First of all, Bastian is portrayed as a scrawny 12 year old boy... Not a fat, dorky 10 year old as in Ende's book.
Second, Not only does the book have no non-flashback scenes prior to mother's death, the mother CERTAINLY didn't drive a VW neo-bug... and for god's sake! "MoonChild" on the mother's license plate? Where else do we go? Bastian gets "The Neverending Story" not by stealing it, but as a replacement for Mr. Coreander breaking his game boy. Wow. Bastian doesn't make up stories in this film, rather, his mother was an illustrator and THAT is how he got all into reading.
The werewolf from the book has become a creepy looking shape shifter who is Bastian's new substitute teacher, Mr. Blank. Come on! What about the importance of Atreyu meeting the werewolf so that he can understand that for Fantasticans, Fantastica has NO borders? I don't believe the people who wrote this film ever even looked at the book...
But beyond that, Atreyu is a 17 or so year old boy and they give him not only a best friend, but a LOVE INTEREST! Now both you and I know that NOTHING about Ende's book is sexual... especially the Childlike Empress, who in this film is just begging for it...
And since when is Xayide MoonChild's sister!>?!?!? Anyway, to summate, this film should not have the right to claim that it is based on Michael Ende's fantasy triumph, it is merely another bad B movie in the clearance bin at WalMart...
Second, Not only does the book have no non-flashback scenes prior to mother's death, the mother CERTAINLY didn't drive a VW neo-bug... and for god's sake! "MoonChild" on the mother's license plate? Where else do we go? Bastian gets "The Neverending Story" not by stealing it, but as a replacement for Mr. Coreander breaking his game boy. Wow. Bastian doesn't make up stories in this film, rather, his mother was an illustrator and THAT is how he got all into reading.
The werewolf from the book has become a creepy looking shape shifter who is Bastian's new substitute teacher, Mr. Blank. Come on! What about the importance of Atreyu meeting the werewolf so that he can understand that for Fantasticans, Fantastica has NO borders? I don't believe the people who wrote this film ever even looked at the book...
But beyond that, Atreyu is a 17 or so year old boy and they give him not only a best friend, but a LOVE INTEREST! Now both you and I know that NOTHING about Ende's book is sexual... especially the Childlike Empress, who in this film is just begging for it...
And since when is Xayide MoonChild's sister!>?!?!? Anyway, to summate, this film should not have the right to claim that it is based on Michael Ende's fantasy triumph, it is merely another bad B movie in the clearance bin at WalMart...