NeverEnding Story II is terrible but revived theatrical Bugs Bunny shorts
The end of the 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story is triumphant: Bastian is absorbed into the book, told he can restore Fantasia with as many wishes as he wants, and flies back on Falkor to a fully restored world. The sequel, The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, is so bad and unimaginative that it quickly empties that joy.
Nearly everyone was recast except the surly old bookstore owner Carl Conrad Coreander (Thomas Hill); Jonathan Brandis replaces Barret Oliver as Bastian, while Atreyu and the childlike empress return with new actors. Familiar creatures feel wrong—Falkor has a deeper voice and blazing red irises, the Rockbiter now has a baby, and the film even saddles the series with a new NeverEnding Story song nobody wanted.
The plot undercuts the first film’s celebration of wishes: an evil witch curses Bastian so each wish costs him a memory, and by the end he loses his last memory of his deceased mother. Still, the movie did one useful thing.