I watched The Never-Ending Story with my grandson, it’s an old movie, but it was interesting watching it with some fresh thoughts in my mind.

The genre of the movie was fantasy or fable. The show depicted humanity as creatures who were fantastical beings seemingly lost and their world was crumbling around them. They knew they were destined to die without a hero coming to help them.

It was a dualistic world of both earth and fantasy running simultaneously throughout the movie. The earthly boy was reading a story about the fantasy world. Salvation was possible for the characters, but only if the hero in the story would save them. It also required the earthly boy to realize his true fate as savior.

It had an empress that appears as a godlike person in the show. She is the one in the “heavens” who needs to be saved and requires help from the boys. The show was supernatural in the sense that it had magic and creatures outside of the natural world. There were unexplainable powers and things that violated the natural order of existence. It appears they were operating in a parallel dimension.

There was a great “nothing” destroying the fantasy world, which symbolized sin and death. It also had a great beast. He was after the one person trying to save the world. He made a comment that was a gut punch for me. He said “people who have no hope are easy to control.” The themes in the movie reminded me of the redemption story of Jesus in Christianity.

The darkness was trying to take over everything. The empress needed a new name to be saved. It was a direct correlation between the sadness we feel in grief, but also, I equated it to how she needed a name. In Revelation it says that we are the bride of Christ and one of the things that happens in marriage is a bride receives a new name.

The symbolism throughout the movie taught so many morals and lessons. There were themes of trauma and grief which motivated certain behaviors and thinking. The main character learned how to control his grief from the death of his mother and learned about emotional development. He learned no matter how small he was, he could still play a role as a hero.

Our choices matter according to this movie, and that got me thinking about the idealism of another show called the “The Butterfly Effect.” My choices can affect another person’s life.

The lesson I learned: This movie was empowering to me, we all need to know how our actions can affect others, even a small action. Darkness can overtake a person and our words have the power to dispel the darkness, it is a matter of whether we choose to say them or not.

What movies have you seen lately that speak to religious or political themes that you care to share?

©2023 Marsha L. Brown