I was introduced to this series through the second one and watched the first one later. As a kid I had horrible tastes and thought 2 and 3 were better than the first one. Then I grew up and realized just how frigging awesome the first one was. But I always did love the Childlike Empress in that movie the best. I can watch that scene again and again, no lie. I also watched some episodes of the cartoon they had for a while too.

Never read the book but I read that the first movie actually changed so much from the book that the author wasn't happy about it. He wanted them to change the title because of all the changes (like Bastion being skinny instead of fat, Atreyu not being green, I think the empress had white hair too and looked more like she actually came from the moon, hence the name 'Moon Child'). There was even a lawsuit but he eventually loss and the name stayed the same. If he didn't like the changes in the first one then I can only imagine what he thought of 2 and 3.

The book is color coded from what I remember, to separate when the narrative is following the real world and Fantasia.