In director Wolfgang Petersen's charming fantasy, Bastian (Barrett Oliver), a lonely schoolboy alienated from his father and bullied by his classmates, retreats to an attic where he becomes engrossed in a book entitled THE NEVERENDING STORY. It is the tale of a magical kingdom appropriately named Fantasia, since it is a world born of human fantasies. However, as humanity loses faith in the power of imagination, the once-thriving Fantasia is being destroyed by great storms of Nothingness. Dangerously ill herself, Fantasia's youthful empress (Tami Stronach) sends the young warrior Atreju (Noah Hathaway) on a quest to find a cure for the kingdom. After encountering flying dragons, swamp monsters and a vast assortment of other strange creatures, the young hero discovers that only a human boy can save Fantasia, at which point Bastian is drawn, literally, into the pages of the story.
In THE NEVERENDING STORY, a young boy is physically drawn into a fantasy novel he is reading, and there he struggles to save an incredible world from destruction.
Theatrical release: July 1984.
Filmed at the Bavaria Studios in Munich, Germany. Shooting completed May 1984.
Budget estimated at $27 million.
This was director Wolfgang Petersen's first English-language film.
Filmed at the Bavaria Studios in Munich, Germany, in Technovision and Eastmancolor; prints by Technicolor.
Shooting completed May 1984. Released in the USA July, 1984.
Additional technical credits: conceptual, scenery, creature and costume design by Ul DeRico; aerial photography by Clay Lacy Aviation, Apogee Productions, Inc., Continental Camera Systems and Stephen J. Wright; chief animatronics engineering, mechanical special effects and creatures by Giuseppe Tortora; cloud effects unit supervisor, Mike White; cloud effects photography by Jair Ganor.
This was Wolfgang Petersen's first English-language film. He later went on to direct the 1993 hit "In the Line of Fire," starring Clint Eastwood.
Rated BBFC U by the British Board of Film Censors.
Excerpt: "The video arcade is down the street. Here we just sell small rectangular objects. They're called books. They require a little effort on your part, and make no beep-beep-beep-beeps. On your way please."--Mr. Koreander (Thomas Hill) to Bastian (Barrett Oliver)
"Never give up and good luck will find you."--Falcor to Bastian
DVD Features:
Region 1
Snap Case
Full Frame - 1.33
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Review 1:
"...A marvelously realized flight of pure fantasy..."
Source: Variety
07/04/1984
Review 2:
4 stars out of 5 -- "Barret Oliver, the nine year-old lead, suits the bookwormish loner who opens the pages to Fantasia's world of rock-eating giants...[and] unforgiving swamps..."
Source: Empire
p.159 09/01/2008
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