Back-corn and Bob Dylan Impersonators: This is The Neverending Story!

Hello! I realize Sunday's post was bit intense, so let's change it back up and tackle something slightly less serious! (BTW I've gotten a lot of good feedback on that story from you guys, so thanks for that!) I was reminded that I wrote this synopsis of one of my favorite childhood movies, The Neverending Story, a couple years ago. I had forgotten about it completely, but upon re-reading it, I have to admit I made myself laugh. I originally posted it on Facebook, so this may be a repeat for some of you, but enough time has passed that maybe you'll consider revisiting it. It's very silly, and I apologize in advance for the offensive language. Guess I was just in the moment. :)

Also, I have an upcoming series with my sister, Bree, in the works. Hope to post the first installment of that very soon. It's going to rule!

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The Neverending Story (1984) - Bastian’s life sucks. He’s an outcast who’s interested in weirdola stuff like reading books instead of cool stuff like the Garbage Pail Kids. His mother is dead, he’s being raised by “Major Dad” who is attempting to brainwash Bastian into believing he’s a 40-year-old insurance salesman and not a middle-schooler, and some ugly-ass bullies get off on tormenting the poor little dude. On the way to school one day, said bullies want to start some shit, but Bastian’s like “nope nope nope” and he ducks into a creepy bookstore run by the grumpiest man EVER.

The Nope Octopus totally gets how Bastian feels

Bastian takes an interest in a dusty old book embellished with a cool medallion called an Auryn, but the grumpy guy won’t let him have it. So Bastian does what any badass would do and stuffs the book in his knapsack and runs! He runs all the way to school, but then realizes that he’s late and doesn’t want to deal, so he breaks into the school attic, pulls up a moth-eaten old blanket and cracks open that mysterious book. Yaaaaay!  

The book is about Fantasia, a beautiful world full of bat-like Bob Dylan impersonators, a giant who eats rocks and a midget with a snail fetish (played by that guy who they replicated a billion times to play the Oompa Loompas in “Willy Wonka 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold”). Fantasia is ruled by a tiny, vaguely European chick who’s simply known as The Childlike Empress because she’s a kid and she’s an empress but she doesn't have a name. (More on that later!) Fantasia is being terrorized by a bully, too, only this is the biggest and scariest bully in the history of bullies…. THE NOTHINGNESS. The idea of THE NOTHINGNESS absolutely freaked me out as a 4-year-old and does even moreso as a 30-year-old. It’s totes existential, y’all.  

Little lady empress has called on young buck Atreyu to seek out THE NOTHINGNESS and kill it, but the odds are stacked against him. Atreyu, in his long-lashed, bare chested, teenage glory, sets off with his trusty equine companion, Artax. But like two minutes into their trek through the Swamps of Sadness, Artax starts thinking some depressing shit that only horses know and he freaking drowns! Say whaaaaa?!? Children the world over screamed and cried and abandoned their gods and I get misty thinking about it to this day. Can’t you still hear that scream? “Artax… noooooo!” Shudder. Atreyu somehow carries on in his search for an ancient, sneezy, ginormous turtle named Morla. She’s supposed to drop some wisdom on him about THE NOTHINGNESS, but she turns out to be a total basketcase in desperate need of a refill on her Prozac (“The nearest CVS is like 100,000 miles awaaaaay!”). She manages to tell Atreyu that maybe the Southern Oracle can help him. Freaking great. Now he’s gotta go back through those crappy swamps (wasn’t there any other route??) and our dreamy, feminine, totally non-threatening hero comes ::thisclose:: to drowning, too. But wait… what’s that in the sky?? A flying, pearlescent corn-on-the-cob with fur? Falkor the luckdragon is here to save the day! (C’mon, Microsoft Word, luckdragon is a totally legit word, put that red squiggle line away!)

Luckdragons 4 Lyfe!

Atreyu is whisked away to the gates of the Southern Oracle where two tiny little peeps who live in a tiny little house give Atreyu some nasty soup and the 411 about the Southern Oracle. The first gate to the Oracle turns out to be two massive statues of sphinxes with naked lady boobs and laser eyes. You heard me right, naked lady boobs! The little perv in me was very interested in this. The tiny dude tells Atreyu that many have tried to cross through the gaze of the Oracle and not be distracted by the boobs, but none have succeeded. But Atreyu’s like “Pssshhh… whatevs, I got this” and he runs through the lasers without looking at the boobs even once (such discipline!) and winds up in Siberia staring into a mirror. This is the second gate and the mirror is supposed to reflect the true nature of the person looking into it. Men have gone mad when they see that they’re actually a bunch of sniveling bedwetters, but Atreyu sees something else, something strange… he sees Bastian! Ohmigod, ohmigod! The lines between fiction and reality are starting to blur! We’re confused and scared, but we like it! Bastian throws the book across the room and thinks about going home to “Major Dad”, but then he remembers how much that show will suck when it airs from 1989-1993 and decides to keep reading. (Really?? “Freaks and Geeks” gets one measly season and “Major Dad” gets four?!?)

Atreyu passes through the gate and reaches the Oracle (as I recall, a replica of the semi-nudie sphinxes from the first gate, but this time they’re glowing blue) who say that the only way to stop THE NOTHINGNESS is for a human child to give a name to The Childlike Empress. Atreyu is thoroughly confused by this and wanders around for a bit. He comes across the Rock Eater who tells him that he lost his friends because his hands weren’t strong enough (oh no, so sad!). He then encounters Gmork, a talking wolf who is stuck in a wall. Gmork is a minion of THE NOTHINGNESS and has been sent to kill Atreyu. He explains that Fantasia represents unicorns, Sour Patch Kids, Emmanuel Lewis and everything good in life, while THE NOTHINGNESS – fueled by Fox News, school loans, and lutefisk – is literally eating up all that goodness. Then Gmork springs from the wall and bites Atreyu, but Atreyu stabs him and he dies!

Falkor swoops in again and rescues Atreyu before THE NOTHINGNESS can get to him and next thing we know, Atreyu is chilling with The Childlike Empress in her penthouse suite at the Ivory Towers. Atreyu admits that his mission has not been successful and that they’ve gotta dig up a human kid somewhere. The Empress is like “Actually, you did succeed. Some kid with a bowl haircut and a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich has been reading our story this whole time. In fact, he already knows my name, he’s just gotta freaking say it!” Suddenly, the Empress is looking right at the camera (they broke the third wall! Shit is getting real!) and is begging Bastian, “SAY MY NAME!” Bastian’s like, “I can’t! I’m 40-goddamn-years-old! I have an ex-wife who’s always riding my junk to pay child support, I sell life insurance, and I am starting to think I have a drinking problem!” But upon saying this out loud, Bastian understands it isn’t true and he flings open a window and shouts the name into a rainstorm! Of course, no one understood what the funk he said for years, but we all finally came to the consensus that it was “MOOOONCHIIIIILD!” Moonchild, huh? Okay, whatever floats your boat, little guy.

Now everything’s dark and it’s just Bastian and The Artist Formerly Known as The Childlike Empress staring at a tiny, glowing grain of rice in her hand. Moonchild explains that she hates her new name, but Bastian has managed to save her, so it’s cool she guesses. Then she says that he can create an entirely new Fantasia just with his mind! And this is when Bastian understands that his imagination has always been the most powerful weapon he could wield. (Other than a crossbow or lightsaber.)

I always wanted a headpiece like Moonchild's

Bastian rides through the sky on Falkor’s back-corn and they take in the sights… Atreyu riding the newly resurrected Artax! The Bob Dylan impersonator, the Rock Eater, and the snail perv have been reunited! Bastian rides Falkor all the way to Chicago, or wherever the hell he’s from, and scares the pee outta the pimple-faced needledicks who bullied him in the beginning of the movie! And a kind voice tells us that Bastian made many more wishes and had many more adventures. This could have been enough, but no... instead the best song in movie soundtrack history plays over the closing credits. I always thought it was by Roxette for some reason, but it appears that it's actually by a French dude named Limahl and a lady named Beth Anderson. Hmmm. Limahl does have impressive hair, though. 

  

Two sequels followed the original Neverending Story, but they were both crap. Many bands named themselves after characters from the movie, but they're all crap, too. Wikipedia states that Leo DiCaprio’s film company is looking into making a movie based more on the original book than the first film. As long as they get the Biebs to play Atreyu, I’m all in.