10 Things About The Neverending Story That Make No Sense

The beloved favorite 80s movie for many a Millennial child, The Neverending Story is filled with magic, adventure, and wonder. It made kids cheer, laugh, cry, and even cower in fear, which is a feat that most children’s movies, save from the Toy Story franchise, have been unable to do since. Even though it’s such a beloved piece of childhood for so many, that doesn’t mean it’s without its problems.

Many issues that the film has are explained away in Michael Ende’s book, which was the source material the movie was very loosely based upon. But the film veers so far from his writing that as a standalone, it really often makes no sense.

10 The Nothing Isn’t Nothing

The Nothing leaves nothing, or nearly nothing, behind following its destructive path, which makes its name a much more accurate description of what’s left behind it as it passes through. A more accurate name for the phenomenon might be Dorothy or F5, given its tornado-like effects.

9 Even The Good Guys Are Creepy

Perhaps these off-putting characters helped parents teach kids “stranger danger,” since creepers don’t always look like creepers… Nope, that doesn’t work, because in The Neverending Story, everyone looks like a creeper.

8 Bastian’s Dad Is Heartless

Granted, modern dads are much more woke when it comes to parenting, but this is so cruel and callous that we almost expect him to appear as a villain later in Fantasia, a la Jason Isaacs’ performance as both Mr. Darling and Hook in Peter Pan.

7 The Entire Thing Is A Swamp Of Sadness

As adults watching The Neverending Story, we have to wonder how we made it through the film without crawling under a blanket fort and hiding for a week afterward. It’s that depressing.

6 Bastion Escapes In The School Attic

Then there is the attic itself, which is full of a bunch of weird, creepy stuff to begin with. It’s much more like the attic of someone’s creepy grandpa who used to hunt wolves than a room that belongs in a school.

5 Characters Give Up And Off Themselves

Then there’s Artax, who simply abandoned his will to live in the Swamps of Sadness. He had no injuries, no illness; just a deep pit of despair that he succumbed to, leaving plenty of analogies to be made about mental illness, depression and one’s demise on their own terms. This is completely out of place in a children’s fantasy.

4 Atreyu’s Confrontation With Gmork Is Over In Seconds

It was all for naught. The final battle had a bit of a monologue/question-and-answer session, followed by a single leap and a knife to the creature’s gut. That’s it. As kids, this terrified many, but as adults, we can’t help but wonder if they just ran out of time.

3 It Breaks Rules We Have Today

While it makes sense that rules and regulations evolve over time, some of the societal rules that The Neverending Story breaks are weird–and one of them even makes less sense today. The Southern Oracle shows a bit of female anatomy in a children’s movie that is edited from everything from movies to Facebook today, and most people find it ridiculous. After all, the same piece of skin on male anatomy isn’t edited, and it is only skin.

Bastian’s father also drinks a raw egg from a glass, which may have once been considered a healthy start to one’s morning but is now regarded as practically summoning salmonella into one’s body. Kids aren’t even encouraged to eat cookie dough with raw eggs anymore.

2 Bastian’s Name Makes No Sense

When the time comes, he instead calls out “Moonchild!” in a storm, making it super hard to understand not only because of the way it’s said, but why it was chosen. Was his mom really named Moonchild? If not, why rename “the Childlike Empress” a name like “Moonchild,” which only makes her seem even less powerful?

1 The Big Finale Isn’t Big, Or A Finale

It was cool for kids to see another kid with the power, but realizing that he could’ve used it all along to save us from the harrowing moments mentioned above is sort of traumatic. Add to that the fact that Bastian called out a name none of us could even understand in what should’ve been a big moment, or the fact that he’d have many more adventures, “but that’s another story,” and it doesn’t even feel like a conclusion.

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