Die unendliche Geschichte - Die Abenteuer gehen weiter

"You plagurized every word from the internet site Dickens.com"

The above is mearly one of the utterly horrific lines in the new reinvisioning of The Neverending Story titled, "Tales from the Neverending Story." I asked for the flick unfortunately on my Amazon Wishlist and my friend Cody was unfortunate enough to buy it for my birthday. Unfortunately.

While Bastian has been replaced by a bemusing red headed Canadian, the entire story has been decimated. From the odd substitute teacher Mr. Blank, to the cringe inducing Atreyu, even the childlike empress was left untouched by a haphazard remake. Sure, there's the death of Artax -- Swamps of Sadness? Try some pond that turns the horse to a block of ice. Sure, there's a luck dragon -- Neither charming nor enchanting. But everything that you know and love from not only the original movie but also the book is skewed and wrong. Additions are built with equal parts cheese and crap crappity crap crap.

I watch alot of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It was a series that ran on both the Comedy Channel and Sci-Fi for 10 years. Bad bad movies were a staple of the show. I think they would have decided this motion picture was too bad to air. Even with their humor filled riffs shouted back to the screen.

Tales from the Neverending Story: F--

I got this movie on DVD as a present on December 5, and had a chance to watch it today. I'ts in one word: YEACH!

All the charm of Michael Ende's beautiful book, and of the original movie is completely lost. This movie is never exciting, the acting is very very poor, and the effects are of the quality of your own home-video's. Bastian Bux is not the shy introvert boy he is supposed to be, and Atreyu is some sort of malformed Indian from a bad western movie from the seventies. And do not get me started on the dragon..

Michael Ende's story is hardly recognized, only the characters have a slight resemblance with the book.

Its a pure waste of money and time. If you love Michael Ende's "Die Unendliche Geschichte": do not watch this movie, and especially: don't buy it. You can get my copy for free.

While I enjoyed the Tales from the Neverending Story it really can't be thought of as the Neverending story. While I haven't read the book (yet, getting it soon), its like the writers watched the movie, grabbed bits they liked and then made the rest up. Throwing in characters and situations of their own devising and barely keeping anything intact from the movie. As a fantasy series though, it is very good. It Reminds me of other fantasy series (Australian made ones) like Thunderstone, Spellbinder and to a lesser extent Ocean Girl (all very good series that you should check out if you can). The characters are all well done, and while some of the situations are a little hard to believe, it is a fantasy show, and can be easily overlooked. Check it out, but don't start watching with the expectation of a remake of the movie.

Tales From The Neverending Story was a really great series that started from the same premise as the film, but took it in a completely different direction. In the movie, most of the action took place in Fantasia. In the real world, Bastien sat in the attic of his school and read a book about the adventures of Atreyu. In the TV series, the action doesn't just take place in Fantasia. Bastien has adventures in the real world too. At first, they're the type of adventures a normal kid would have, but they get weirder and weirder, because as the series progresses, the book becomes more real, and some characters from Fantasia start to invade the real world. One of them is Gmork, a great funny/scary character -- sometimes he's a werewolf, sometimes he's the worst substitute teacher in the world. And then there's Xayide, the totally Dark Princess, beautiful and way over the top. Both Xayide and Gmork are after Bastien, so along with normal problems with teachers, friends and his Dad, he has to contend with evil forces from another world. Near the end of the series, Xayide starts sending children to the real world to do her dirty work, and even lures one of Bastien's friends into Fantasia and turns her to the dark side. And that's barely scraping the surface. Like I said, a great series.

You know you're in trouble when you constantly can't help saying to yourself: "I could act better than him, I could act better than her!" After a while I realized I could act better than any character in the entire film! The acting is that unconvincing and poor - it's beyond belief. Some other words to describe the acting talent of the performers is - cardboard, camp, dopey and annoying!

If the acting was not bad enough, the story was even worse! This film was totally devoid of any entertainment value, whatsoever, for the mind of an adult! Personally, I think most children, and certainly teens, would be bored to tears!

It's obvious to me that Tales from the NeverEnding Story - The Beginning is an attempt to make a quick buck off of The NeverEnding Story. To essentially turn a wonderful story into a commodity, like toothpaste or underarm deodorant. If you must see this godforsaken film out of curiosity, at least buy it used so you won't encourage a sequel!