One Fantasy Classic Was Nearly Ruined By A Desperate Sequel
Even the late, great Jonathan Brandis couldn't save this one.
Imagine if, after Stranger Things Season 1, Netflix had waited about a decade to do Season 2, and had wanted to keep all the characters roughly the same age. Today, you could imagine a bunch of digital de-aging and other shenanigans to make it all work. But in 1991, if young actors had grown too old to do a direct sequel, recasting was the only option. Such was the strange case of a forgotten fantasy film sequel, which attempted to continue a story that, perhaps, should never have been called The NeverEnding Story.
Even casual fantasy fans know the 1984 film, The NeverEnding Story, which bravely attempted to adapt a piece of Michael Ende's beloved novel of the same name. But even those born in the 1980s and who came of age in the 1990s will struggle to remember the sequel, The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter. And if you revisit this bizarre flop today, you’ll instantly understand why we’ve all memory-holed this strange, unnecessary film.
On February 8, 1991, The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter was released in the U.S. after having already hit theaters in Germany on October 25, 1990. The total box office performance for the film was dismal: it made $17 million total against a budget of $35 million. Despite the strong love for the 1984 film and its status as a perennial VHS favorite, the sequel failed to connect, at least in part, because the film didn’t have the original stars — namely, Barret Oliver as Bastian or Noah Hathaway as Atreyu. Instead, the real-world Bastian was now played by Jonathan Brandis, and Atreyu was Kenny Morrison.
This fact, on face, isn’t exactly a bad thing. Sequels recast characters all the time (Iron Man 2 or Back to the Future II are good examples), and generally, audiences didn’t notice or care. But, because it had been so long, and the memories of those characters burned into our collective memories (seven years felt like a long time in the world of VHS rentals) utterly changing how all the characters looked was a tricky gambit. That said, early 1990s tween star Brandis is a pretty solid choice, and those who loved him in the cult hit seaQuest just a few years later in 1993, will probably view this film as his audition for the the role of Lucas Wolenczak in that series; the second scene of NeverEnding Story II even takes place in a pool, with Bastian seeing a massive fantasy realm in his school gym. (Bastian’s dad is played by John Wesley Shipp, the DC’s Flash from that era, which completes the 1990s atmosphere.)
The point is, the real problem with The NeverEnding Story II isn’t that the casting is bad. In a sense, Brandis is better than either Oliver or Hathaway, and as the film opens, you might be convinced you’re watching a family drama, and not a fantasy film. In fact, it's the portal fantasy element of the movie that is less convincing than the real-world drama. The movie actually feels more like a confident film when we’re in Bastian’s suburban home, or in Koreander’s bookshop.
Jonathan Brandis in seaQuest in 1993.
As is the first movie, just the act of reading a book called The NeverEnding Story draws Bastian into the world of Fantasia, which is where the trouble begins. Directed by George T. Miller, the basic vibe of Fantasia seems to have the budget of a 1990s TV movie, making the more darkly-lit, moodier vibe of the 1984 film a distant memory. Relevantly, the first film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and used lighting that made you feel like you were constantly surrounded by fog, and as though Tom Bombadil could step out from behind any tree. In The NeverEnding Story II, the production value is closer to Return to Oz meets Barbarella. The creatures that Bastian encounters feel like rejects from Flash Gordon, and not in a good way. (One creature made of mud actually looks suspiciously like the pile of sh*t from Weird Science.)
Calling all of this kitsch or camp would be too kind, because the film was, very clearly, going for earnestness. And, its basic conceit, that Bastian is returning to Fantasia while the evil sorceress Xayide (Clarissa Burt) plans to use a machine that steals Bastian’s memories, is flimsy. Bookstore owner Koreander (Thomas Hill) asks: “Have you ever read a book twice...they change.”
This idea perfectly describes the entire movie: It’s a sequel that is trying to be a low-budget reboot, while also trying to use just enough of the memory of the first film. The NeverEnding Story II attempts to adapt the second half of the book, which didn’t make it into the first film. And yet, it feels like a movie that isn’t a continuation, but is constantly trying to get started.
