This is actually one of my favourite fantasy film of all time. But I could have done without that crappy "Bastian getting revenge" finale.
Even as a kid, I found it cringe-inducing. And bastian looks utterly creepy during the entire scene.
If they ever do a remake (Not that I want one)...I hope they at least do away with any cheesy scenes like that one. I would be grateful.
Returning the book to the old man would have been a good ending.
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I did sixty in five minutes once...
If he returned the book, he no longer has access to it and thus his adventures end, won't they?
sharebut his note said not to worry because he will return it.
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I did sixty in five minutes once...
His adventure may end, but the book ends with the implication that the book will end up in the hands of another person, which means that the story truly is a never ending one. Not only would ending the movie this way have brought the movie full circle in its central message, but it would've been decidedly less corny and illogical than the ending they went with.
shareBut he does return the book. Because in part 2 he gets the book from the bookstore again.
shareThis is another area where the book is better than the film. Human imagination = the story never really ends
shareAgreed with the "returning of the book" suggestion. It could be combined with a few concluding words from the old man saying something like: "I wanted you to experience this, that's why i left you the book on the table - we do need fantasies in life to keep us going, especially when we lose someone we love". Bastian could say something like: "ever since my mother died, it was hard for me to stay in the "real world"". Maybe Bastian's father overhears the conversation and finally realizes that his son needs his imagination, to cope with the death of his mother, saying something like: "I'm sorry for being so rigid, Bastian. I understand now, how you feel."
Seems like they kinda forgot that part.
I also miss Bastian saying "goodbye" to his mother in the "fantasy world". It could be a short scene with a ghostly vision of her telling him not to worry or be sad.
The revenge scene was ok but a bit childish, indeed.
"I also miss Bastian saying "goodbye" to his mother in the "fantasy world". It could be a short scene with a ghostly vision of her telling him not to worry or be sad. "
Wow, that would've been so lame and corny.
You guys that think the ending was bad are nuts. This was THE BEST ENDING EVER for an 80s kids movie. I watched this with other children back in the 80s and we all cheered at the ending. It was awesome seeing a fantastical character like the luck dragon Falkor in the real world, it was unexpected and just an amazing thing to see.
sharei agree. same thing with the ending to the movie labyrinth, it was nice to see the characters in the real world. This is a fantasy, no need for being realistic
shareI liked it. It's hilarious that, as the bullies are running their lives, one of them shouts, "It's a monster!"
shareI agree I thought it was great! It was nice seeing those bullies get some karma and I also thought it was hilarious to see them running for their lives. Not to mention that the dumpster was the place they ran for safety! And we know that Bastian was probably never bullied by them again.
And I think adding the old man to the scene would have been good. Even if he just looked out the window and smiled or something like that.
My assumption has always been that his wish was to get a chance to ride Falkor. I think that would be the first thing that a little boy would want to do after reading about it. The presence of the bullies was a little bonus that just made it even better for him.
shareI remember watching this in school a few times and each time the ending would come on everyone cracked up (as kids do). I think it was just a great ending to see him ride on Falkor. Getting revenge upon the bullies was a bonus.
shareThe ending was GREAT! It was the perfect ending for anyone who was ever viciously bullied as a child!
I remember wishing so hard that I had a Falkor to chase down Emma Dickson & her other trolls in my school!
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
I didn't care for it either, it just...raises too many questions. A ton of people in the streets just see a dragon fly around, that would be significant, to say the least.
I assume that line meant he went back to Fantasia after the bully chasing shenanigans. Not that he'd never left and it was just imaginary.
I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?
Yeah
shareI can't agree. It's cheesy and somewhat (okay, a lot) nonsensical, but the movie needed it. It's a fairly dismal and dreary film with a lot of apocalyptic despair and creepy moments and comparatively few lighthearted and uplifting scenes outside of the ones involving Falkor, who manages to inject a lot of much-needed paternal warmth and levity into the film thanks to Alan Oppenheimer's voice acting. The scene where Bastian and Falkor scare the bullies provides a lot of really great tension release and ends the film on precisely the right note of over the top, goofy silliness.
Also, from a screenwriting perspective, without it, the bullies never appear again and their role in the story is reduced to merely a plot point to get Bastian into the book store. Even with this ending, they're still just a plot point (they don't even have names), but showing what happens to them disguises just how blatant a plot-advancing tool they were and makes them feel a little more like they matter to the story beyond just being what drives Bastian to hide in the store.
I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?
Yes, I agree with you - Koosh_King. It's a good way to end a movie which only covers half of the book anyway, and ending with the bullies gives the movie a nice circular closure.
On the other hand .... I just watched an interview on YouTube with author Michael Ende which I hadn't seen before. I thought he just objected to what he believed was the garish, vulgar art direction of the movie (as can be seen in the Making of with English subtitles on YouTube), but in this 1990 interview with Joachim 'Blacky' Fuchsberger (German only) he points out that it was the ending that really deeply upset him.
First of all, when Bastian finally dares to save Fantasia, nothing is left but the Empress and a grain of sand. This means Bastian has to make a Herculean effort to completely rebuild it, just using his own imagination. Yet in the movie, he kind of just snaps his fingers (well, not even that), and all of it magically returns: the landscapes, the funny creatures, Atreyu and Artax.
Secondly, because Fantasia exists only in Bastian's imagination, he can imagine himself to become part of it as he does (in other words, travel back and forth), but the world of his imagination can never become part of reality. This means Falkor could never fly to the real world to scare the bullies.
This was what Ende strongly objected to.
Unless ... the implication was Bastian was just daydreaming, and the bullies (and the passers-by) never saw the dragon in real life!
Dicky
"Unless ... the implication was Bastian was just daydreaming, and the bullies (and the passers-by) never saw the dragon in real life!"
Actually, that's my interpretation of it all, because even the movie makes clear that Fantasia is just Bastian's imagination. It wouldn't even be possible for Falkor to come to the real world and scare those bullies.
Obviously that bully-chasing thing never happened in the actual, real world (think of the implications of people seeing that stuff, and how much Bastian could CHANGE the real world with his wishes).
You can think of Fantasia as Bastian's private Holodeck - he can make 'anything come true', but only in the world of imagination, which is what Fantasia is. He made the bully-revenge happen just the same way as he made Artax come back alive - how the heck could he fly a Luck Dragon in any real world city, where he'd need to follow the laws of physics, the Luck Dragon would need some actual form or propulsion and Bastian would get hypothermia from the freezing wind and so on?
It was just WISH-FULFILLMENT, because that's all that exists in Fantasia. It's not possible to bring things from your imagination to real world just by wishing, the whole point of the movie is that Bastian escaped his chores, responsibilities and the dull, limited, strict, unforgiving real world for the Fantasia world of imagination, where anything is possible.
You can create a jungle in the Holodeck, but you can't just wish for a planet to be created next to the spaceship in the real world and it will happen.
Bastian moved to live in the Holodeck, so that's where everything happens - just because it looked like 'the real world' doesn't mean it actually was.
comparatively few lighthearted and uplifting scenes
I said comparatively.
I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?
The only part I was confused by was him staying in attic all day and the school (like they did back then) not calling truant on him or his dad not wondering what happened to him. I was in elementary school back then and my parents/the school both would have wondered what happened to me If I just decided to wander off with a book even if it was really good.
Think a better ending would have been him chasing down his dad on the white dragon for having made fun of him for who he is. He's hurting after his mom's death too. Kinda left that hanging? See dad, this is important, don't dare make fun of me!!