49 Fun Facts About The NeverEnding Story

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the full name of the boy who steals the book?

Bastian Balthazar Bux ducks into a bookshop to escape bullies, takes the book he finds there, and hides in his school attic to read it.

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the name of the bookshop owner whose book Bastian takes?

Carl Conrad Coreander gruffly warns Bastian off the book; when the boy later confesses the theft, the old man says he never owned such a book and has visited its world himself.

The 1984 film calls it Fantasia, but what is the land named in the English translation of The Neverending Story?

Fantastica is Ralph Manheim's 1983 English rendering of the German Phantásien; the film's shorter name then stuck in the sequels, TV series and games.

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the formless force devouring the land called?

The Nothing is no monster: it is what is left as people stop believing in fantasy, and in the novel those it swallows turn into lies in our world.

In The Neverending Story novel, what does the orphan Atreyu's name mean in his people's language?

Son of all: a purple buffalo killed Atreyu's parents soon after his birth, so his whole village raised him together.

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the name of the protective amulet Atreyu is given?

Auryn, two snakes each biting the other's tail, marks its wearer as the Childlike Empress's representative, so no creature of her realm will harm him.

In The NeverEnding Story, what kind of dragon is Falkor?

A luckdragon has little strength or magic, only incredible luck; the film gave Falkor white fur and a dog-like face instead of a fierce reptile's.

In the novel The Neverending Story, Atreyu finds Falkor caught in whose web?

Ygramul the Many is a swarm of hornet-like insects with one mind; her deadly poison lets a victim travel anywhere in the land at once, which is how both escape.

In The NeverEnding Story, whom does Atreyu consult in the Swamps of Sadness?

Morla the Aged One is a giant turtle so weary and indifferent that she will not help directly, sending Atreyu ten thousand miles on to the Southern Oracle.

In the novel The Neverending Story, what is the name of the invisible oracle Atreyu seeks?

Uyulala is only a voice: she speaks in rhyme and must keep singing to go on existing, and the film simply calls her the Southern Oracle.

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the wolf-like creature sent to kill Atreyu called?

Gmork fails to recognise his prey: he explains his whole mission to Atreyu before the boy reveals that he is the hero Gmork was sent to kill.

In The NeverEnding Story, what must a human child do to cure the Childlike Empress?

Give her a new name is the cure, but no creature of her own world can do it, which is why the quest ends up reaching out of the book to its reader.

In The NeverEnding Story, what does Bastian finally cry out from the attic to save the Empress?

Moon Child is what he shouts; in the novel he holds back so long that the story starts repeating itself, and only his cry breaks the loop.

In the novel The Neverending Story, who reads the tale aloud until it loops?

The Old Man of Wandering Mountain is the chronicler whose book records everything as it happens, so when he reads it aloud the whole story starts again from its first page.

In The Neverending Story, what is inscribed on the back of the amulet the Empress gives Bastian?

Do What You Wish sounds like permission to do anything, but the German 'Tu, was du willst' also means finding out what you truly want, which is the task it sets him.

In The Neverending Story novel, what does each wish cost Bastian?

A memory of his human life vanishes with each wish, until Bastian has forgotten almost everything about himself, in the end even his own name.

In The Neverending Story, which sorceress manipulates Bastian into trying to crown himself emperor?

Xayide flatters Bastian into turning on Atreyu and reaching for the throne, and she returned as the villain of the 1990 film sequel, played by Clarissa Burt.

In the novel The Neverending Story, what does Bastian finally discover is his strongest wish?

To be capable of love is all he has left to want; the Water of Life then lets him return home to his grieving father.

How did the original German edition of The Neverending Story mark its two worlds apart?

In red and green ink: red for Bastian's world and green for the fantasy realm, while the chapter illustrations mix both colours to show the two worlds entwining.

Which German weekly's bestseller list did The Neverending Story top for more than two years?

Der Spiegel's list kept the novel at number one for more than two years, though its first printing in 1979 ran to only 20,000 copies.

Who directed the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story, his first in English?

Wolfgang Petersen came to this children's fantasy straight from the grim U-boat drama Das Boot, and went on to Hollywood epics such as Troy.

What new ending did the film The NeverEnding Story add?

Bastian chases the bullies on Falkor until they dive into a dumpster; the film covers only the novel's first half, and the 1990 sequel drew loosely on the second.

How did author Michael Ende react to the 1984 film of The NeverEnding Story?

He sued the producers and lost, having failed to get the film stopped or retitled; he called it 'that revolting movie' and had his name taken off the credits.

Who plays Atreyu in the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story?

Noah Hathaway did many of his own stunts as the young warrior, aged about twelve, and won a Saturn Award for the performance.

Which actress plays the Childlike Empress in the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story?

Tami Stronach was approached in San Francisco by the film's casting director and asked to audition; afterwards she turned to dance instead of Hollywood.

In The NeverEnding Story, what is the name of Atreyu's horse, lost in the Swamps of Sadness?

Artax sinks because the swamp's sadness overcomes him, but he is alive again once Bastian wishes Fantasia back at the end of the film.

Which voice actor provides the voices of both Falkor and Gmork in the English film?

He was also the voice of Skeletor in the original He-Man cartoon.

In The NeverEnding Story, which two gnomes live near the gates of the Southern Oracle?

Urgl and Engywook are a quarrelsome couple: she heals Atreyu with her potions, while he has studied the Oracle's gates for most of his life without ever passing through.

In the film The NeverEnding Story, what does the Empress give Bastian as the last remnant of Fantasia?

A grain of sand is all that remains, yet she tells him he can wish the whole world back from it, and he does.

Where was the bulk of the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story shot?

Bavaria Studios in Munich kept the creatures: visitors on the studio tour can still climb onto Falkor and ride him in front of a blue screen.

In which Canadian city were Bastian's real-world street scenes in The NeverEnding Story filmed?

Vancouver's Gastown district supplied the chase: its famous steam clock is in shot as the bullies pursue Bastian before dumping him in the garbage.

The NeverEnding Story cost about $25 million, making it at the time the most expensive what?

German film: nothing made in the country had cost more, and the bet paid off, with more than $12 million from West German cinemas alone within months.

Who sang the English-language theme song of The NeverEnding Story?

Limahl was flown out to record it after his manager talked him up to the composer at a Tokyo music festival; the single reached number 4 in Britain.

Which producer composed the theme song of The NeverEnding Story?

Giorgio Moroder's synth-pop theme was added only for the international release; the German cut of the film plays without it.

Which Netflix series had two characters sing The NeverEnding Story's theme as a duet in a 2019 finale?

Stranger Things had Dustin and Suzie sing it in the season three finale, set in 1985, and the scene set off a fresh surge of interest in the 35-year-old song.

Who plays Bastian in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990)?

Jonathan Brandis led an almost entirely new cast: only Thomas Hill, as the bookseller, came back from the 1984 film.

Which future star played the school bully Slip in The NeverEnding Story III (1994)?

Jack Black's Slip and his gang, the Nasties, get hold of the Neverending Story book and use it to bombard Fantasia with fireballs and storms.

Michael Ende was born in Garmisch, Bavaria, the son of what kind of artist?

A surrealist painter, Edgar Ende, saw his work banned by the Nazis, and his son grew up in what he called a bohemian world of painters, writers and sculptors.

What was the name of Michael Ende's first novel, written in the late 1950s?

Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver was turned down by about ten publishers before it appeared in 1960 and won West Germany's children's book prize.

Who plays Bastian in the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story?

Barret Oliver spends most of the film alone in a school attic turning pages, yet his reader is the one who finally decides how the story ends.

The singer of The NeverEnding Story's English theme song had fronted which 1980s band?

Kajagoogoo fired their frontman in mid-1983, only months after 'Too Shy' reached number one, so the film theme became his answer as a solo act.

In The NeverEnding Story, what guards the first gate on the way to the Southern Oracle?

Two sphinxes face each other across the path and strike down travellers they judge unworthy with beams from their eyes; Atreyu only just makes it through.

Which critic gave The NeverEnding Story three stars, writing that 'an entirely new world has been created'?

Roger Ebert added that not since audiences were asked to save Tinker Bell in Peter Pan had a story's outcome been left so clearly up to a child's willingness to believe.

Which Simpsons character claims to have sued The NeverEnding Story for fraudulent advertising?

Lionel Hutz, the hapless lawyer voiced by Phil Hartman, cites the suit while taking on Homer's all-you-can-eat case in 'New Kid on the Block'; the joke is that the film ends.

New York Times critic Vincent Canby said The NeverEnding Story's dragon looked like what household item?

A bathmat, and an impractical one, was his verdict on Falkor's white fur and feathers; he wrote that the film cost a mint yet looked bargain-basement.

Who wrote The NeverEnding Story's orchestral score, heard alone in the German version?

Klaus Doldinger, a jazz saxophonist who also scored Das Boot and wrote the Tatort theme, saw parts of his music replaced with electronic pop outside Germany.

In The NeverEnding Story, what does the tiny messenger Teeny Weeny ride to the Empress?

A racing snail carries him, and it really is fast, while his fellow messenger the Night Hob rides a bat that keeps falling asleep in mid-air.

The NeverEnding Story's beach scene was shot in which Spanish province?

Almería, long a backdrop for spaghetti westerns, has Playa de Mónsul, where Sean Connery later downs a plane with an umbrella and a flock of gulls in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

In The NeverEnding Story, where does the Childlike Empress hold court?

The Ivory Tower is still standing when the rest of Fantasia has crumbled to fragments adrift in space, and there the Empress tells Atreyu he has not failed.