NEVERENDING STORY: In director Wolfgang Petersen's charming fantasy, Bastian (Barrett Oliver), a lonely schoolboy alienated from his father and bullied by his classmates, retreats to an attic where he becomes engrossed in a book entitled THE NEVERENDING STORY. It is the tale of a magical kingdom appropriately named Fantasia, since it is a world born of human fantasies. However, as humanity loses faith in the power of imagination, the once-thriving Fantasia is being destroyed by great storms of Nothingness. Dangerously ill herself, Fantasia's youthful empress (Tami Stronach) sends the young warrior Atreju (Noah Hathaway) on a quest to find a cure for the kingdom. After encountering flying dragons, swamp monsters, and a vast assortment of other strange creatures, the young hero discovers that only a human boy can save Fantasia, at which point Bastian is drawn, literally, into the pages of the story. NEVERENDING STORY II: Young Bastian and his friends in Fantasia continue their fantastic philosophical adventure. This time Bastian must battle an evil witch who threatens to destroy the imaginary world that reading books helps create.