dot com, it's l E T T
E R B O x D dot com. Well, we have a profile on there, weird House, and if you go there you'll find a list of all the movies we've covered, and sometimes they'll be even a a a preview of what's coming the next week.
Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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