Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Deep Thoughts about The NeverEnding Story

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 14

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The Nothing, depressed horses, and dead moms–The Neverending Story! (Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh…)

For this week’s episode, Emily shares her deep thoughts with Tracie about the 1984 film The Neverending Story, a childhood favorite with seriously dark undertones. She talks about how the original story was written as an anti-authoritarian fairy tale by a German survivor of the Third Reich, why she still gets goosebumps when the Childlike Empress knows about the children watching the film, and the surprising fact that Emily and Tracie’s father considered taking a hammer to their VHS copy of this film in the 1980s. Though neither the special effects nor the gender representation holds up, there is still much to enjoy in this allegory of grief that taught GenX that riding a luck dragon is the best revenge.

Throw on your earbuds and join us in the school’s attic as we play hooky and overthink The Neverending Story.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. 

Mentioned in this episode:

What we can learn from the Neverending Story: authoritarianism, fascism, and the power of imagination
He Named Her “Moon Child”
Michael Ende
Wolfgang Petersen
Aleister Crowley’s novel Moonchild (1917)

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Emily Guy Birken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts about Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the never-ending story the 1984 film with my sister, tracy Guy Decker, and with you, let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters. You know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over, think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people.

Speaker 1:

So, trace, tell me what you know about the never-ending story.

Speaker 2:

I remember seeing it the first time. I feel like I know Chris was with us, our cousin, the first time I saw it. I don't think it was in the theater. It must like I have this big recollection of it being like at their apartment or house or whatever, but I don't know if that's actually possible. Anyway, it's been a really, really long time since I've seen that movie and the things I remember are like the moments of like extreme emotionality. So like I have strong memories of the horse. It's a Trey, you right, the Trey, you the boy, the boy and the horse like come on, you, stupid horse. And the horse is like like chest deep and quicksand or something.

Speaker 2:

And like I just remember like crying like crazy at that and I remember feeling an affinity for the boy reading Bastion Is that right? Like running from bullies and like reading. Like I remember feeling an affinity because of the reading and being like really slightly confused by the childlike Empress, like that that was a good thing that she was childlike and like her one perfect crystal tear at one point, like being just sort of confused by everything about her.

Speaker 2:

Oh, and the emotionality again of, like the big rock guy who's if he has a name I don't remember saying, like looking at his hands and being like they look like strong hands and then you realize it's because he couldn't hold onto his friends and they're all in the nothing. So that's what I remember about the Neverending Story. But why are we talking about it today?

Speaker 1:

So I loved this movie Growing Up and I know that I watched it over and over again when I was in my late 20s maybe a little younger, but I was definitely an adult Dad gave me a DVD of this movie and because he'd seen it and he thought of me, and when he gave it to me he said of all the movies that you watched over and over again, the one that I considered taking a hammer to was this one, which actually had me a little nervous because I was like, oh is this one? I can't go home again. And it actually it holds up. I can understand why an adult would get tired of it, but it was not what I was afraid of. So I want to talk about.

Speaker 1:

There's a couple reasons why I want to talk about this movie. I loved it and I revisited it recently with my kids, who also mostly loved it, and so that's part of why I want to talk about it, about what's enduring about it, what it holds up, even though it is nearly a 40 year old movie at this point, with 40 year old special effects, special effects. And it is also a movie that rests on the shoulders of three child actors who you get what you get with child acting. They do a phenomenal job, but they're kids and I think that's actually what dad was responding to. There's not a whole lot of nuance in child acting. So I want to talk about that, about what's enduring.

Speaker 1:

But I also want to talk a little bit about what this movie says about storytelling, what it says about the role of the reader or viewer in storytelling. And also I kind of want to talk a little bit about adaptations, because Michael End, who was the author of the book the Neverending Story, hated this movie so much that he actually sued to keep it from being released and obviously failed, and so I want to talk a little bit about adaptations and what that means to creators. And then, finally, in part because Michael End was German he was born in 1926. And so his formative years he lived through Nazi Germany, and this book and then the other book of his that I read, momo, are very much anti-authoritarianism, and so I want to talk, and that has something to do with why he hated this film version of it, although I don't think that the message was as lost as he thinks it is. So those are all the things that I kind of want to talk about, about this movie, wow.

Speaker 2:

Okay, cool, so let's begin.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to tell the. You know just kind of what happens in the movie. The movie starts off with a little boy, bastion Baltazar Bucks is his name.

Speaker 2:

I don't say that three times fast, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And he is about 10 years old. His mother has died. His father, who's played by major dad Gerald McGrany, is kind of emotionally distant and is telling him you know, you need to get your head out of the clouds, keep your feet on the ground, you know. Apparently he's been drawing unicorns on his math homework instead of actually doing his homework. On his way to school he is chased by three bullies who end up putting him into a garbage. Can they start to run after him again? After he's gotten himself out and he ducks into a an old bookshop. It's Carl Conrad Coriander Cause. Apparently Michael End likes triple alliteration yes.

Speaker 1:

And in the book. If I remember correctly, those are all Ks. They make it Cs in the movie.

Speaker 2:

Well, who's German? Yeah, then the Ks make more sense. Yeah, although KKK is not for an American audience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Initials to have yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So Mr Coriander is reading a book and Sebastian ends up talking to him about it. Like, what are you reading? He said, well, this book is not safe. It's like, what are you talking about? And he says well, when you're reading, you know Jules Verne, do you feel like you have become Captain Nemo? And he's like, yeah, that's what I like about it. And he's like, well, you get to be a little boy again when it's over, because your books are safe, this one is not safe. So then there's a phone call and Mr Coriander goes to the back of the shop and so Bastion steals the book, which is titled the Neverending Story, and it has it's not just an image, it's like a seal on the front, that is, two snakes riding around Like a brook almost.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And he goes to school. He's late, which was part of what he talked about with his dad that morning so he goes to the attic of the school and gets started reading. So the story is that the land of Fantasia is in danger because of something called the nothing, and when the nothing comes, it just gets rid of things. There's nothing there. And so we meet several people who are going to the ivory tower to meet with a child like Empress, who rules Fantasia, to find out what to do about the nothing. When they get there, they're met by her advisor, chiron, who says that she is ill and it is related to the nothing. Her illness and the nothing are connected to each other and so if we can cure her, that will solve the problem with the nothing. And they have sent for a warrior named Atreyu to go to find the cure. He is given a treyu.

Speaker 1:

It turns out to be another little boy who is about 12. He's given the oren, which is the image that's on the front of the book, that is, the two snakes. That is to keep him safe. And he goes out with his horse, artax, to find a cure. First place he goes is the swamps of sadness. Where there is a Morilla the aged one, who turns out to be a giant tortoise or turtle, who says he must go a thousand miles away or maybe it's 10,000 miles away to the southern oracle, that heart-rending scene happens, where the swamps of sadness start to take over Artax the horse and he sinks into the swamps and a treyu is heartbroken. Meanwhile Bastion is crying in the attic as well, and even though he has the oren which is supposed to keep him safe, a treyu is nearly taken in by the swamps of sadness too, but with luck, the luck dragon Falcor finds him and flies into the southern oracle.

Speaker 2:

There he learns I had forgotten the dragon. He looks a little like a, like a. What kind of dog was Roscoe?

Speaker 1:

A Cocker Spaniel. He looks a little like a Cocker Spaniel. He's got Cocker Spaniel ears.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he kind of has like a Cocker Spaniel-esque face.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's kind of like if a Cocker Spaniel were a Chinese dragon.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Falcor, oh, I totally forgotten about Falcor. That's making me happy. Okay, carry on, carry on.

Speaker 1:

So he goes to the southern oracle where he meets Engiwook and Urgal, the married couple who argue with each other. Engiwook is the foremost authority on the southern oracle. There are three gates. The first you have to get passed by believing that you can. It can really hurt people. It can destroy people who don't believe in themselves. And so a treyu gets passed that gate. The second gate is the magic mirror gate. That shows you who you truly are, and it's terrifying because people who are kind find that they're truly cruel, people who are brave find that they are actually cowards. Well, a treyu gets to that gate and he sees Bastion. And then finally he gets the oracle who tells him that the childlike Empress needs a new name from a human child. The nothing comes and starts to destroy the southern oracle.

Speaker 1:

The treyu and Falcor go to try to figure out where the boundaries of Fantasia are so they can bring a human child from beyond the boundaries to give her a new name. A treyu and Falcor get separated and that's when a treyu ends up on an island where the rockbiter is, where they look like such good, big, strong hands, and says that he's just waiting for the nothing to get him. A treyu finds these murals of everything he's been through that are quite ancient, as if it happened long before he was born, even though it's just happened to him. And then he finds Gmork, which is the wolf that was the agent of the nothing that was sent out to kill him, kill a treyu, even though there's very little time left, the nothing is coming. He's lost his luck, dragon. He's lost the oran. A treyu says well, if we're going to die anyway, I'd rather die fighting. Come for me, gmork. And they have a fight and a treyu is able to kill him. Finally, falcor finds him.

Speaker 1:

There is nothing left of Fantasia, except for the ivory tower. A treyu goes in to talk to the childlike Empress and say that he has failed, and she says no, you haven't. You've brought the boy with you, the human child, and he already has a name picked out. All he has to do is call it out Bastion has has. Prior to this, we've seen him say like oh, my mother had the most beautiful name. I wish they would ask me. But he keeps saying like this can't be me, it can't be real. The, the nothing comes for the ivory tower. A treyu falls, presumably dead, and Bastion is is like devastated and cannot believe that this is really about him until the childlike Empress looks at him. But in the in the story, he says Bastion, bastion, please. And so he goes to the window and shouts out her new name and all of a sudden which is like Moon unit, Dweezel or something.

Speaker 2:

No, Moon child.

Speaker 1:

And I've got. I've got some some history on that. I believe. I truly believe, because the filmmakers had to know that no one could hear what he was shouting. If you've read the book, you know the name because it's it's said in the book and so that's the only reason I know the name, Because even if you watch it with subtitles on now it says like garbled shouting, and I think that the filmmakers decided it was better if we filled in our own name. Yeah, and I think part of that is because the name sounds more magical in German. Yeah, I bet it does, Because it's. It's not. Okay, I don't really remember. It's like Mondkind would be Moon child in German. This was like Mondenkind, which is kind of like a fake way of making it sound old. So it'd be kind of more like child of the Moon in English, but there's no way of making it sound like there's like an archaic opponent to it. Yeah, Okay, shout out the name, the name.

Speaker 1:

All of a sudden, Bastion finds himself with the Empress and the only all that is left of Fantasia is her and a single grain of sand. And she tells him that for every wish he makes, Fantasia will grow bigger and more beautiful than it ever was and so that he can recreate it. And so the movie ends with him riding Falcor and seeing everything as if the nothing never was. He then asks Falcor to take him to scare the bullies who scared him at the beginning, and they they jump into the trash can that he was in? And the narrator ends with he made many more wishes and there were many more adventures, but that's a story for another time and that's how it ends. So there's a lot there. So let me start with why Michael and hated the hated this. Yeah, yeah, let's start there. So this, the 90 minutes that we see, is the first half of the Neverending story.

Speaker 1:

There is a full second half about Bastion's adventures in Fantasia. It's actually Fantastica is the name of it in the book, and something that was skipped over, that they did not make clear in the movie, is that when Fantasians are taken by the nothing, they become lies in the real world. And Gmork, when Atreus confronts him, says why would you help the nothing? And he said because the nothing takes hopes and dreams, and people without hopes and dreams are easy to control, and whoever has control has power and so kind of those things together. The fact that a lack of hopes and dreams and a preponderance of lies makes people ripe to being controlled by an authoritarian, and that's really what End was going for here. He had a very specific message he wanted to create In the second half of the book, which I have read, but it's been 30 years.

Speaker 1:

I was probably about 13 or 14 when I read it, so I don't remember the details that well. I just remember little bits of it. What Bastion doesn't know at the beginning is that every time he makes a wish, he loses a memory of the real world.

Speaker 2:

While he's in Fantasia.

Speaker 1:

While he's in Fantasia, oh so he's repopulating, but but separate his ties, yes, and then he is described as overweight and bow legged and short for his age in the book, and so one of his first things that he does in Fantasia is to make himself look the way he wants to look, whereas Barrett Oliver is the, the, the Kim.

Speaker 2:

Plank that horrible 10 year old yeah.

Speaker 1:

So over time, while he is in Fantasia, the child like Empress disappears, and so he decides to become the emperor, the child like emperor, because he must be the right person for it, because he has the orange, and so he becomes an authoritarian himself and ends up fighting Falcor and Atreu and his friends. So there's something, yeah, and he ends up going to. The only two things he remembers are his name and his father, I think.

Speaker 2:

Oh, he doesn't even remember his mother, who he named the Emperor softer.

Speaker 1:

No, because he loses all his memories and Traiu ends up saving him, helping him remember his name. And then he decides to go back to the real world and he becomes himself again, but he goes to the Hall of Old Emperors and it's all the humans who got stuck in Fantasia like he did and became authoritarians.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

So there's a lot there and I was reading some again because I read this as a child and it's been years and I did not have time to reread the book before we recorded. But it's pretty clear that Michael End is trying to say two very distinct things about authoritarianism. One is that a lack of hope can lead to agreeing to be an authoritarian, but then also an over-reliance on a view of yourself that is a grand eyes like self-aggrandizing view of yourself also leads to authoritarianism. So he's looking at it both from the people who are willing to be led by an authoritarian and then the people who become an authoritarian, and I suspect that's why he had such a problem with the movie, because that is not in there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the second one for sure isn't, and it's I feel like there's also based on just what you've said, because I haven't read at all, but it seems to me that there's also something about the. It's not bad people that become authoritarian, but that it's in there, it's in all of us, kind of a thing. Yes, I'm feeling a sense of that as well, although it's interesting, the gates from where we were going to see the Oracle is that from the book, because those are kind of interesting too to juxtapose with the fact that it's there in all of us. The brave person finds himself a coward and the kind person finds himself actually cruel. And also, you need to actually believe that you can do it in order to there's a lot there it feels like a major balancing act if we're trying to take instruction from Mr N's mythology here.

Speaker 1:

And based on I've read Momo also more recently, but not that much more recently. It's been about 20 years ago. That one is a similar sort of thing. There are men in bowler hats who try to convince people to save time, and by saving time, they lose everything that's important. I just time is like their flowers, they're like time lilies, and so, instead of just allowing them to grow by saving time, they end up being made into, basically, tobacco that the men in the bowler had to smoke. It's just an amazing metaphor. I really, really I think Mike Lend was a phenomenal talent and I can comprehend why he was not happy with the film, but I also think that there's more to it than it wasn't his story.

Speaker 2:

Right, it was.

Speaker 1:

Inspired by the story.

Speaker 2:

Right, but it was still a net good, I think in your opinion.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so for that, because the anti-authoritarian idea I did not get. I mean, that is not something that's in there, although you do have that important moment when Gamork says people without hopes and dreams are easy to control, which stuck with me from childhood. It seems to be more of a metaphor of depression, particularly considering his father. We get one scene with Major Dad and the thing that stuck with me is he makes himself a smoothie with a raw egg in it Gross.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's a guess.

Speaker 1:

All Okay, yeah, but he is compartmentalizing his grief to the point where he's ignoring his own child's.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Like reaching out and grief the way the swamps of sadness take in our attacks and there is nothing that a traitor can do yes, and if it weren't for luck, in a very literal sense then a traitor would have been lost as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then the fact that the big bad is nothing is yeah, that's pretty overwhelming stuff for a child's movie.

Speaker 2:

I mean each of the ones, even the rock fighter that I remembered and the big, strong hands. That really feels like depression talking as well to me.

Speaker 1:

Well, it gets back to the first gate. You have to believe that you can, and that is a I believed my strength was in my ability to hold things my hands, my bulk, the fact that I'm a giant creature Right, and it's completely comprehensible why the rock fighter has that reaction, right, and it's kind of like I thought that I was this big, strong thing and what I see is that I am nothing compared to the nothing. So it's both of those gates.

Speaker 2:

Even the I mean you and I have talked in other places about sort of that. What I'm realizing is fairly universal sense that if others saw our true selves, that we would be rejected, so that the second gate being the mirror that you can see who you truly are, and that it is terrifying like that also feels like a potent metaphor for mental health and self-perception, etc.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm. Well, and what is interesting to me is, as a kid, it was clear to me that Atreu made it past that gate because he was confused, not terrified, yep. And so the fact that he is a fictional character being read by a small boy who is really having a tough time is there's just this weird metaphor within a metaphor within a metaphor there, and it also means, like for Bastion, who he really is, is Atreu you know, because he can see him at that moment.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it's very complicated yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a lot for a kid's movie it is a lot.

Speaker 2:

I mean, its inspiration was this anti-authoritarian from someone who survived Nazi Germany.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and his father was a painter who had all of his paintings destroyed by the Third Reich. There's like one piece that survived because it was considered to be, I don't know, antithetical whatever that is they called.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, un-American, but the German version yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so it's really fascinating to think about how Michael N's life story fits into this.

Speaker 2:

Or metaphors from it show up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's really interesting so the more overt lesson from this film, that is I don't think it's not in the book, but it's much more clear in the film and much more. What they were going for is the role of the reader in creating story, and that was what gave me goosebumps as a child and still did when I watched it recently with my kids. At the end, the childlike Empress is telling Atreu he hasn't failed, because the boy was with you as you did all that, just as others were with him when he hid from the bullies in the bookshop. And so that's us.

Speaker 1:

We were with Bastion, and she goes on to say that it's the never-ending story that creates all of this life In the novel. Bastion actually still refuses to name her at that moment, and so she goes to the old man on Wandering Mountain who keeps a record of everything that happens in Fantasia, and asks him to read the story, and it starts at the beginning with what Bastion has read, and continues on until we get to that point and then starts over again, and so it's never ending that way until he finally says I have to name her or this will this will go on forever and I am not going to say I prefer the version from the movie.

Speaker 1:

It's more familiar to me because I watched the movie so many times. I only read the book maybe twice, but the idea that we have agency as readers and viewers was such an important one for me as a kid, and the meta-analysis of what it means to engage with a story. It's a gift, it's a gift for my childhood, it is something that I always love when I see it in other art and it is something that I truly believe in. As we talked about, I think, in our bonus episode about Monster at the end of this book, I really believe that the reader concludes the loop of creating art, written art. There is no completion without someone to read it, and so the reader has responsibility and obligation and power, and I think that's remarkable. And it's not a very specific message set very specifically in the 20th century after an atrocity. It is a little more timeless and so, again, I'm completely sympathetic to Michael N's displeasure at losing the message he very specifically wanted to say, but I can't, I can't regret the message we got.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there is something unique and special about the kind of relationship you know. I think every relationship is separate and different from the two individuals, or more who are sharing it. Like that, there is something in the bond that I believe is distinct from the individuals, but it has a texture and a depth that is completely different. When we're talking about the reception and interpretation of art, the relationship between the artist and the viewer, or the author and the reader, contains the full bulk of the story. That is their bond, and there's something really special and magical about that that. Yeah, I'm with you, it's powerful, it's powerful, and it's not about resisting authoritarianism.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Something I read. I did a little bit of research, different critiques and reviews, and the way that this one writer put it that I really appreciated was talked about how Bastion because he is not a character in the book that he is reading has agency, Whereas the characters in the Neverending Story don't, because they have already been written. They don't have agency, which is why he is able to name the childlike Empress, and a character who lives in Fantasia would not be able to, and I was like that is phenomenal. That really, really hit me. Now, having said that, gotta get to the Becdel test. Yeah, there are two named female characters. There's the childlike Empress, Moonchild we never find out what her previous name was and then there's Ergal and Gewook's wife. Those are the only two named female characters. They do not talk to each other and I read something this morning preparation for this talking. It was a woman talking about how she'd loved this movie as a child. She thought a Treyue was a girl when she was little, which I can kind of understand. Yeah, Longish hair, Longish hair, and Noah Hathaway is very pretty. I had a crush on him as a kid, I actually.

Speaker 1:

I can remember when I was a kid, dad saying something along the lines of like he thought that they got one actor to play a Treyue and Bastion because they looked so alike. And I was like what are you talking about? They look nothing alike. That's funny. So she this this blogger I was reading was saying she went to like a costume party or something like that, as a Treyue. And so someone said to her like you can't be a Treyue, he's a boy, You're a girl. And so she's like so I'm stuck being this child in a tower who's crying and waiting for the boys to come save her. And I'm like oh, ouch, yeah. And she has more agency in the book in that when Bastion refuses still refuses to name her, she says, okay, I know what I can do now and goes to save herself and the rest of Fantastica, but we get nothing, nothing like that.

Speaker 2:

He's a sexy lamp who needs a new name.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that that, like the other thing that I really remember from watching it, was the beauty of the child actors, all three of them. I mean they are all three very, very beautiful children, but especially Tammy Stronach, who played the child like Empress, is very much emphasized, like the makeup that she's wearing and the head, like the tiara that has the one pearl. She looks amazing and they did like this phenomenal job in terms of the what you can do with filmmaking for making her seem ethereal. But it doesn't change the fact that she's born yesterday.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, not a lot of gender representation, no.

Speaker 1:

And that's something that now I reading that blogger. I had no problem seeing myself as Trey or Bastion when I watched the movie, like the fact that they were boys did not interfere with my ability to see myself as.

Speaker 2:

I definitely was Bastion.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but at the same time, I shouldn't have to do that with every movie for my childhood, right, right. So it's a. It's an interesting movie to revisit. I mean watching it with my kids. They were 12 and 9 when we watched it. They've since had birthdays, but they were like way to green screen, and so there are definitely this snark is strong, with this one yes.

Speaker 1:

So there's definitely some magic lost in the dating, the aging of those special effects, but the idea that you know, if you find the right book, you could find this path into a world that only you can get to is really, really amazing. My older son wanted to read the book after. After having seen this, he's like this sounds amazing, this sounds great. And it's kind of an odd amorphous thought. But I'm thinking about the responsibility Michael End felt, because he wanted this specific message and it was not made clear in the film.

Speaker 1:

Then there's the responsibility of Wolfgang Pitterson. This was his first English language film. He had made Das Boot. He also made Enemy Mine. Do you remember that movie? Yes, we should put that on the list, we should. And I think Air Force won Like. He made several fairly, fairly well known movies. So he took a different responsibility for Michael End, but what he did was like shepherd the magic, like and made it clear in a way that really resonated with a lot of children. And then you know the responsibility of the characters. I mean the way that it's set up. When he finds the book in the bookshop, mr Coriander says you know, this isn't safe, it's not for you, which is also very clearly you need to read this of pushing kids in the direction they need to go when they need to go there.

Speaker 2:

So that's an interesting thing. Like let's actually stay there for a second because, right, so this kid is dealing with grief, you know, having lost his mom and feeling not the support that he needs from his dad, who's dealing with his own grief in a different way. So he needs this story, okay, okay. But he also like what are the consequences now of him? Like End was talking about trade offs in the way that you just described the book, like Mr Coriander has effectively made it so that Bashin will cut school.

Speaker 2:

I mean, he's at least cutting class if not school because he's in the school building, so I suppose that's not exactly cutting school, but he's not in class, right? And he's struggling in school and obviously, obviously our grades are not the be all, end all and also, you know, completely blowing them off and ignoring them is also not. It will have consequences.

Speaker 1:

I guess, so that's sort of an interesting Well and the idea that you can lose yourself in something you know, whether it's fiction or movies or video games or whatever it is, particularly when you're grieving or feeling depressed. There's a fine line between when that is a healthy way of dealing with grief or whatever you're dealing with, and it being a way to escape.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. Yeah, I think that's exactly what I'm trying to get at, because I feel like there are Absolutely there are many times when there are emotions that we need to feel and we have a hard time accessing them, and art helps us access them, helps us to find them so that we can express them. It's hard to express grief about mom's death because it's too fresh for Bastion and so he's able to find the loss of the art acts the horse and express the grief through tears that maybe weren't coming and needed to be shed Awesome. But ultimately, I feel like the other side of that is a return to one's life in a healthier, more balanced, less repressed, less whatever kind of way, and it sounds like, especially from the novel, that's not at all what this led to.

Speaker 1:

Eventually it does, eventually it does, he is able to. At the end, he and his father are able to talk, his father is able to cry in front of him, like it does. Eventually, and I actually feel like so the end of the movie is Falcor in the real world scaring his bullies Right, and in some ways that feels like a fantasy. That's just. Wouldn't it be great if and as I read this morning they didn't know how to end the movie because, again, it's the halfway point for the book and so they kind of came up with that and narratively it makes a neat bow. It starts with the bullies, it ends with the bullies, it starts with him running, it ends with him triumphant. But I think if we look at it in terms of what has he gained from the book that he can take with him into the real world, we can see that as a metaphor for it.

Speaker 1:

Even though it's not him actually standing up to his bullies as his 10-year-old self. It is him being able to imagine a world in which he does not need to be afraid of these boys anymore.

Speaker 2:

Right, and maybe it is in fact because the luck dragon doesn't exist in our world. But if that scene was actually a metaphor for him standing up to his bullies, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so I liked the ending. As a kid I never really thought much about it. I liked the symmetry of it. My little storyteller heart as a child liked the symmetry of it and I think they did a very nice job. In that sense. I can also see why if you're thinking of it as like, okay, so he's just basically catatonic and imagining he's in this fantasy world, that's kind of a grim ending. But you can also see it, since so much of this film is metaphor as a metaphor of him taking the courage and the enthusiasm that this book gave him and the agency this book gave him and using it in the real world. I think that's a far better ending than they could have come up with if him just being in Fantasia at the end, Agreed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, In my head I'm sort of writing the next chapter where his grades are suffering because he didn't turn them in. But then, I don't know, maybe he's able to actually talk to the teacher the math teacher about dealing with grief. But that's in my head, that's not, and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's okay. So one other thing I want to mention about Moon Child, and this is more of a fun fact than anything else Alistair Crowley wrote a novel called Moon Child.

Speaker 2:

Oh, the Magic Guy.

Speaker 1:

Yes, with a kevin and Extreme Leftist, I guess. Yeah, I don't know much about him, neither do I, other than that he's the occult guy. The novel was about good and bad magicians, and the good magicians were trying to bring a moon child into the world by impregnating a woman. It does not sound very feminist, but, and Michael End had a copy of that book in his like library, so the name Moon Child likely was inspired by that Is it Crowley British.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So it just kind of blew my mind like when I read that, because you know, I think Moon Child, I think you know 1960s hippies.

Speaker 2:

Well, obviously, like I was naming Frank Zappa's kids names, so that's where I was, yeah.

Speaker 1:

In turn, I find out it's six degrees of good omens, because Right.

Speaker 2:

Totally, alistair Crowley and magicians yeah, I will be doing research on this.

Speaker 1:

So, and the novel was written in like 1917, but wasn't published until the 20s. And there was some response to World War I in that novel as well. So it's just very interesting to me where these things come from. And it gets back to why I was glad as a child I never knew the name, because I do have like mental connections, I've connotations with Moon Child that had I known that as a kid I think it would have taken away some of the magic. So as soon as I read the book because it's in the book I saw it. But by that point the movie was firmly lodged in my mental furniture.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all right. Any other insights you want to share before we wrap up?

Speaker 1:

One more really weird fun fact. So Noah Hathaway, who played Atreyu, was in a movie called Trolls 2, where he played a character named Harry Potter. Whoa, I know, I don't think any of these three actors continued acting. Barrett Oliver was in what was the name of that movie it's not the last starfighter, daryl or something like that where?

Speaker 2:

he's a oh the.

Speaker 1:

A-R-Y-L. Yeah, and a couple other movies. I think Tammy Stronach never did anything else acting. She was a dancer. Noah Hathaway was like owned a bar and was like a tattoo artist and is still extraordinarily beautiful. But yeah, just it's interesting, the same sort of like. I tend to have six degrees of anything I'm interested in, and so finding out where people end up is also something I tend to get into.

Speaker 2:

So let me see if I can synthesize some of the things that we talked about and you can fill in where I missed. So the ending story. Well, quickly, the thing that we always talk about does not pass the Bechdel test Badly very little gender representation and in fact the one and in fact the childlike Empress, very little agency, at least in the movie. I'm just getting that out of the way. But the bigger piece of the analysis that I heard from you on this movie was twofold. One was about the manifold metaphors and analogy for mental health struggles that are sort of baked into the storyline, from the swamps of sadness, that sort of envelop, to the big bad. The actual villain in this story is the nothing, which is a really poignant metaphor for depression, in my opinion, an our opinion. I'm agreeing with you actually, here.

Speaker 2:

And then the other piece that is powerful for you, which I think is going to be a trend on deep thoughts, is the role of the reader or consumer of media in its creation and the consequent obligations, responsibilities, power that come from that role in the creation. One interesting fact about this piece of media, those were the things that this piece of media as it exists, as we received it as a movie in 1980, whatever are really interesting and not at all the primary message that the original author, michael End, was trying to convey, where in the novel in fact it was much stronger message about the danger of authoritarianism, about how hopeless people are easy to control and that becoming an authoritarian through self aggrandizement or just sort of continuing to allow one to take the power is a danger in everyone. Those things from a German survivor of Nazi Germany are missing from the movie, much, much to Mr End's chagrin. Apparently those are my big syntheses. What did I miss that you want to make sure that we leave in our conclusion here?

Speaker 1:

Just that the importance of imagination and storytelling in its own right. When Bastion's father is telling him to keep his feet on the ground and to be practical, he's telling him get your head out of the clouds, stop drawing unicorns on your homework, because this is the real world and we need to do real things in it and drink breakfast smoothies with raw eggs. And the movie rejects that. It rejects the idea that you have to choose one or the other. It is possible. I believe the movie is saying it is possible to do both. It is possible to live in the real world but also keep your head in the clouds. It is possible to envelop yourself in fantasy when necessary, but be practical when necessary, and you don't need to give one or the other up.

Speaker 1:

I think that's what the movie is saying and I think that's really important, especially in terms of talking about mental health, because we do have this tendency of what we're doing here with Deep Thoughts is like oh, it's just a book, it's just a movie, Don't take it so seriously. You need to work on your math homework. Well, it's that important. It is that important because it is what will help this child deal with his grief. It's that important because it will. It's what will make the difference between a child who just kind of fades away into nothing and one who is able to reclaim himself and stand up to his bullies.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, that's what got the entire world who made it through COVID got through COVID with us. We didn't do it from accounting tables. Yeah yeah, all right. Well, that was fun. I hadn't thought about that movie in a long time.

Speaker 1:

And so the best I wanted, my own Falcor, so bad.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, me too, me too. So when we meet next time, I am going to be sharing with you my deep thoughts about Battlesar Galactica, specifically the reboot, not the like 70s version, but the one with Trisha Helfer, the one with Trisha Helfer, who has a cottage industry and not quite human characters.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, that one, that one. So I lived that Portlandia episode Just binged the whole thing in a matter of weeks. So I'm looking forward to sharing my deep thoughts with you. Very cool, I'll see you then. See you then. Jake pointed out to us that we had completely missed the negative and potentially harmful stereotypes of Roma people that underlie Robin Hood and little John's cross-dressing as fortune tellers in Disney's Robin Hood. We want to hear what you're thinking, but I bet other listeners do too. We have a forum feature on our website at guygirlsmediacom. Come join the conversation. I'll put the link in the show notes. Come on over. Let us know what did we miss? What surprised you? Did we inspire any deep thoughts for you? Be in touch. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, upculture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?