The Neverending Story Movie is hollow and disjointed

I just finished watching the Neverending Story for the first time as a 28 year old. And the hype surrounding it feels undeserved.

I can understand the praise for the special effects, the character designs, and the set pieces. But the overarching story and dialogue feels so random and doesn't give the viewer any build up or pay off. Off the bat, we're introduced to a kid Bastian who we are geared to feel bad for (lost his mom, gets bullied a lot, is misunderstood by his father). But he shows no personality or even motivation for anything besides reading a book, which he literally steals from a guy he just met.

Artax dies in the swamp 5 minutes after he's introduced. And I get it, we're supposed to feel bad or traumatized by an animal dying on screen, but how do you feel bad for a character that spends most of its screentime just dying? Before the Swamp of Sadness, we just see him galloping, and then eating. No build up, no character development, we don't even get to see the bond between him and Atreyu enough to feel anything.

Conflict and adventure is resolved with the luck dragon like a Deus ex machina.

You need to travel 10,000 miles? Well this dragon you JUST MET named Falkor is gonna fly you practically all the way there while youre unconscious. And even then, when they get there we learn there isn't an end to Fantasia, like what even is this plot point? Then Atreyu arrives on an island and faces off against this wolf that's been built up as a menace throughout the movie, and the fight against him lasts for like 30 seconds? And then the world deteriorates and the entire journey meant nothing because Atreyu just arrives back at the Empress.

And then after meeting the Empress, Atreyu disappears and we focus on Bastian, as if the secondary protagonist had nothing to do with the story in the first place.

Not even counting the fact that Bastian chooses to skip school to read in an attic, and then when school ends he doesn't even go home? Who the fuck raised this kid? Obviously not his mother.

The themes aren't hard to understand, and I'm sure the book does a much better job of exploring the ideas and giving the reader time to adjust and become invested in the characters, but the movie's storyboarding and pace just feel awful. I felt like I was watching a fever dream. So it's frustrating to read so many reviews about the movie praising it like it's some top tier flick when it feels more like someone's college screenplay.

IMO The Last Unicorn was better.