The NeverEnding Story is one of those classic films from the '80s that just about every kid saw. It tells the amazing story of a young boy who steals a special book and sneaks into the scariest room in his entire school to read it. As he settles in to read the book, the audience gets the feeling they are also experiencing the story in much the same way. As the story unfolds, it turns out he is truly experiencing the story and even the characters become aware of his involvement in stopping The Nothing!
The story reveals that a terrible thing called The Nothing is sweeping across the magical world of Fantasia because children all over the world aren't reading and enjoying fiction and fantasy enough. It's up to Bastian Bux, the young boy with the book, to save Fantasia by naming the Childlike Empress.
It's one of those movies people fondly and enjoy showing their own children, but the making of the film suggests it wasn't the easiest movie to get off the ground. Like many other movies, it was plagued with production delays, went over budget, and was sometimes a nightmare to film. Watching the final product almost never reveals everything that goes into the making of a movie, but for The NeverEnding Story, there's plenty going on behind the scenes.
With everything that went into it, some details have emerged many might find surprising.
Are you such a fan that you already knew these 20 Crazy Details About The Making Of The NeverEnding Story?
MOST EXPENSIVE FILM IN GERMAN HISTORY
Most fans in America may not know it, but The NeverEnding Story is technically a German film. It was shot mostly in and was directed by famed German director, Wolfgang Petersen. Petersen's biggest film prior to this one was Das Boot, which previously took the title of the most expensive film in German history.
Never one to not outdo himself, Petersen's budget for The NeverEnding Story greatly sured that of Das Boot, making it significantly expensive for the time.
When all was said and done, the production ended up costing $27 million.
That may not seem like a lot these days, but in 1984 dollars, that would equate to $65 million. Unlike Hollywood, the German film industry spent much less than that on most of their films in the '80s.
ATREYU WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED
Filmmaking is not without its risks, but for the actor who played Atreyu, it almost cost him an eye. Noah Hathaway was injured on more than one occasion while filming the movie. In one case, he was thrown from a horse that then stepped on him.
Fortunately, he wasn't seriously injured then, but he nearly lost an eye in the final scene where he fought the wolflike beast, Gmork. During the scene, the robot that was Gmork malfunctioned somewhat and one of its claws slashed the young actor's face right beside his eye.
It was incredibly heavy so when it landed on him, he completely lost his breath, which also injured him pretty badly. They only ever got the one shot of the scene due to how badly Hathaway was injured and that's what you see in the final cut.
THE CHILDLIKE EMPRESS HAD TO WEAR FALSE TEETH
When you're working with children on a film, you have to follow some rules. They can only work for a brief period of time and someone responsible for them has to be present. That's not a big deal and it's to be expected. Something else that should be expected is that when you have an 11-year-old playing a character, she might have some missing teeth.
Tami Stronach, the actress who played the Childlike Empress lost her two front teeth in the normal course of growing up.
Because they didn't want the character to be missing her two front teeth as that would detract from her otherwise stately appearance, she was fitted with false teeth.
Unfortunately, the falsies caused her to speak with a prominent lisp. It took her a considerable amount of time and diction training to overcome the lisp.
DIALOGUE WAS FILMED IN GERMAN, THEN DUBBED
Because much of the filming took place in , a lot of the actors brought onto the production were German. This doesn't mean they couldn't speak English, but as it happens, a lot of the actors' dialogue was spoken in German and then dubbed over in English in post-production.
The actor who played the Night Hob, Tilo Prückner, spoke most of his dialogue in German and had it dubbed over. The same is true for the Rock Biter, which can be seen pretty clearly if you go back and watch their lips as they speak. In some scenes, it's not as obvious, while in others, it's pretty telling.
This little detail is yet another reminder that The NeverEnding Story is not an American film, even if most people believe that to be the case.
INAPPROPRIATE SPHINXES
There were a lot of aspects of the film that author Michael Ende didn't approve of. It wasn't just the fact that his vision was altered in a number of ways that he felt weren't in line with his book. Some of the visuals disturbed him to no end.
Considering this was a children's film, it makes sense he had some consternation with the sphinx statues.
Not only are the states incredibly large in stature, they are much more voluptuous than necessary.
Ende made specific comments to this effect, saying, "The Sphinxes are quite one of the biggest embarrassments of the film."
THE GERMAN VERSION IS SEVEN MINUTES LONGER
When Steven Spielberg was given the German cut of the film to edit, he didn't simply give it a viewing and move along. Spielberg focused on what would work for an American audience, which required some shuffling around of a few scenes, the editing out of a touch of profanity, and the removal of seven full minutes of video and dialogue.
That may not seem like a lot of time, but seven minutes in a film that is only 94 minut4es after Spielberg got his hands on it is significant.
Some of Spielberg's notable changes include increasing the Rockbiter's rumbling sound as he approached the Night Hob in the beginning of the film, trimming a few scenes, and generally boosting the pacing of the movie to make it play better for the American audience.
NOAH HATHAWAY'S DIFFICULTIES
By all s, the cast of the film was a pleasure to work with. The actor who played Bastian, Barret Oliver, was praised by Wolfgang Petersen as someone who was easy to work with and a joy to have on the set. His legendary counterpart, Noah Hathaway, didn't get the same response.
Brian Johnson, the special effects director for the film, said: "Noah Hathaway was a bit of a pain.... It was very difficult for Wolfgang to get anything out of him. Barret Oliver delivered all the time, he was just brilliant, absolutely brilliant."
It's fortunate that you can't tell of the on-set difficulties after viewing the final product.
Looking back, it's not the most unbelievable aspect of the production of The NeverEnding Story.
THE SWAMP OF SADNESS SCENE HORSE TRAINING
One of the production delays that nearly ended the film before it began came as a result of the most heart-wrenching scene in the movie. The Swamp of Sadness scene involved Atreyu's horse Artax drowning. It was sad and horrific, but a nightmare to shoot because horses don't normally allow themselves to be submerged in black goo.
It took seven weeks to properly train the horse to stand on the submerged platform and remain there as it descended.
Initially, the scene was slated to take only two weeks to completely film, but the increased time needed to get the horse on board became a serious problem.
The scene was convincing and after the movie was released, a rumor began circulating that it perished during filming. This turned out to be untruel it was actually gifted to Hathaway.
TWO VERSIONS OF FALKOR
These days, a giant Luck Dragon would probably be made via CGI and it would be convincing and beautiful. Back in the '80s, that wasn't possible, so Falkor was constructed as a practical effect. In order to build the character, several concepts and designs were attempted resulting in two fully-constructed models.
The Falkor we see in the film is 43 feet long, constructed of used airplane steel (to make the frame), and weighed quite a lot. The head alone weighed in at 200 lbs.
Ende wasn't too happy with the final version of Falkor and hated the fact that he looked a lot like a dog. Petersen's vision made the character look like a "golden/retriever/dragon," which didn't sit well with the author. Fans loved it and Falcor quickly became one of the movie's most popular characters.
WHAT DID BASTIAN SCREAM AT THE END?
If you're like us, you may have caused your VHS copy of the movie to tear by pausing it and replaying the scene where Bastian screams a name out the window at the end of the film.
Bastian was compelled to scream his mother's name so that the Childlike Empress could take it and save Fantasia from The Nothing.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to hear or understand the name he screams at the end of the film. Fortunately, we have the book to tell us the answer and it is "Moonchild."
Granted, there has been plenty of debate about the name and there are more than a few Reddit threads devoted to the name Bastian screamed. Since all we really have to go off of is the book, it stands to reason that's what he said.
