The Case That Never Ends

Back in 2013, we gathered together to record our very first episode of The Black Case Diaries. We were all still in college, and we didn’t even edit the audio! We placed the episode on SoundCloud and there is sat for 5 years before we started the show for real.

So, to kick off our second year of podcasting, we decided to give ourselves a chance to do it over! Today we will talk about the same topic as we did 6 years ago. We are going to re-release the original episode to our patrons so they will get to hear how far we’ve come.

Six years ago, the three of us sat down and watched a movie. One of us had seen it many times, one had seen it once or twice, and one of us had never seen it at all. It was called, “The Neverending Story”! After we watched the movie, we went into the sewing room of Robin’s mother to record our thoughts.

Movie Beginnings:

The Neverending Story is based on a novel: Die unendliche Geschichte – (dee oonend-liha ge-shishta) by German author Michael Ende. The book was originally written in German and released in September of 1979, but translated to English in 1983 – one year before the movie.

The book remained on the best-seller list in Germany for three years!
There are a few key differences between the book and the movie.
- The movie only covers half of the book! The sequel film is loosely based on the second half, and the third movie is an original plot.
- The name of the world that Bastian is meant to save is called “Fantastica” instead of “Fantasia”
Michael Ende was not happy with the film and didn’t think it reflected the message of his book. According to a 1984 People Magazine article, he held a press conference in which he demanded his name be taken from the credits. He called the movie “revolting” and said, “the makers of the film simply did not understand the book at all.”
- https://people.com/archive/an-irate-michael-ende-blasts-the-disgusting-film-made-from-his-best-seller-the-neverending-story-vol-22-no-9/
- Ende said that he worked with Wolfgang Peterson (the film’s co-writer and director) on a script, but that Peterson re-wrote the screenplay later on. His biggest concern was about the ending of the movie, when Bastian brings Fantasia back. Bastian seems to bring the world back the way it was before, instead of creating a new world, which was what Ende intended.

The Making of the Movie:

The Neverending story was directed by Wolfgang Peterson, and written by Herman Weigel and Wolfgang Peterson.
- According to some of the actors, Peterson was a perfectionist and required sometimes as many as forty takes for a scene.
- The scenes in the swamp of sadness and with the giant tortoise took two months to shoot.
Most of the film was shot in Bavaria Studios in Germany, with outside filming done in Vancouver and Spain.
The music was written by Klaus Goldinger and Giorgio Moroder.
- It also included a very special song performed by Limahl
Colin Arthur was the special effects supervisor, but he had a huge team!
Rolf Zehetbauer designed the set decoration
- But the designs for the creatures was a collaboration between an Italian artist named UI De Rico, the set designer, and a professional mime named Caprice Roth.
The movie cost 27 million dollars to make, which adjusted to today would be about 65 million! It was the most expensive film in German history. It made 100 Million!
Many attribute the magic of the movie to its incredible effects.
- According to Wolfgang Peterson, digital effects hadn’t advanced to the point of even a green screen yet. They were using blue screens for the flying scenes in the movie, but practical effects for everything else.
- Each puppet was operated by a team of trained puppeteers; as many as 25 people were in charge of operating Falcor!
  - In order to get the puppet to move as one cohesive unit, the team had to train together for several weeks
  - One person was assigned to each of his facial features, including one person responsible for his eyebrow
    - The dialogue was also recorded before-hand and the puppeteers had to try to sync up movements with the words.
  - No matter how many times they practiced or did a scene over, they could never eliminate the error behind the puppet. There was always something out of place, but Peterson believed that this made it true art.

Starring:

Barret Oliver as Bastian
- Oliver also starred in the original Frankenweenie in the 80’s.
- He no longer acts, but is an accomplished photographer and specializes in the wet-plate process. He also teaches photography in Los Angeles.
Noah Hathaway as Atreyu
- Hathaway played Boxey in the original Battlestar Galactica.
- He was also in the 1986 film “Troll” as Harry Potter Jr.
- Hathaway was seriously injured twice while making the movie and still has health problems today because of it.
  - While preparing for the horse-back riding scenes, a horse actually fell on top of him and cracked two of his vertebrae.
  - The other injury came at the end of the movie, when he fights G’mork. The robot malfunctioned and cut Hathaway next to his eye. G’mork was also very heavy and caused him to lose his breath. Because of this, they could only get one shot!
Alan Oppenheimer as Falkor
- Oppenheimer is an accomplished voice actor who narrated the movie, voiced Falkor, the rock-biter, and G’Mork!
- He is probably most well-known for voicing Skeletor in the He-Man animated series.
Tami Stronach as The Childlike Empress
- She has been in very few things since the Neverending Story. Two are films from the Czech Republic.
- The director saw 3000 young girls before choosing Stronach as the empress.
- She has since focused mostly on her dancing and being a choreographer.
Gerald McRaney as Bastian’s father
- He has been acting since about 1969 and been in many different roles including things like Chips, The Rockford Files, and Diagnosis Murder. He is still acting today and plays a small part in the new Netflix show called Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings.

Summary:

As a young boy named Bastian is heading to school he is chased by three bullies. In order to escape the bullies he dashes into an old bookstore. There he is tempted to take a book that he is told he is not ready for. In order to read it he steals away into the school attic and begins the book called “The Neverending Story.” It is about the land of Fantasia where the creatures have been threatened by a force called “The Nothing.” It destroys all that it touches. In order for Fantasia to survive it needs the help of a human boy.

The film was fairly well-received and was a box-office hit! Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars. I think he summed up the meaning of the film with the end of his review: “But ‘The NeverEnding Story’ is about the unfolding of a story, and so the framing device of the kid hidden in his school attic, breathlessly turning the pages, is interesting. It lets kids know that the story isn’t just somehow happening, that storytelling is a never ending act of the imagination.”
- I found a Huffington Post article about the film, and there was a quote from Wolfgang Peterson
  - “It has very dark and scary moments, but life is like that. It educates you and a reader like Bastian how to go through that and pass these sort of dark moments, to achieve something at the end. I think it empowers kids to — as the Childlike Empress says in that goose-bumpy moment at the end of the film — do what you want.”

As a bonus here is one of the pictures from Marci’s college years taken with the wet plate Collodion process!