YMMV / The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In her introductory scene, Xayide is shown as being The Blank until she literally puts her face on by casting a spell. While it was probably helpful to establish that she is indeed a practitioner of magic and avatar of the Emptiness, it can also come across as confusing to some viewers, especially since it never gets mentioned again after that.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Xayide dresses extravagantly, to put it mildly, but this serves to better highlight her creepy, otherworldly nature.
• Funny Moments: Bastian trying to chat with the giant monster guards in order to buy time for Atreyu.
• Never Live It Down: The scene where Bastian wishes for a spray can to ward off Xayide's monsters is used to paint Bastian as an idiotic decision-maker, even though nothing comparable to this happens in the rest of the film.
• Questionable Casting: Just compare John Wesley Shipp as Bastian's father vs. Gerald McRainey in the original.
• Sequelitis: Fans mostly agree this is a noticeable downgrade from the first film, largely for taking the more complicated ideas and rich storytelling found before and trading it for a basic good vs. evil story that prioritizes retreading a lot of the already-seen world of Fantasia rather than introduce something new. That said, it still keeps the iconography and the characters from the previous film mostly consistent in sharp contrast to the third which makes the characters unrecognizable in both design and characterization.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Nimbly's obviously human eyes on an avian body are pretty disturbing.

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