History Film / Jumanji

-->-- '''Jumanji's Other Inscription'''

* AllThereInTheScript: Well, all there in the Junior Novel. The surname of Caleb and Benjamin, the two boys who bury the Jumanji board game in the 1800s is stated to be Sproul.

*** Carl is never fired, and it's revealed he became a family friend. You can see him singing at the holiday party.

The film begins in 1869. Two boys, almost certainly previous players, bury a strange box fearfully, praying that nobody finds it. But 100 years later in [[UsefulNotes/TheSixties 1969]], after fleeing from some bullies, a boy named Alan Parrish discovers the board game at a construction site. Later that day, just as he is about to run away from home to avoid going to boarding school, his friend Sarah shows up and together they start playing the game. However, the game acts strangely; the pieces move by themselves upon the roll of the dice, and then cryptic words appear in a glass dome in the middle of the board. Upon his first move, [[SealedGoodInACan Alan is sucked into the game]], while Sarah is chased out of the house by a swarm of bats.

Cut to the present day, where two orphans named Judy (Dunst) and Peter Shepherd (Pierce)--yes, the brother and sister from the book--move into Alan's old house to live with their aunt Nora. While exploring the house, they come upon Jumanji in the attic. The game, still unfinished from twenty-six years ago, retains the moves made by the first players. After getting attacked by monstrous mosquitoes and a lion, Peter rolls the dice to free a now-adult Alan (Williams) from the inside of the game. Seeking out the help of a now-adult Sarah (Hunt), the group reluctantly decides they must finish the game in order to undo all of its consequences.

--> '''Alan:''' Twenty-six years in the deepest, darkest jungle and I ''still'' became my father.

* FalseReassurance: When Alan asks the homeless man living in his father's abandoned shoe factory if the Parrishes are still around, he says yes, and they're over on Adams St. Alan looks excited for a second...only for the film to immediately cut to the the gravestones of both of his parents in the cemetery.

[[caption-width-right:349:[[{{Tagline}} Are you game?]]]]

It's quite different from the book. The film's story, too, is about the Jumanji, a supernatural and ominous board game which makes animals and other jungle hazards appear upon each roll of the dice, but it is significantly expanded.

The film begins in 1869. Two boys, almost certainly previous players, bury a strange box fearfully, praying that nobody finds it. But 100 years later in [[UsefulNotes/TheSixties 1969]], after fleeing from some bullies, a boy named Alan Parrish discovers the board game in a construction site. Later that day, just as he is about to run away from home to avoid going to boarding school, his friend Sarah shows up and together they start playing the game. However, the game acts strangely; the pieces move by themselves upon the roll of the dice, and then cryptic words appear in a glass dome in the middle of the board. Upon his first move, [[SealedGoodInACan Alan is sucked into the game]], while Sarah is chased out of the house by a swarm of bats.

* ManiacMonkeys: One of the first things Judy and Peter summon when they enter the game is a pack of malicious monkeys.

Cut to the present day, where two orphans named Judy (Dunst) and Peter Shepard (Pierce)--yes, the brother and sister from the book--move into Alan's old house to live with their aunt Nora. While exploring the house, they come upon Jumanji in the attic. The game, still unfinished from twenty-six years ago, retains the moves made by the first players. After getting attacked by monstrous mosquitoes and a lion, Peter rolls the dice to free a now-adult Alan (Williams) from the inside of the game. Seeking out the help of a now-adult Sarah (Hunt), the group reluctantly decides they must finish the game in order to undo all of its consequences.

* ChekhovsSkill: It was mentioned early on that ever since Peter and Judy's parents died, Judy has become something of a compulsive liar (see the elaborate story she tells the realtor at the beginning). It does her well when she has to start pulling explanations for all the movie's insanity later on (such as explaining Alan's freak out as her "uncle" having a head injury).

*** Alan hires Judy's father to work at the company; it's implied he found out the skiing trip will kill both parents, and so he insists they start sooner. They also give presents to Judy and Peter, who shyly greet them at the party but have no memory of the previous timeline.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* BigBad: Jumanji itself appears to have a will of its own, luring people into playing it and then attempting to prevent the game from being finished. All the animals, natural disasters and other stuff that comes out of the game, including Van Pelt, are just parts of it. The board game is ultimately responsible for every bad thing that happens in the story (aside from a little bullying), [[spoiler: and it all goes away once the game is finished]]. Though Van Pelt has a [[TheHeavy more active role]].

** By the end of the film, Sarah and Alan with Judy and Peter. Even after the reset, they remain friends.

* MagicAIsMagicA: The rules of the game are clear, and breaking those rules results in a punishment. They must play the game and deal with the hazards as they come. Van Pelt explains this when stating that his mission is to hunt Alan, not the other players. Though collateral damage to the rest of the town--and presumably the surrounding area if the animals keep going before the game ends--seems to be just fine. Although, as long as the game is finished, all damage is undone as the game pounds the ResetButton.

* ResetButton: [[spoiler:Finishing the game is so powerful it can even reverse time.]]

* TakingTheHeat: In an HonorBeforeReason moment, Carl doesn't tell Mr. Parrish that Alan was the one who put his sneaker on the conveyor belt. He lost his job as a result. Alan is quick to rectify this when the timeline resets, confessing to his father that he was responsible and Carl shouldn't be fired.

* RareGuns: In-universe example: Van Pelt's elephant gun (made from a heavily modified Winchester 1901 shotgun) is so rare, ammunition hasn't been made for it since 1903. When he runs dry, he upgrades to a silenced USAS-12 (another shotgun made to look like a rifle) with a suitably large bribe of gold coins.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: The two boys from the prologue. It was was strongly stated that they've played the game before and dealt with the horrors that came from it.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: The two boys from the prologue. It was was strongly stated that they played the game before and dealt with the horrors that came from it.

* BigFancyHouse: The Parrish family mansion. Emphasis on "big" [[http://image.toutlecine.com/photos/j/u/m/jumanji-1995-08-g.jpg as this image shows]], the place has 15+ foot ceilings that make even full-grown adults feel like children. This Georgian/Colonial Revival house, with its marble floors, crystal chandeliers, winding grand staircase, massive library, and other lavish appointments, is an appropriate symbol of status for Sam Parrish, the owner of one of the most important businesses in the entire town.

** Sarah hates being called "crazy". She's been called that all her life since Alan disappeared.

** Where'd all those bats go after Sarah's first move summoned them?

* BalefulPolymorph: Peter's penalty for attempting to cheat is to be slowly transformed into a monkey (the same as his game token). If the game's poem is to be believed, the point was to ''devolve him.''
-->'''Game:''' A law of ''Jumanji'' having been broken, you will slip back even more than your token.

* {{Expy}}: Sam Parrish is basically a 1960s version of George Darling from ''Theatre/{{Peter Pan|1904}}''. Taken UpToEleven by even having the actor, Creator/JonathanHyde, playing the villain as well.

** Things start off fairly tame (no pun intended), with only small things such as a cloud of bats, a scourge of mosquitoes, a troop of monkeys, a single lion. Then they escalate to carnivorous plants, [[ImplacableMan a hunter that won't quit]], an entire stampede that destroys the town, a monsoon that floods the house, and an earthquake that splits the house apart. [[FridgeHorror One can only wonder]] what the game would have released next to [[UpToEleven top itself]] if Alan hadn't won when he did... Possibly a volcano, considering what happened in the original book. It's lampshaded in Sarah's final rhyme: "You're almost there with much at stake/Now the ground begins to quake..."

* ParentalSubstitute: Aunt Nora, but she knows as much about dealing with kids as a plumber knows about brain surgery. As the game progresses, Alan and Sarah fulfill this role too because they are the only adults that can take care of the kids.

'''Judy:''' Will you help us?\\
'''Alan:''' I'll watch... I'm ''not'' afraid.

''Jumanji'' is a 1995 American fantasy-adventure-comedy film directed by Joe Johnston and based on Chris Van Allsburg's [[Literature/{{Jumanji}} popular 1981 children's book of the same name]]. Expensive, state-of-the-art computer graphics and animatronics were employed by Creator/IndustrialLightAndMagic and [[Franchise/AlienVsPredator Amalgamated]] [[Film/MortalKombat Dynamics]] for the special effects sequences. The film stars Creator/RobinWilliams, then-13-year-old Creator/KirstenDunst, Creator/BonnieHunt, and Creator/BradleyPierce. It was followed by [[WesternAnimation/{{Jumanji}} an animated television series]] that ran from 1996 to 1999 and a SpiritualSuccessor, ''Film/{{Zathura}}'', in 2005.

* PeopleInRubberSuits: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZhGTHVNcWo The lion]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGOQqe9tiuY&ab_channel=studioADI the crocodile]], made by those responsible for ''Film/{{Alien 3}}'' and Goro from ''Film/MortalKombat''.