How a Boy, His Horse and a Swamp Basically Screwed Up a Generation

NOOOOOOO!! Don’t be sad! It looked bleak for a moment there for the poor horse, but then it just went, no wait, I’m not sad anymore!! And then it comes back to life, back from the sadness and lives happily ever after!! You need to see that film again!! and get some closure!! Sad times can end and then happy times take over!! The moral of the story is even though sadness may drag you down you can pull yourself up again!!

I’ll see your Neverending Story and raise you a Transformers:The Movie.

In my sub-generation we all have PTSD from the part in Gremlins about how Phoebe Cates’ character lost her dad on Christmas.

To make this scene even worse, the kid almost died in real life performing that scene.

this is the truest thing i’ve ever read.

just play this during sad scenes and everything is better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0fms_yL7U

so win. <3

You seriously just blogged from inside my head. This scene fucked me up as a kid too. lol

“Moooove… PLEASE.”

:[

This is the best thing I have ever read.

This article is poorly-conceived and half-baked. It’s not even a good attempt at mockery of journalism. Anyone could do this, but there would be no point.

Umm… he saved the horse at the end of the movie when the nothing was defeated moron

But animals and people really do fire of sadness. Most often after being separated from a loved on through death.

Yes, I believe you see the boy and his horse alive at the end when what’s-his-face flys over on the fluffy dragon-dog.

retarded article by the way…never ceases to amaze me at how much garbage is written as content. that is depressing… not Artax choosing to kick the bucket before Atreyu grew some balls!

I doubt one scene from a movie (not every child has seen) is the causing factor of depression among children of that era. I feel depression is an internal emotional conflict which probably stems from home environment and other surrounding environments ie…school, friends etc…

What about Bambi? I think that was harsher! At least Artax is revived when the nothing was defeated and the gmourk was more traumatizing for me!!!!

Great article! (so true) – I’ll def be keeping up with your blog. :D
If you get a chance, check out mine humorous take on history at: EpikFAILs.com

Gee, I thought my PTSD had something to do with being raped as a child, but clearly it’s from too much Neverending Story. Even though Artax is definitely ressurectted by the end of the movie. Now, the Nothing, THAT was scary!

I have crippling depression…
But actually, I never saw the entirety of Never Ending Story.
Ironically, it was too long for my ADD-afflicted mind.

*foreveralones on a motorcycle(made of flaming guitars that are themselves made out of lasers) straight out of Hell*

you forgot how Atreyu BEGS his horse to try, for him! “Artax, PLEEEEASE!!” gets me everytime

If you’ve read the book first, you find yourself cheering for the swamp.

that: “something you love is probably going to die, with no way to save it, because it was just too damn sad to keep going.” IS sad. And true… but so sad.

The real funny part about this article is that the author and majority of people responding saying she is right…are incredibly blind. So you really believe that hiding the truth from children is going to create happier people as they grow up? Sounds terrific…let’s give every movie and story a FAKE happy ending (which is nothing like reality) and lead them to believe life will always turn out smelling like roses. You should be looking at how nowadays kids get trophies for absolutely no reason and then when they get out of college and can’t get a job…they get their first taste of reality! Sorry darling, but life is not always peaches and we shouldn’t lead children to believe that either…

LOL that is funny. Maybe I shouldn’t have shown this movie to my friends little girls. BUT in fairness to the movie, the horse does return.

HAHAHAHA, this is superb! I’ve never watched the movie, but I’ll probably stream it now.

I’m sorry, I know this is supposed to be all funny and satirical and everything – but is the author truly stupid enough to think that this is true:

“Because we were the first generation that would have had the opportunity to see the movie The Never Ending Story at an impressionable age.”

The movie come out in 1984. Not 1884 or 1784 or even the year dot minus 84.

So what’s the excuse for the rate of depression among all of those of generations prior to being at an ‘impressionable age’ in 1984?

What a load of crap.

Where the red fern grows.

And yet our parents had already watched Old Yeller get shot in the fucking head, and The Yearling get shot. Sad horsie was NOTHING.

It’s even sadder in the book; Artax can talk!

i’m just loving the comments so much! lol.

KURT COBAIN DIED BECAUSE OF IT. assholes.

This is literally how MK Ultra works.

From the comments I have concluded that there were in fact many scenes in childhood favourite movies that may well have left our poor little impressionable brains huddling in a corner rocking slowly. BUT then I thought of all the poor cotton wool wrapped modern day kids where (if they don’t get hold of some GTA raping murderous rampage action first) their heads are filled with High School Musicals, everyones mums and dads working safe well paid jobs living in the suburbs with amazing skiing holidays on tap, then they grow up to the horrific reality that a career at Mc D’s is a very real and possible highest level they will achieve, that nothing is real in movies other than the amount of junk food advertised, and that the closest to snow they may ever get is a slushie machine in a 7/11. PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE GENERATION OF UBER DEPRESSED DISILLUSIONED SERIAL KILLERS!

This article is just a really poor opinion with no supporting statements to back up claims. How do people publish articles like this with
Pride

Clearly none of you are Irish. We have open casket funerals from the jump. A horse sinking in a bog ain’t got shit on hanging out with the lifeless bodies of your relatives from the time you’re old enough to walk.

Reblogged this on Writer on the Prowl and commented:
Makes total sense.

Great insight!! Bad math. The movie came out in 1984. Which means nobody who’s 18 to 30 now saw it in the theaters. Which means it’s not your cultural product to comment on in this way if you belong to that group. It’s last-wave Gen X’s cultural product. Those of us who are in their mid-to-late 30s to early 40s now. This is not to say, of course that you millennials who saw it on VHS, cable, or DVD weren’t affected by it, because damn, it’s affecting. But you can’t just claim it like that. It’d be just as weird as me saying how The Godfather really messed my generation up. We were too young (or not even born) when it was culturally relevant to know anything about it.

This scene still makes me cry, even though I’ve seen it likely hundreds (and hundreds) of times, and I know how it ends. It was one of my favourite films as a kid, and I guess it still is. I haven’t watched it in a good while, though, I’m overdue…

Brilliant!! Satire aside, 80s film makers truly did have a flair for unnecessarily intense knife twisting in children’s movies. Maybe that’s what made them great, but they certainly did introduce a 7 year old me to a battery of complex emotions – without a lot of context to help me process. Did that fuck me up? Not sure. It definitely helped form the template of how I would respond to those emotions down the road. Lemme throw two Superman scenes in the mix for your emotionally scarred child selves to enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpBfR7GT5zE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuSsSwg9MXs. If it’s a competition though, the GTA4 / unfettered-YouTube-access generation has got us beat. Contemplating those scars – the impact on young hearts and minds – THAT’S depressing.

E.T. scarred for life because of E.T. I tried last year to watch it (I was 34) and I couldn’t get through the first 10 minutes. As soon as that ship started to go and E.T. began screaming…I totally have PTSD from that movie.

OK, that comment looks as though I had a stroke mid-sentence.

The thing that I remember most as a kid was being disappointed that the movie ended…

well, previous to that…there was “where the red fern grows” in which the dog dies of sadness due to the other dog’s death. So, maybe this 18-30 year old generation are just little bitches ;)

Ok ladies and gentlemen, let me raise another case in point- who has seen watership down? You know the one; cartoon about the good rabbits and the bad rabbits and how the good rabbits try to liberate the poor rabbits that the bad rabbits had confined? Yeah i was 5/6 when i watched this for the first time and never looked at life the same. the film is basically a kids version of the nazi dictatorship and the imagery involved is so vivid and harsh for young veiwers.. wven as an adult it messes with my head

I love how mad people get from things like this post. THATS the reason everyone is messed up. People get offended by everything nowadays. They expect everyone to be PC about everything so we don’t offend! To all that commented on this post, even the ones that felt it nesessary to belittle others…thank you! I needed something interesting and funny to read in the bathroom. (Chris G. Thanx for the Ridgmont high visual. Haha)

No, that’s not the message. That scene is sad, but it’s not the end. Even when the Nothing consumes the whole world save for a single grain of sand, there is still hope. There is still love. And _that_ is all it takes to rebuild. This story is about not giving up, and carrying on, even when everything falls apart.

Totally funny theory, but the author is wrong about 18-30 year olds being the “FIRST generation that would have had the opportunity to see the movie The Never Ending Story at an impressionable age.” The movie is older than that kid!

I get that you hated The Neverending Story. But trying to connect it with a debilitating mental disease is desperate. Depression connected with a sad event or PTSD is only a small percentage. Most struggle with neurochemical imbalances off and on their entire lives. People in this comment thread are joking that we’re too sensitive, but how many have felt down for more than a few days at a time? Maybe when you have struggled for years to just be able to function at work and life or to enjoy everyday activities instead of wanting to hide. Maybe when you have endured weeks of horrible side effects from medicine after medicine in a search to find the one that makes you feel a little bit NORMAL again. Or whatever that means because you’ve been depressed so long. Maybe then you’ll understand how it feels to have someone say that the years of misery is just because you watched a movie as a kid where a horse died. Joking about a disease that already carries so much stigma and shame in our society is the lowest form of humor.

acutally the whole point of the Artax subplot was the coming of age moment where someone you love dies. It happens to all of us, and being exposed to the concept around the age of 10-15 is nothing but a good thing. The logic in this article is laughable, not researched at all, and is nothing but the projection of your own feelings on the movie.

This is the stupidest article I’ve ever read. Stop writing please.

you are an idiot that obviously does not read literature how about The Yearling, Where the Red Fern Grows, Old Yeller, Bambi not the cartoon version the real book. I could go on and on with books that talked about death and life and loss. Death is a part of life and sadness is dangerous but only if you allow it to consume you which is the lesson they are teaching. How about you go fill up your kindle or smart phone with some classic childrens literature and then come back and talk to us about modern versions.

These commenters have no sense of humour apparently.

omg you people took this article WAY too seriously. LIGHTEN UP!

First generation to experience something like this? I’m sorry but two words:

Old Yeller

OH GOD, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BRING ROCKBITER INTO THIS?

Maybe you should have read the book instead of watching the crappy movie.

GREAT premise, and one I agree with, but the generation you pinpoint is off. 18-30 year olds weren’t born yet when this movie came out. This movie came out in 1984, and so the first generation to see and be scarred by this movie were kids who were anywhere from what, 7-14 during those years. That is pure Gen X. so we would be talking people who are anywhere from 35-35 right now. If you imagine that the Gen Xers with younger siblings would have passed the movie onto their brothers and sisters in the following years, you can probably safely contend this movie is a huge problem for anyone 30-45, but definitely Gen X has the distinct honor of saying they were first scarred by it.

There is likely a measure of humor intended in that “scientific explanation.” :) But, aside from that, I actually think that was a very superficial engagement of the content of the “Never-ending” story. After all, Atreyu has Artax back in the end of the movie. But we need to ask how that was possible. I watched this movie again with a friend about a month ago and I marveled at my ability to understand the content of the story. The more attentive version of me saw so much I did not see as a younger sprout.

Basically the story only goes on if the reader gives a name to the child-like Empress . Otherwise Fantasia is doomed to perish and be consumed into the great nothing. Even giving a name to the Empress doesn’t immediately “save” or recreate Fantasia. The reader much keep engaging the story and making wishes. At least one metaphor is important to seeing what is going on in this story; the ivory tower. There is a world the reader is learning about, the world of Fantasia. The people who are in charge of this world are in the ivory tower. But, the reader eventually learns that the people in the ivory tower are powerless to save their own world. So, in order to save that world, the reader must give a name to the child-Empress. The reader’s engagement into the life of the ivory tower is likely an education parallel. The lay person that is not able to engage in the imagination fostered in the “ivory tower” (nickname for higher education/academia) the world of imagination is doomed to diminish into the great nothing.

Atreyu loosing his horse to sadness is appropriately devastating. Especially in what it represents in the story. The horse gives way to the sadness, there is no hope, and the reader doesn’t know what is supposed to happen in order to make things hopeful again. But, when the kid finally learns that he must name the Empress (or rather literally engage the narrative) then Fantasia has hope. Remember, at the end of the movie there is a scene where Atreyu is riding Artax and the world of Fantasia is being recreated and sustained now that the boy has engaged his imagination and is now hopeful (at least for another generation).

Reblogged this on VigilanTv.

So is “War Horse” a response to this, the boy and horse who encounter the obstacles of WWI but make it through!

Watership Down was way more traumatizing, and it was on TV! We would stand at the bus stop the morning after an episode, unblinking, and speaking of it in hushed tones.

That was awful. “Never Ending Story teaches you that something you love is probably going to die, with no way to save it, because it was just too damn sad to keep going.” Yes, it teaches you the truth. This really does happen to some people, perhaps many people unfortunately. How many people have loved ones going down a destructive path leading to apathy that eventually “kills” them as a person if not a physical death?

What the author forgets to mention is the ever more important lesson to KEEP ON! Atreyu didn’t quit when Artax died! He went on to fight the greater apathy: The Nothing.

Our generation isn’t messed up because we watched a horse die. It’s messed up because it didn’t learn the lesson of the movie: Fight Against Apathy! Don’t Quit!

Made. My. Day.
Thank you. haha
Just know that people who say shit probably aren’t worth your time…because they are idiots, and idiots will never understand.
Keep doing what your doing.
*(^.^)/*

Very funny article! The root of my depression, however, is the number of people in the comments taking this article seriously. Foolishadam10, Stiego Saurus, Rebecca Cowden, JJ, etc, I feel sorry for all of you. You killed funny and that’s more atrocious than anything the swamp of sadness has ever done.

Since the movie actually came out in 1984, and kids watching it would be, say, 4-12 years old, this article would be for 34-42yr olds, I would think.

I love this movie and your theory actually makes sense. Great write up. Hilarious! At times it felt like I was listening to a Louis CK rant.

The lego recreation was a fantastic touch.

Reblogged this on klpprsn: me without the vowels.

Now now, you can’t blame the never ending story. This was hardly the saddest thing our generation saw. Bambi, for one. The Fox & the Hound is heart wrenching. This is only one of many. And the horse does come back at the end.

Its clinically proven that people are thick!!!!

Does anybody know what he actually named the child-like Empress?

Wow. Is this author for real? All liberal-arts majors should be locked up. This type of bullshit is the mis-education that kids read on the internet all day.

This article has caused more suicides than the Neverending Story movie did. Seriously.

Reblogged this on Branden Scott Stewart and commented:
A great sardonic piece. If you’re 18-30, this explains every time you’ve ever felt sad.

Brilliant read, made me chuckle …. :)

I think for British kids, it’s often ‘Watership Down’. I’d happily admit most of my spiritual and moral values come from that movie. All kids movies from the 70’s and 80’s are basically about the Cold War – it’s no wonder we’re a bit gloomy as a generation.

To go a step farther, should we stress the point that Atreyu himself was about to be consumed by the swamps until he was saved by his luck dragon? Are they suggesting that sadness will surely get us too without luck enough to be manifested by a dragon?!

I LOVE this comment lol as for the article I couldn’t stop laughing :)

Crap. Utter twaddlespeak, says I. You know what I learned? I learned life sucks. People fucking die. Some die a hero’s death. Some die of depression. Some die needlessly. But you know what, kids? The fucking hero goes on. The fucking hero mourns, sure, but the hero fucking moves on. The hero doesn’t let other people’s problem affect their goal. Heroes can be male, female, or an oddball/underdog. And now matter what they move on and conquer evil. They move on and save the world. I mourned my best friend, the horse. But I got up and moved on to save the fucking world. So go cry and cu up under your covers. I have a fucking world to save. Jim Choma

new age amazon, you are hilarious! thank you for this article! i am amazed by the comments left by people who don’t understand what you’ve written and are offended. i always figured people that dumb can’t read. keep being smart!

Pretty brutal scene, sure, but for me Littlefoot losing his mother in The Land Before Time will always be the top contender.

I think The Never Ending Story must of made some people just too sad to understand hyperbole and humor.

18-30is the “first generation” to see this movie at an impressionable age? Do some better research doucher. The movie is thirty years old.

This has always been one of my most favorite movies. I watched it over and over every day as a child, rewinding my taped-off-the-television-with-commercials VHS and watching it again. And again. My older sister hates this movie because of me.

This post explains so much about my life.

I think if you’re 18 – 30, you’re probably not part of the first generation or age group to see the film. That’s more 35 – 45, as the film came out in 1984. But it’s cool to see that so many people closer to 30 than 40 still saw it. Yes, the horse-dying scene was definitely traumatic when I saw it as a 10-year-old kid in the mid-1980s. Thank goodness the film didn’t kill off Falkor. We’d all be screwed up much more if that had happened. Also, I love The Dark Crystal, but that messed with me too.

You all need to watch the movie again at the end everyone who died was alive again the horse was in the second movie

the goblin blix from legend scarred me for life. I’m 28 and pretty sure he still lives in my moms basement and is waiting for the right time to jump out and get me. fuckin childhood movies.

Once I was really depressed for weeks cause I got dumped. At the same time my sister was depressed cause her husband cheated and her marriage ended. We were hanging out smoking cigarettes being depressed when I farted and shit my pants. We laughed to tears and weren’t depressed anymore.

Reblogged this on Big Blue Dot Y'all.

I am now depressed after reading the comments of people who think you are serious. I understand that laughing at or making fun of people with depression, or laughing at depression in general is wrong. However, this does none of the above. This article is trying to induce laughter, which, I believe, helps people with depression. Then you have comments from people insulting the author, and then replies on those comments insulting the commenter, and its just a vicious cycle. THAT IS WHAT IS DEPRESSING HERE!!! Therefore don’t leave comments if you are going to be a wet blanket. Also if you are overly sensitive and don’t like reading things that are trying to make light of peoples shitty situations, and overall induce some laughter, the internet is not for you so dont use it, or simply don’t read the article!!! Thanks :) Namaste brothers and sisters.

Ever see The Snowman by Raymond Briggs? Guess how that ends?

Interesting- yes I understand this is supposed to be a joke article (somewhat), but that movie was HORRIBLE- and not for kids. It was Heart -Wrenchingly sad. Not even just the horse scene, but the beginning of the movie with the dumpster, the scary wolf thing, etc.. You see? I haven’t seen the movie in YEARS and I still remember how sad it was.

Not sure if anyone else mentioned this or not, but the horse they used in the movie? Actually died. IN THAT SCENE. Because of the mud. The elevator under the horse got jammed and IT DROWNED. So yeah, talk about fucked up.

The horse that played Artax really died in that scene. That’s the worst part.

Reblogged this on The Rockstar Anthropologist and commented:
This is brilliant, as I too, was traumatized by this shared 80s movie experience *pours one out for Artax*

Rebecca got SMOKED! lulz

isn’t he reunited with the horse when the nothingness is defeated?? or do i just remember it that way cuz didn’t see the movie til i was a totally optimistic adult. I love that story & I just know if I really believe I WILL find a luck dragon =)

I have almost died in a swamp of sadness. Also known as a Womens Health Exam. Clean your Vaginas ladies..Your provider thanks you.

My therapist says I don’t need effexor or xanax. I need to stop watching NES, Willow, and especially the Transformers movie where Optimus gets fucking killed. Oh, forgot about old Prime, didjya!? Sorry. This IS why our generation is fucked up. And I hate these iGen twerks who don’t fucking know these movies! Who is raising them?! Sorry for the interrobangs – ?! Just really emotional right now.

Yeeah.

Because Ol’ Yeller and all those ’70s movies that end with the government wiping out all witnesses were so uplifting.

Also, get off my lawn.

Reblogged this on My Enterprising Life. and commented:
And, this may just be the answer to where my case of “The Sads” started. Ground Zero.

Boo hoo. We had Bambi’s mom, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” and “Old Yeller.” Did Atreyu have to shoot his own horse? NO!

No, children need to be taught this way. Through scenes that would make a child weep for the loss, because that means the point, though harsh, is getting across.

Frankly, we cushion the world too much as it is.

I’d like to present a counter point:
This taught me to never let myself get that sad; and it also taught me that no matter what you do, sometimes people just sink right in front of your eyes. If you try to help someone who wont help themselves you’ll be pulled into the swamp yourself….

Then you live FOR them, to fight against the sadness that made them sink in the first place. Sometimes it’s the losses that make life worth living. -But hey, that’s just how I viewed this.

You have a depression because you ate shit, drink shit and on pills (they call it vitamins) from 2 year age. Say how many hours you spend in car and how many hours you spend outside – in nature? How many hours you spend in shopping malls and TV and how many hours you spend doing your hobby? This is a reason of “depression” which actually is unhealthy living. That is your swamp!

you obviously turned of the film then and didn’t see the actual point.
I am remiss at being associated with a generation that just looks at the here and now and not what waits for us.

for all involved, let me just say that we all believe the impact of the film but many believe the significance. agreed?

ummm the horse comes back at the end when the protagonist saves everything… so, you’re arguing and arguments are invalid

Dumb waste of my time. Go read Marcus Aurelius and stop being a whiney bitch.

I’m experiencing sadness and anger at the same time while reading this. Two both very powerful emotions. First things first. Petrozza: This is NOT a joke, it is an ATTEMPT at a joke. It never fully becomes one because the writer is stupid. That is why people who think they are funny but are as dumb as a box of rocks can’t tell they have no comedic timing, talent, or wit, and continue to write these embarrassing attempts.

But back to my point. I am sad and angry. Why?

1) Sad = the amount of people that wrote in support of this “joke” or insulted anyone who did not agree with it, just proved that the human race is indeed becoming dumber and dumber by the minute.

2) Angry = I’m tired of people equating sadness with depression. Sadness is “Woe is me, I did not get that guy/girl to notice me, didn’t get that job, gained weight, etc..” Depression is a devastating medical condition. The disrespect shown by this waste of space is worthy of someone punching her in the face and basically kicking her ass until she finally admits that she’s sad because of the previously mentioned whoop ass unleashed on her. Then when she realizes that she is sad but not depressed (surprise, she figured out the difference!) then you can plunge an ice pick into her eye so that she a) sees it coming, literally and b) she becomes aware that the funny thing she accomplished was getting her own ass killed.

Clear enough? Substitute sadness or depression in this article with the words cancer, or AIDS, or kidney failure, or heart attack, or pulmonary embolism, or stroke, or multiple sclerosis or any other blameless disease you can think of. Maybe you know someone who’s died of one of those. Now I ask you, how unfunny does this fucking article all of the sudden become?

If every one of you shitholes, and the other shitholes you no doubt associate with, felt REAL depression for an hour or two max, you’d be shocked at how tragic it is. You’d also be dumbfounded as to how weak you really are because you won’t be able to handle it.

If you are old enough to remember seeing NES as a child, then you are too old to be this stupid. Grow the fuck up and stop embarrassing yourselves.

Oh and in case it didn’t occur to you, clinical depression is often associated with hostility or even dangerous rage. Moral of the story? don’t fucking write a “joke” about something that can get you easily killed if you cross the wrong person. Idiots!

I have suffered depression & sadness my entire life. My dad was always a very negative & miserable man. I had a lot of traumatic family issues occur before the age of 5 including my grandpa having a heart attack right in front of me in our pool as a 2 year old & no one else around to help i was too young to understand or know what to do…luckiy a neighbor came out eventually & he lived, but my uncle was killed in an office shooting when i was 4 which was all over the news & i told my aunt who was bawling uncontrollably at his funeral it was ok bc he was just sleepin since it was what i’d been told & she hugged me so tight just weeping her eyes out…my dad’s father died on my 6th birthday party unexpectedly after having to be rushed to the hospital for open heart surgery. he was closed up, everything a success, then he just died. my dads younger brother shot & killed himself on my grandparetn’s back porch right before i was born. my dad lost his job & had to go back to school takin a 3rd shift job forcing me & my brother to go to daycares where we were mistreated & abused by some of the much bigger older kids & mean sitters who had no business taking care of children…that being said, a lot of things & movies I saw on tv as a child disturbed me & had a very significant impact on my young, sensitive, innocent mind. Just the film quality & production value that made some of the things on tv had a look to them which made them seem gloomy & eerily creepy & left you w/ a strange uncomfortable feeling…basically the exact opposite of the warm & fuzzy feeling you get from watching a good disney movie in the living room as a family sharing snacks & spending the evening together. Going to other kids’ houses made it very apparent my house was a source of comfort as they had older brothers who did drugs/parents who did too & were alcoholic & abusive, disfunctional scary places. My dad had a terrible temper tho & we were always afraid of him growing up…but I can remember just sitting on our back deck by myself staring off into space & just being “sad”, having nothing to do. I began contemplating suicide @ age 11 & smoked marijuana for the 1st time later on that year. I have been told I have depression & or bipolar disorder, accompanied by chemical substance dependency abuse issues, and am now a 28 yr old heroin addict recently approved for disability 4 years ago after working in factories, fast food, construction, heating & air, electrical work, etc, but never being able to hold a job for more than a year & don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be considered “normal” but I just wish I could be as they say in recovery the only answer is “the 12 steps”, medications & being told u have add, depression, bipolar disorder, etc. are all lies….well nobody really knows shit about how another persons mind works, how they experience things, or what goes thru their heads, so I fucking wish all these assholes who aren’t even professionals or doctors would shut the fuck up, bc the godamn professional just “practice” & don’t even know how the shit works half the time!

What about Bambi’s mum.

You’re crying about a horse dying in a movie… If you’re dealing with so called ‘trauma’ because of this, I think you need to get your head checked and probably out more, son.

I loved this film so much. So much thought went into it, especially the deeper meaning behind each scene. Another one for my generation was ‘The secret of NIMH’

This movie came out in 1984. Your age range of 18-30 only works in this article if it was written in 2003, not 2013. You’d need to have been born from about 1968-1978 for this to be even slightly relevant so, wrong generation or should I say, as your actual generation might, “generation fail!” Otherwise, we can all just blame any random old movie for our woes, right?

So much rage this blog has caused. Am I the only one who thinks the blogger is just being funny? That maybe she doesn’t seriously believe that clinical depression was caused by a movie? Which might be why she puts quotes around it here because she’s not talking about the real illness? That she might fully recognize the history of sadness and frightful events in children’s literature well before an 80’s movie and ignored it for the sake of making her readers chuckle?

Wow, you people are mad.

see and here i thought this taught us about life- because shit does happen like this- people, animals, and things we love DO just die and we have no power over it and there is no sense in it sometimes- and yet he pushes through and makes it- your only fucked up and a sorry sac if you shut the movie off at this point and didnt watch him defeat the nothing and become a man- problem is the world is full of whiny little bitches who cant figure out how to carry on.

You have your age groups all wrong. The FIRST generation to see that movie is at least ten years older.

It was also messed up that The Neverending Story ended. That taught us that everything is a lie and nothing is real.

Also, the horse really did die, due to a malfunction in the lift that was supporting it. It’s true. Feel better now?

Did you see the whole movie… Even the end? The he is riding the horse at the end of the movie. The horse comes back. Actually watch the movie. I can’t tell if this is a joke blog or if you are actually serious..

Death of loved ones is a reality…movies reflect it & give us a chance to get the unfinished grieving out of our gut….Kids who grow up on farms know about the cycle of life…& do not go round traumatized out of loving others…..Blaming the movie for our cultural immaturity is scapegoating onto the media what our lives deny us….The true experience of reality…both life & death….Gmork, the servant to the nothing,
said it best….”when the nothing takes over Fantasia will disappear”…Seems like this prophesy has come to pass.

Wow. So much anger in the comments over an amusing and insignificant story. I am sick and tired of anything meant to be amusing getting ripped apart by some type of offended group, this time by the depressed.

People, it’s just an anectdotal attempt at some very light humor. Nobody is attacking the depressed.

This is fast becoming the generation of the politically correct.

And don’t miss part 2 of this series titled……. “How Flight of the Navigator is to Blame for our Generation’s Fear of Heights”

Are we actually having a pissing contest over which generation and which person has felt the most depression? I think i’m the last person who should be saying this, because i’m not a believer, but y’all need jesus

DUDE! WTF!? fuck the dude that titled this. obviously he didn’t grow up w/this movie! fucking noob! ARTAAAX!!! (and that means I didn’t read the article. GREAT JOB. fucking noob.)

stupid fucking kids. L@write. piece of shit.

Footnote: as an adult who watched this with our kids/nieces/nephews.. it screwed us up too because we secretly felt safe watching these movies where every ending was happy and life was good. Then this movie comes along, rocks our world and forces us to not only deal with this horribleness ourselves but now we have to explain why the damn horse died.
So…… completely unprepared and ears still ringing from the shockwave of a heros best friend dying in a KIDS movie.. we have to trip on our own tongues trying to explain (in a horribly inadequate way I might add) why this happened and what it means in life…

Talk about trauma..

Who cares if it causes sadness or not. The bigger problem is that movie was seriously F$&&ed up! Always disliked that movie!

Morgans was a remade Circe from the Odyssey

Mate, the horse comes back at the end of the film anyway!!!

Reblogged this on Notes From The Abyss and commented:
This scene is still very traumatizing to me.

*STANDING OVATION*

This post is fucking GENIUS!

Haha. I actually tried to make my nephew watch this a few weeks ago, and he was bored to death. Truthfully I had started getting bored too, wondering what the hype was about back in the day, but I kept telling him that it was a classic and he should really watch it.

This scene was the only scene that kept his attention.

I really hope I didn’t scar him for life.

Robert
http://www.thescareddad.com

so the horse can’t even rest in peace, because you have a case of the whiney’s?

This movie was released 30 years ago, 1984, which makes you the SECOND generation to be screwed up by this movie not the first. Fucking Millennials think they’re entitled everything, including childhood trauma. Funny article though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqVvwk57kNk

The horse comes back at the end. This article is dumb.

I was an impressionable 10yrs old when that movie came out, and I’m 40, now; I really cannot imagine showing it to kids much earlier than that age. Guess your parents were no more cruel than mine with Old Yeller and listening to The Fox and The Hound get shot at on vinyl. Or watching John Wayne hunt down the group of guys that raped his “Injun” wife. I date myself, I know. What can I say? I grew up on a farm. Agree with previous poster that Neverending Story had the effect of not allowing myself to sink into sadness. The original Little Mermaid cartoon also didn’t end so well. I still think Lion King is the most horrific -intentional murder plots.

This scene was DEVASTATING to a little kid!!!! You think “Oooo! A magical land! An adventure!” But this swamp scene still haunts me to this day!

I know the article isn’t supposed to be serious, but Jesus Christ, can we please stop trivializing trauma, depression, and PTSD? Society already views it as a joke, and making a punch line out of repressing childhood trauma isn’t exactly helping that.

Reblogged this on Blue Ridge Pony and commented:
This blog post, on http://www.ihogeek.com made me laugh pretty hard. And as a horse lover, I was always pissed off at this part of The Never Ending Story. I always felt like it was a total rip.

You’re an idiot. I bet that horse got more pussy in that scene than you could in your entire life. That’s the reason you’re depressed.

I think this is one of the dumbest people to get online its a old childhood movie she has serious issues if she is cussing and carrying on saying a movie has ruined a generation she is off her meds I watched the movie as a child and I liked it I am not depressed or a whiney little bitch shit in life gets a lot worse then a fictional horse passing away welcome to like what will she do when someone real dies?

It’s the never ending story….close the book back to page 1 and the horse is still alive..ooo yea it’s alive at the end too

Nothing says “I don’t understand my own privilege” like claiming an entire generation shares your media consumption experiences.

Even as a child I thought the Neverending Story sucked.
… but my biggest regret is subscribing to follow-up comments on this blog. My email is flooded by people bitching about what generation this film was released in.
Gonna change my email address.
http://youtu.be/UOCLchwkrhk

Dude. Homeboy traded UP. Bro loses horse, and then like two days later he’s all YEAAAAAH FALKOR!!! HAVE SOME EAR SCRITCHIES BOY. Homeboy trades a horse for a GIANT FLYING DOG THAT LOVES EAR SCRITCHIES. I’d ditch my horse in a heartbeat for that.

And what did we gain for losing the horse a conversation with I giant crabby turtle that is allergic to little boys and sneezing and snotting all over us.

This scene was not only powerful, but, as a youngling, it showed me how crippling sadness and depression can be….IF YOU LET IT. I hope the author of this article is being fecisious, and not missing the truth that, in many ways, this movie empowered a generation.

Reblogged this on the mask of phanteana.

Hahaha well written! Well said!! I never knew!!!! Xoxo

The premise that this argument is based on is totally flawed. It says that the 18-30 year olds are effed up by seeing this movie at “an impressionable age”…..Well since this movie came out in 1984, the oldest kids of this generation were just being born and therefore not yet that impressionable…..No, it’s the generation BEFORE this one: Us 35-40 year olds who suffered from knowledge of Atreyu’s story….ouch!

No one but no one remembers the sad horse… I mean… sure there was a horse… but eventually he gets a luck dragon and you realise why the horse was sad in the first place. It wasn’t a luck dragon.

Another spoiler? The “fucking horse” is alive and serving Atreyu happily at the end of the movie. Nice try. Perhaps the problem with the generation you speak of is that they can’t see anything through to completion….like, oh I don’t know, a movie.

Reblogged this on Writing twenty two pages and commented:
I don’t usually reblog from other sites but this struck a chord with me after reading it. It is kind of funny but you could also find some truth in there I think. And what it good comedy without truth?

THEN THE WOLF JUMPS OUT OF THE WALL!!!!!! It is THE movie to cause high psychological damage..

Thank you for using a lego reconstruction, rather than the actual SHOCKING footage.

You know what’s depressing? Reading a majority of these comments. Jesus, talk about a friggin’ buzz kill. The article was meant to be humorous, and I thought I would see even funnier reactions from the readers. Once I saw the first image on this article I thought, “Holy shit! Now I remember this movie, it’s the horse that died in the swamp! That was so fucking depressing!” It doesn’t matter that it came out in 1984, I was born in 1990 and I know a majority of my friends my age remember this film (because I’m sitting around them right now and asked), like The Christmas Story; not my generation, but we’ve all seen it (classic!), granted it’s played over and over on TV during the holidays. I saw this movie so long ago I can’t even recall what the hell the story line is or that the horse even came back to life, but I sure do remember crying my eyes out because of that damn horse. You didn’t like the article simply because you thought it was stupid? Alright. However, to those getting on your soap box and thinking the author is actually drawing a correlation between rising rates of depression and The Never Ending Story need to lighten up. Seems depression does hit home for a lot of people on here, but from what I gathered this article wasn’t meant to make a mockery of your situations, it was meant to be relatable in a nostalgic sense. Everyone I just asked remembered this scene and had the same reaction as me, and now they’ve already let it go. Now that I think about it, it’s ironic that I’m taking the extra time to defend the “laid back” position. Regardless, there’s no need to read between the lines, it was a joke. As if the Lego reenactment didn’t give that away.

You’ve forgotten something important. The film shows Artax alive and well at the end, as Bastien is flying over the magical land on Falcor. Atreyu is seen riding his horse through the plains (where he hunts the purple buffalo). Imagination brought Artax back (apparently).

You want to talk sad 80’s movies, I still can’t get through the first five minutes of Oliver & Co. without crying. Animal abandonment affected me deeply as a child, and remains so today.

THIS IS STUPID. I’m not a troll, but I’m pissed I wasted 30 seconds for this nonsense.

*squints* Can’t tell if trolling or serious. You calling it screwing up a generation. I call it avoiding sugar coating life. Pre 90’s. No lets say mid 90’s kids weren’t treated like some delicate flower that will break if you do ANYTHING. The world subscribed to the notion that **** happens and you have to deal with it.

Fast forward to today and you have kids who throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their way in the workplace, where people think you need to disinfect every god damn surface on the planet. Where a falling off your bike results in a trip to urgent care. Where kids, in short, are put in a padded room and not allowed to experience life. We are teaching a generation of kids that don’t worry, things will work out. Bull****. Life WILL screw you over eventually.

feh, you 18-year-olds weren’t alive in the 80s. now us tail-end gen Xers? we saw this when it was new. ;p

This whole movie fucked my life up as a child. Especially those naked chick statues blasting everyone with their eyes.

That was the most awesome and saddest thing I’ve every read. I’m going to watch it again right now.

Depression is the last thing on my list I would worry about if I let an awesome with a tragic scene bother me 10/15 years down the road.. Really? Grow a pair kid

My abs hurt from laughing hahhahaha xD

But at the end of the movie the horse has come back to life, what kind of message does that spread?!

Remember that the never ending story was a book first and the movie only covered the first part. Read the full book and be amazed as what was left out.

Ok it’s a movie!! That’s it, that’s all, the end!! I was born in 76 I grew up with this movie, the horse dying was a sad feeling but that’s it!! For crying out loud lets not over dramatize a movie!! Feel bad for REAL horses dying to make glue!

Well there you go. I had repressed this traumatic scene. This needs a trigger warning. Poor Artax

Sheesh. Rub some dirt on that, Princess*

*said in the tone of the drill instructor from Stripes.

No way, your generation can’t claim that. That was ours, 1984. Sorry! ;)

It’s not about the horse – it’s not supposed to read literally, but symbolically. It is about pessimism killing us. Atreyu teaches us about overcoming hopelessness and despair in his ‘hero’s journey’.

Are you f*ing kidding me? This movie is what separates the melenials from the kids that are too young to be gen-Xers but are to old to be me melenials. Your damn right at 5yrs old, in ’84, in the movie theater, I was crying when the horse died. I also cried when ET went home, & when Optimus Prime died. These movies helped shape us.

We draw strength from these moments. When we finally grow up and are burdened with planning funerals for our own mothers & fathers, or losing friends in car accidents, or to cancer, we remember that death is real part of life that can’t be avoided or explained sometimes.

Avoiding life on life’s turns, living life with blinders on, is not really living. If your traumatized by a movie with a real life lesson, good luck with the rest of your life.

But then Taco Bell sold horse meat so it was all good. I was never sad once eating their Tacos as a kid.

Lol! I was 8 when this movie came out. I specifically remember it jacking up my brain entirely! I particularly felt creeped out by that damn flying dog/giant furry tadpole thing. Let’s not forget the other brain-on-acid productions of the same time-frame: The Dark Crystal. Mad Max.
Heavy Metal (My parents would still shoot my older brother today of hey knew we had seen that.)
Between those and others, we are either the most jacked up generation ever or the strongest one. Not sure yet.

You might want to expand your age range. I’m 35. I was 6 and I saw it in theaters and I remember how incredibly sad and scary it all was. Not to mention that moment of near existential crisis that the rock biter goes through when he couldn’t save his friends.

I believe they got a Luck Dragon out of the deal. Seems like an upgrade to me.

I hope you are kidding, because every generation before our grandparents, as children experienced horrors that would make you dig your eyes out. Many children in impoverished nations live through unbelievable suffering and horror, and managed to not grow up as soft spoiled rotten crybabies.

What’s sad is that I was 12 when this movie came out and I thought it was too childish to even see it.

The feeeeeeeeeeeeels!!!!!!!

Think now for a second, kids, how someone born in 1955 might process this discussion thread….

What a contradiction in dealing with those of ours lost…due to a movie? How about trying to live while losing those who are real to us lost. A pathetic storyline to aggravate and fuel the hurt emotions through a fictional character…a horse. In the past few years I’ve lost both my parents at young ages…if there’s a symbolism or analogy to compare my folks to a horse dying in an early 80’s fantasy movie then I must admit the subject matter is truly an obliviously exaggerated waste of time. BTW…I’ve served two duty terms in the Persian Gulf and have experienced first-hand friends and co-workers alike dying on in horrific manners…they never had the luxury of sinking in quicksand. Such as my Father a few months back while suffocating from pulmonary fibrosis I held his hand & stayed his side until his last breath…he reached to me for help then died. I’ll never let that go.

Except, at the end of the movie, after Bastian saves Fantasia, everything is restored and Atreyu is seen once again riding Artax, who has also been restored to life. :)

What about Old Yeller? The dog is KILLED because he SAVED THE BOY! I think that is far more fubar, and I like to never stopped crying after that movie. And no, I’ve never re-watched it again!.

I’m also traumatised by Willow!

We are messed up bc of our parents, not a movie.

Hey, um, did everyone forget that the horse comes back to life at the end?

You’ve gotta get through the sadness and don’t give up…

I still think that movie was full of great messages and morals.

Shit! I’m glad I never watched this movie, looks like a pile of something fierce

I saw it no less than 7 times in theater when it came out. age 8. most times alone. And numerous times since. I was beside myself from the first time on and for years recreated scenes and lived in a world between Fantasia and reality. Last night I started reading the book for the first time. So I find the timing for this post just amazing. I disagree with this as a theory for everyone but I agree this was an overwhelmingly sad scene. but once you see Artex alive again at the end the second death watch is just a bit easier. Generally I think this is one of the most beautiful films and should be watched as meditation. As anti depressant. I think the saddest scene in it is Bastians interaction with his father at the beginning.

Why didn’t Atreyu die after witnessing his best friend die? Was he not sad about Artax dying? dun dun dunnnn

I think watching the horse die only secured my dark mindset. It was already there, this just added the mortar to the bricks.

Bambi. That’s what messed me up. When Bambi’s mom got shot. Before that moment I had no concept of death. After my entire world was shifted. I was never the same.

True it’s sad, but it seems everyone has forgotten that at the end of the movie when Sebastian is flying with Falcor they see Atreyu riding Artax. “It’s like The Nothing never was!!” And Artax is alive! And he is alive in the next movie, which was much worse lol. But none the less, Artax lives!!

Bambi’s mom. Came long before The Neverending Story. COurse she didn’t die of sadness but if you’re going to use The Lion King analogy.

I’ll blame this movie more for spawning a terrible band.

BTW, the kid who played Atreyu almost died in this scene due to a mechanical malfunction during shooting.

Other things that have screwed us up: The Jabberwocky in Through the Looking Glass. Return to Oz (the whole thing!). The Dark Crystal with those mumbling bird demon things. Tim Curry as the Devil in Legend. The close-up of David Bowie’s codpiece in tights while he threatens to throw that hobbit thing into the Bog of Stench.

18-30 is the first generation to potentially be affected by this film at an impressionable age? This movie came out in mid-1984. So a child of 8 who say this when it came out would be nearing their 40’s today. The highest end of the spectrum mentioned in this article… age 30… they would have been born the year the film was released. Way to discount every child who saw the film in it’s theatrical release.

Math. Srsly.

Also: Watership Down – 1978. 100x more brutal and emotionally crippling than this horse nonsense.

I’m assuming this is supposed to be a joke article… isn’t it?

Oh, you think the scene in the movie is sad? Bawl your eyes out, did you? Read the original book by Michael Ende. Artax talked, and when he was sinking into the swamp, he was begging Atreyu to leave him so that he wouldn’t be dragged down with him.

Oh, and after The Nothing was beaten, Artax didn’t come back. In your face, happy Hollywood ending!

Thanks for bringing back that memory. If you’ll please excuse me, I have to go eat some Ben and Jerry’s now. Poor Artax….

Really…? Really? You are going to blame a horse dying from sadness as the cause for depression? If anything, it would instill in you a thirst to STOP depression. you didn’t explain anything anyway except how you didn’t like how the horse died from sadness. YOU JUST. USED CAPS. AND. P.E.R.I.O.D.S. TO ILL EFF….ECT…

learn how to write. learn not to be a drama queen. post something actually interesting.

This add is bloody stupid, seriously are you on drugs?

I just don’t agree! The swamp kills the dang horse, not sadness! Even if it were sad before accidentally walking into the swamp through the thick fog/smoke, it was the swamp that killed it, not the fog, or depression or whatnot. I don’t agree w/the writer here.

next please tell us how in the world comment posters got so f$%&ing humorless, ass-hurt and dumb.

This article is so stupid and a waste of time.to read.

HAHHAHAA!!! This is awesome.

But I’d just like to thank the author for not putting an image on that Wolf in the cave into this article. I nearly didnt read it all the way through becuase I was scared that the wolf might be in one of the pics at the bottom…

I like it when folks come together and share thoughts.
Great blog, stick with it!

In your humorous description of this tale, i think you nailed the metaphor behind it all.
Beautiful

loved the lego recreation :)

Suddenly it all makes sense.

Can U hook me up with your dealer? U R on some good shit.

i’v never watched this before but even reading about it has traumatized me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This isn’t even the saddest part of the damn movie. The Rockbiter devastates me, every time. In fact, I’m tearing up right now thinking about him. “These look like big strong hands, don’t they?”

Good stuff, good stuff. I’m trying not to laugh too much, because I’m still so sad. But the scene recreated in Lego form – it’s too much!

I approve of this entry… scotch anyone.

Um, did anyone ever see The Dark Crystal? That movies messed me up for years!

I think you need to redo the math on which generation got to see it first. It isn’t the 18-30 year olds.

But then Bastian renames the princess and the horse is back. You gotta watch to the end…

Sorry the worst was when Optimus Prime died in the original cartoon series….devastating….and then they gave us Hotrod…..freaking Hotrod…..smh

First its was 1984, when the movie came out. I think you need to redo you math….

stupidest post i ever read its a fucking movie dont blame this movie cuz ppl are having problems in there lifes.its just a movie!stop blaming ur life on other ppl and things and fix ur life.

The author has no clue. Just like “Alice in Wonderland” or “Cinderella” that story had multiple meanings for different age groups. I can see he got the age 1-4 meaning. But the grown-up meaning about the movie is that people with no hope are easy to control.

You want to know the worst part of this entire story? The horse actually died. On the set. The crane that held the horse and lowered it through the muck broke, and the horse fell, breaking it’s legs. And it died. For real.

After watching Optimus Prime being killed by megaton in the Transformers movie my life has never been the same.

Technically Mufasa was killed by Scar who was Simba’s Uncle; not brother.

Best thing I’ve read all year. I talk about that scene in the movie all the time. Made me cry way too much as a kid. I don’t think I could

Millennials have already taken everything good that we gen-xers did and turned it to shit. I will not allow you to start stealing our classic movies and calling them your own. You guys are fucked up because you never played outside and are incapable of communicating with other human beings without text or email. Take some responsibility.

I both loved the movie as a kid, but hated that scene, and many others…too painful to watch at that age. But, having watched it back some 20 years later, the message is one of the most powerfully uplifting ones I ever seen, crafted in a very unique way. It’s definitely not obvious, but you have to/be able to read between the lines. It’s not clear when you take it at face value, but nothing ever is. Belief in yourself, your dreams, belief in your happiness and fighting with everything you’ve got to save it, and not give in to the nothingness around you, thats the message. Believe in something, or die for nothing. When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Until then, you’ll think the horse dying from sadness is a simply a ‘bad thing that happens’, when really it’s one of the biggest lessons in life. Discover your bliss, find your happiness and fight for it, in the face of every adversary, or you will lose your lust for life and may as well be dead, because you’re damn sure not living or contributing to improving yours or anyone else’s life . Just taking up space. Of course, you can interpret it anyway you like, but interpreting it in a way the inspires you and others (and most likely the way the story teller intended), that is the positive message and story that should be told. Just my 10,000 cents worth.

but the horse comes back… we see him at the end of the movie…

The rockbiter!

I took my daughter to see the movie and I cried , and she cried, and we just had a meltdown!

Movie came out in 1984. 30 year olds weren’t even born yet. I seriously doubt it is the cause of 18-30 year old depression, if they watched it at all it was a re-run. You can blame 35-45 year old depression on this one, certainly. Same with Legend. But the youngins gotta pick a new ‘reason’ for their crises.

I was disappointed when this movie ended.

Hey kids, what about Old Yeller in the 50s? Talk about a tear jerker and the story was not viewed as a fairy tale.

You opened this with a complete fallacy. This movie came out when the 30-year-olds were pretty much infants and 18- to 28-year-olds weren’t even born yet. The first people to see this at an impressionable age are nearly 40 now. So, you can’t blame this movie. Plus, the horse comes back and everyone is happy at the end.

Holy shit this actually is accurate as fuck

See personally I thought our generation was screwed because of being a combination of “Generation RX” alongside the wonderful self image / esteem issues caused by the way the media / tv / big budget hollywood force feeds pop culture. Sort of like how I am about to voluntary handful feed a bunch of my xanax bars.

Because the doctor said it was okay.

We are fucked.

Do you not remember the ending? Bastian’s wish brings them all back and restores the world. It shows that when sadness and hopelessness bring you down (in this case literally) and all seems lost, the love, hope and support from those around you can save you. You completely missed the redeeming end of a great story!

Its not math it’s maths.

They all come back to life at the end. That this isn’t how real life works is the saddest part.

Well said

Was anyone else disappointed by the stupid talking wolf as the antagonist of the film. Great movie, but the wolf did not embody the ultimate evil they were insinuating that it did. Just another Jim Henson reject in my opinion.

May be you should watch it again, get past the part you find so sad, and remember in the end, that Atreyu does save the kingdom, and in the end, Artax gallops happy and freely. Really? The cause of suicide????

Did no one watch Bambi? Most people had their tragedy cherry popped with the death of Bambi’s mom from infanthood. Old Yeller? Where the Red Fern Grows?

Clearly you missed the part where the horse comes back.

Now analyze the shoe’s murder from Roger Rabbit. THAT fucked me UP!

Big deal, my generation had Old Yeller. They should have sold Prozac instead of popcorn.

This article is dumb

Can we talk about the terrifying WOLF that still haunts my nightmares!?

The writer of this is an idiot

my generation was traumatized from watching “bambi”! i’m 52 and i still have issues from seeing that fucked up movie.

Mr. Hooper on Seasame Street… didn’t realize how much that screwed me up until I was watching ooooold seasame street with my kids (thanks Netflix) I was traumatized as Mr. Hooper alive and well walked on screen like he never DIED ON ME! bastard…

I was 1000 years old when I saw The Never Ending Story for my first time. I had that Benjamin Button’s disease, but I’m also a wizard, and this story is exactly what my apprentice went through before I became his apprentice. Then we entered this phase of Earth called a polar vortex, and it was sad. God, it was a lot more sad than this movie. Y’all bitches wouldn’t last a second in my mystical fuckin existence. Oh, and by the way, you’re all already dead. Peace!

It was a stupid movie and I forgot anything about a horse dying….so I’m good

In 1984 I was 8. I am 38 now. Do your math. 30 year olds were like just being born the year this movie came out. SMH… This is a Gen X movie.

This is so stupid. I feel robbed of two minutes of my life. It actually displays a powerful message to kids that wallowing in your sorrows,depression, or SADNESS does have a tremendous impact on one’s life. The greatest atrocity one can commit is to lie to children. Also, I understand this is a sattire piece. Satire, however, is supposed to be comical and well thought out.

There have been kids movies with sad/traumatic events like this for many generations. In Old Yeller the boy had to shoot his dog. If you are an adult and depressed over this, you’ve got problems that were caused by more than a sad scene in a movie.

18-30? I am 38 and watched this in school, as well as home, and my BF is saddened by this movie, he said they lied in the title, it said never ending and it did……lol

two words… “OLD YELLER” suck it up butter cup.

EVERYONE…….EVERYONE. Artax the rock biter the stupid bat the southern Oracle EVERYONE is back to life in the end! If ANYTHING the movie shows that books are powerful tools and that even one person can make a difference! He’ll even the bullies are different in the end because Bastian fought back albeit with Falcor’s assistance! Atreyu fought the sadness and passed the test of the swamps of sadness. Artax actually lived because of Bastian’s wishes! The article is invalid. In my humble 38 year old opinion!

Anyone who gets depressed by this was already a fragile human being with a delicate psyche to begin with. Try sitting through Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog and see how long you’ll last before your heart crumbles… followed by your soul.

Possibly the worst article I’ve ever read off fb. This writer is sad.

My gen=xer’s loved it but when I suggested it to another mother ,she called and told me off cuz it upset her little boy’s…whoop’s

i kind of regret taking the time to read this

My wife is 31 and has never seen this movie. Neither has her younger sister. Nor have any 18-30 year olds that I know. But anyone 33-40? We love it!

The entire movie is basically about suicide and sacrifice. Yeah, I’m going to have to screw up my daughter, too.

“Say my name Bastard,eerrr I mean Bastian!” lol! Say my name! Say it! Who’s your daddy Moonchild!???

I call BS on this article, trying to blame today’s issue on a movie, very lame. Have this author never heard of Old Yeller, a movie made by Disney in 1957, where a boy has to eventually shoot his own beloved dog because of rabies. Have trouble dealing with real life? Then man up.

Years of therapy and you solved it in one post. My first TV crush was the on the princess. Wow it was good to get that of my chest! Damn you Nothing!

While we’re talking about this movie can we please discuss The Gmork? That wolf thing in the cave? That scared the living pancakes out of me, and it still does

LOL! What a load of crap. Get over it folks. Go fight in a war, watch your buddies killed, maybe even lose an arm or leg yourself. Then cry in your coffee. Pussies.

I’m gonna be the major league dick here and say that I died laughing at that scene. Good riddance, you walking glue factory.

I watched it at a sleep over when I was 6 or 7. I had nightmares about that scene for years. I still feel sick when I think of that movie.

You seriously were traumatized by this? OMG, no wonder so many kids are giant babies now adays. Because their parents couldn’t take pretend dramatic death. You did know that this was pretend, right? I was 7 when I saw this movie and even I understood the different between “pretend” and “real”.

As a child of the baby boom period, I was traumatized by the boys in Pinocchio turning into donkeys. Even as a young adult it still scared me. And having Bambi’s mother shot by hunters was right up there as well.

Damn straight. I cried just as hard as I did when a bluejay died in my hands. And then promptly had nightmares from the Turning People Into Pigs W T F scene in Willow. I am a card-carrying member of the TFU Brigade.

In regards to Willow, you are what you eat, and swine is the number one meat to start your day off in Murika!

It’s not just Artax’s death, though that was horrible (and not only was this prior to Lion King, but it was also before we lost Optimus Prime in the 1986 Transformers movie or Duke was knocked into a coma in the 1987 GI Joe movie). Neverending Story is a tale about kids’ inability to fight against any of the forces that overwhelm them without help from bigger, more powerful beings. Bastion can’t stop his father’s lecturing about how grief over his mom’s death can’t be seen. Atreu can’t stop Artax from dying of sadness. Bastion can’t stop the bullies. Atreu can’t escape the swamp without Falkor swooping in at the last minute to save him. The child-like empress, whose main defining trait is that she is CHILD-like, can’t do anything to stop the Nothing. And even Bastion, after he gains the ability to wish for literally anything he wants, chooses to live a fantasy of riding a dragon and scaring other kids because he knows he can’t bring his dead mom back to life or be effective in the adult world. This movie taught our generation to hide in our fantasy worlds, which is why Gen X became the first video-game-addicted generation. It’s why we fueled a rise in Convention-culture for an ever-increasing variety of fandoms… because at a young age we were taught that the only way to avoid crippling sadness is to hide in fantasy – be it a book, a wish, or a movie that was probably way too old for our developing minds.

is that true?

And my generation is still giving itself handies to the pool scene in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”

Beat that. (No pun intended)

She actually says in that scene “and that’s how I found out there was no Santa Claus”…no one has ever had the balls come out and say that to a kids audience and so any kid from our generation, likely seen that movie and was exposed to the shocking truth and got them thinking. It already confirmed what I was thinking at that age, but every time we watched the movie on the VHS, my Mom would jump up and fast forward past that part lol.

I could never figure out if it was a really dry joke (I always wanted to laugh at it) or whether we were really supposed to have a moment with it. I mean… even as a kid the story seemed completely absurd. I’m sure every kid has thought about the obsurdity of a jolly fat man climbing down a chimney…

Last American Virgin!! My heart breaks for Gary and that stupid song traumatized me for life!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHNvg9oWHFI

Indeed! Phoebe Cates!!

Not especially. I mean, he COULD have died, but it says on IMDb that he almost did, so it must be true. Per the book about production by Remy Eyssen: “the horse did not let the sadness of the swamp get to him and he did not go down without a fight. With an energetic jerk of the heading, the horse caused Noah to splash into the swamp and hurt his leg to the edge of the lifting platform. As dirty as he was, Noah was immediately driven to the hospital. The physician on duty must really have been surprised to treat a mudd-covered Indian boy carried by a man in a white paper suit and hearing a tale about lifting platforms, swamps and horses. Fortunately Noah was back on the set after a mere two days.” –http://141.24.37.187:8080/prod/e_prdframe.htm

ha ha ha!!! your article overcomes the sadness. :)