Sunday, August 23

The Neverending Story of the Neverending Story


The Kennedy/Marshall Co. (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Leonardo DiCaprio's company Appian Way are in discussions with Warner Bros. about reviving the 25-year-old franchise with a modern spin. The studio recently acquired rights to the property, clearing the way for a potential remake. The new film--which original producer Dieter Geissler--will examine the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the first film, that was directed by Wolfgang Petersen. -Coming Soon.net

I personally would like it for a remake to be closer to the book. I as a child, first saw the movie and fell in love with it. I felt a lot in common with the main character Bastian. And I had a crush on Noah Hathaway who played the Ateryu. I read the book later as a teenager and fell more in trance. The book goes more indepth into the story. The sequel movie wasn't as great, it tried to pick up on some parts later in the book but felt empty and without heart. The third movie went off on a tangent and had no creativity at all, it had the imaginary characters traveling to the real world, it was done in the mid-90's but looked like something out of a bad 80's movie. It was straight to VHS and thank god it was. There was a Neverending Story cartoon and Neverending Story series that went completely off tangent and was no way near the spirit of the original book. The cartoon was bland and not creative, the series added new characters and looked like a different animal.

The book was written by Michael Ende, a German author and he didn't like the first movie. Imagine if he ever saw the third one, he would have rolled in his grave.--well the third one came out in 1994 and he died in 1995 so maybe it had something to do with it. The book dealt with a young boy who loved books and had no friends and stole this book from a book store owner and he started being incorporated into the plot. He found out he was part of the story. Where the movie left out, at Bastian giving the Childlike Empress a name, but before he did so, she had to go to the man who was writing everything that was happening and everything she said, he wrote and it was a really interesting metaphysical scene. Bastian makes himself an avatar of sorts, changes his image and makes wishes that come true in Fantasica, everytime he makes a wish, he looses a memory and finds out there are more like him, that all have forgotten their memories. In the end, Bastian becomes himself again, a chubby little boy, faces his fears and befriends the book store keeper who also went through a similar experience. Great book.