Minor spoilers ahead for A Minecraft Movie.
The creative minds behind A Minecraft Movie shared with IGN that one of the film's most comedic scenes drew inspiration from The NeverEnding Story.
In a memorable scene, Jack Black's character, Steve, finds himself in a precarious situation where he must ride on Jason Momoa's character, Garrett, due to a shortage of Elytra wings, which were only available for Garrett and Sebastian Hansen's Henry. This leads to a hilarious sequence of physical comedy as Steve clings to Garrett to avoid a perilous fall. The scene's inspiration goes beyond mere humor.
"We definitely wanted a Falkor moment from The Neverending Story that was both majestic and beautiful, but also one that goes south pretty quickly," said A Minecraft Movie director Jared Hess."It was so funny in between takes when they cut," added producer Torfi Frans Ólafsson. "Jack is sitting on top of Jason and they're in this complicated rig... and Jack starts singing, because he does that in between scenes, but he starts singing the words to The NeverEnding Story and riding him like he's riding Falkor."
The scene is a delightful nod to Jack Black's role as Slip in The NeverEnding Story 3, and it was a significant moment for Jason Momoa as well.
"I got to participate in writing that, and this big guy [Jack Black] wanted to do it too," Momoa shared with a laugh. "This was after Top Gun: Maverick came out, so I also wanted to be able to go into it and then hit the brakes and then have them slide down and I switcheroo on them. We were sitting there at the hotel dying about this idea of Jack and I doing this stunt and it made it [into the movie] and it's phenomenal."
"I don't know if it made it in the final cut because there were different versions of that scene, but it could have gone hard rated R," Jack Black noted. "In the end, I think we made it family-friendly!"
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Momoa also hilariously went into a recreation of the two of them on set (watch the video to see this firsthand!).
"Let my hips guide you! You can't just ride me like I'm majestic," Momoa said. "I was dying, man. I was dying."
For more insights, read our A Minecraft Movie review, learn about the private server the team used during production, and explore our explanation of the film's ending and post-credits scene.
