Line #53 Headscratchers/Jumanji


1	* ''Headscratchers/JumanjiWelcomeToTheJungle''
2	* ''Headscratchers/JumanjiTheNextLevel''
3	----
4	* If Alan's father was the guest of honor at an event at the time Alan was sucked into the board game, how could people think he was the killer? Surely that was a pretty good alibi.
5	** It was all just twisted rumours and confusion about how a young boy could vanish so completely off the face of the earth, all shifting and changing over the years. Lots of people didn't think anything of the sort, like the old man living in the shoe factory. Doubtless there were dozens of explanations for Alan's disappearance. Alan's father didn't seem to lose his standing... he just lost interest in the company and only paid attention to finding his son, so it went out of business.
6	** Beyond that, the chronology of events -- that Alan disappeared ''during'' the banquet and not before or after, may not have been obvious to outsiders. In addition, we know, from the end, that Alan's father had to make a last-minute trip back home, as he had forgotten something. Since this probably did happen in the timeline in which Alan disappeared, an accuser could easily say that that was when he killed Alan (especially if he never even made it to the banquet, considering seeing that Alan wasn’t there would be the start of his breakdown).
7	** That makes me think of something that may be FridgeHorror. Alan's father returns saying that he forgot something and then tells Alan that he doesn't have to go to boarding school if he didn't want to. Perhaps that was the real reason he came home? He was feeling bad about their fight, was thinking that maybe he shouldn't make Alan go to boarding school and it was bugging him so much that he decided to go home and tell Alan right away. Then he finds out that Alan has disappeared with no explanation!
8	** Didn't he mutter something about leaving his hat or gloves just after he returned? He may have thought about Alan on the way, but at the moment his reason was that he left an casual item behind.
9	*** He forgot something far more important: His Speech Notes.
10	** Mr. Parrish seems like the type of man to keep his emotions hidden. I think it would be very in character for him to come home to talk to Alan but make up some excuse of forgetting something instead of saying it straight out.
11	*** Especially considering how he loudly announces the reason for his coming back in, instead of just quietly collecting his notes and then leaving. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial "Please pay no attention to the fact that I have returned inside. I just wanted to let you know that I came back in solely to collect this important thing that I forgot and no other reason. It's definitely not so that I can have another chance to talk to you before I go or anything."]]
12	*** He also may have been intending to keep up the stern parent act, but seeing Alan so suddenly and desperately glad to see him may have broken through that shell and let him say what he really wanted to say in the first place, that Alan didn't have to go.
13	*** Considering he never even glances into the room where Alan and Sarah awoke from their game, just walks past the doorway talking to himself, it seems unlikely that it was a ruse. He wouldn't even have known that Alan was present to overhear unless he'd looked in a window or something, and if he'd done that then he wouldn't have visibly switched mental gears when he noticed Sarah: he'd have already seen she was there too.
14	** As no body was found, there’s nothing to tie any potential murder to during the dinner event. He could have easily killed Alan after the dinner. Or even beforehand, especially as Sarah is written off as crazy for saying she saw Alan disappear into a board game. That could just be waved away as the trauma of a young girl’s friend going missing and potientially murdered.
15	** Sam was never charged with a crime. The idea that he had killed Alan was tantamount to a [[ConspiracyTheorist conspiracy theory]], and only had to make as much sense as one.
16	** Why were the Parishes so convinced that Allan ran away? He was about to, but never made it out, so they must have seen his unmoved suitcase and bike still at the house. He also came from a rich family and had a history of being bullied, so kidnapping or foul play weren’t exactly off the table. Also add to that that Sarah’s claims that he was sucked into Jumanji were dismissed as a vision meant to cope with seeing her friend murdered, so wouldn’t that lead the Parishes to conclude that she was blocking out seeing a kidnapping? Not that it would have made a difference in whether or not they found him, but it would have at least cleared Sam Parish’s name.
17
18	* After beating the game, why didn't Alan and Sarah, to say nothing about the brothers in the beginning, think of destroying the game by, say, burning the damn thing to make sure nobody ever finds it? The game was sunken with rocks, and it gets discovered by some girls in France!
19	** First of all, it's ''magical''. Best assumption is that it can no more be destroyed than the Lament Configuration. Secondly, the game rewinds time back to the beginning of the game every time people win. It's probable people have tried to destroy it before, but ended up starting a new game. Or players might try burning it, only to find it won't burn.
20	** Would ''you'' want to risk potentially unleashing everything contained within the game into the real world, but this time without any way of putting the genie back into the bottle at the end?
21	** Why not try something a little safer? How about, for example, very carefully taking the four game pieces, putting them in separate containers and mailing them far, far away? It seems like it would be a lot harder for a new game to start if the board itself was in the movie's location of New Hampshire, but the pieces themselves were in New York, London, Sydney, and Cape Town. That was my first thought when I first watched the movie as a kid. When they threw the game in the water, I wondered why they didn't separate the components (board, dice, pieces) to prevent another accidental game.
22	*** The pieces were magically pulled to the board when the characters casually picked them up. Separating them might just causes the pieces to fly back to the board again.
23	*** Why would that be such a bad thing? If the pieces fly to the board, sure, technically a new game has started. But nothing bad has come out yet. In fact, getting the game stuck in this position would be the best ever. Let the game assume that 4 currently living people are the players. Then bury the game till these 4 people die of old age. Now the game can never continue and unleash more horrors.
24	*** As pointed out with Judy's near-death, it's not clear if the game freezes if one of the players dies or if it skips their turn. After those 4 people die, the game might just reset itself.
25
26	* When Alan wins and everything is sucked back into the board, why is the bullet (and by extension, the rifle) sucked back into the game? I mean, van Pelt bought the rifle in the "real world"; why would a gun originally from our world by transported back to Jumanji? The whole "because van Pelt was holding it" thing seems like a pretty weak excuse...
27	** It probably sucks him and all of his possessions back. So since he considers the rifle and bullet his, they go back with him.
28	** Actually, the game resets 26 years of history. Everything that had happened in Bradford for 26 years, including the obvious economic collapse never occurred. The rifle was a part of that timeline, a timeline that was being annihilated and was taken along with everything else.
29
30	* Did Van Pelt's elephant gun get sucked into the game, or just the one he was using at the end? Well, aside from being in the ResetButton time, of course.
31	** The game seems to rewind everything that happened in the game. I expect his elephant gun was returned when time was rewound. As for the sniper rifle, it wouldn't have many supplies for bullets in 1900s Jumanji.
32	*** The rifle (actually an accessorised shotgun) is part of a future that is annihilated at the end of the game, so it doesn't exist with Van Pelt inside Jumanji.
33	*** JustForFun, Van Pelt's elephant gun is actually a Winchester Model 1901 shotgun, a slightly modernised version of the Model 1887 (the shotgun [[TheAhnold Ahnold]] uses in ''[[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay Terminator 2]]''). The Model 1901 was only made in modern 10 Gauge, and was made until 1921.
34
35	* If a player was killed during gameplay, would the game just keep going forever, or would that one piece just be disqualified? I know in Zathura, which is written by the same guy, the board game got stuck after one of the players died. Does it work the same way in Jumanji?
36	** Judy is killed during the game. The game goes on. Admittedly it never gets back to what would be her turn, but given its obvious lethality, if killing players off would make the game unplayable then it'd never have gotten to Alan in the first place.
37	*** Judy isn't shown to die - but she is shown delirious and close to death. The game ends just before she needs to roll, so we don't see if she's dead, or if she's needed should she be dead. Part of the point of Jumanji is that you MUST finish the game and you must work together. It's only about half a dozen turns, but every one of them is potentially deadly. After all, if you weren't needed to play, only one person would need to be alive at the end, since all else would rewind.
38	*** She 'is' shown to die - Peter lays her lifeless body down in her brief final shot.
39	*** As ''Film/KungPowEnterTheFist'' helpfully points out just because someone closes their eyes it doesn't mean they're dead. No one else is said to have died from their encounters with either the plants or the mosquitoes and the game ends before we can get hard confirmation that Judy died.
40	** Maybe it would skip the turns of dead players. The game seems to know if a player is cheating the dice roll, perhaps the game is capable of mercy, unlikely as it may be.
41	** Also Walter in Zathura wished that [[spoiler:Danny had never been born, not that he was dead.]]
42	*** That seems most likely, since someone sucked into the game is skipped until someone else rolls a five or an eight (basically a permanent "Lose a Turn" scenario).
43	*** Alan didn't skip any turns, so we don't know what would have happened if it had gotten around to his turn. As a matter of fact, he was summoned at the very ''last possible moment'': on Peter's turn, just before it was Alan's turn. And Peter didn't even roll him up on his first roll, but got doubles and was allowed to roll again!
44	** They could just put the dice in Judy's hands and drop them onto the board, and that might still count.
45	** There's a fun interpretation where the game cranks up the stakes once the players are close to winning with one turn. The really life-threatening peril doesn't show up until that period - the crocodiles, the spiders, earthquake etc. So even if someone dies, it might not factor in because one of the remaining players is going to win on their next turn.
46
47	* Along the lines of a similar question, what would have happened if Sarah had died in the twenty-six years of the game not being played? The game put itself on a hiatus until more players in the form of Judy and Peter came along as it was, so would it just have taken her piece out of commission for good and let the game continue with three players? Would the game just end and/or reset itself back to 1969 since there was only one player left and the game is meant for at least two people?
48
49	* Why didn't they load up on weapons before rolling the dice? They had all the time in the world at some points. Also, why not seek outside help? I could understand that trying to explain to the cops that the board game is evil would end badly, but why not walk onto a military base or police station, etc. and THEN roll the dice? You have to admit, having Van Pelt pop out of the game only to end up with several guns pointed at him (and subsequently being arrested) would be pretty hilarious.
50	** Van Pelt had a sword impaled into him, and he just yanked it out and healed over. Most likely, he wouldn't yield to the guns pointed at him and either a) kill Alan, b) escape.
51	*** The sword was embedded in the column next to Van Pelt; if he was hit at all, it was only a graze.
52	*** The sword caught part of his coat, but missed him.
53	** They also ''didn't'' have all the time in the world; they wanted to finish the game before Aunt Nora came home and found out there was a lion in her bedroom (the same roll that freed Alan from the game).
54	** The subjects of the rolls typically don't just materialize in the room the players are in. They sneak up on you. It adds to the tension of the game, not knowing where the creatures or whatever will appear. Van Pelt's first shot was from outside the room and Alan was noticeably on edge and preparing to flee the moment he realized what was coming. Furthermore, going to the police or military and playing could cause significant collateral damage that would make the situation worse, or risk the game being confiscated by police before completion.
55	** Also, the kids could realize that [[CassandraTruth no one would believe them if they did say anything]], and that [[NotNowKiddo they probably wouldn't get the chance to offer proof]].
56	*** Sarah actually tries this, but is not believed and ends up in chronic therapy.
57	** Also, they ''couldn't'' 'just' walk into a military base or a police station and take whatever they like for what should be blindingly obvious reasons.
58	** And Sarah's the only one with the ID necessary to buy weapons and that's not likely to happen because: a) she's turned into a bit of a GranolaGirl who'd probably object to that, and b) the shops are all in crisis because of the animals running loose.
59
60	* In the beginning, how did the game sit under the couch unnoticed by Alan's parents for several hours? There was at least say, 10 inches from the floor to the bottom of the couch!
61	** They have a big house and it's very easy to overlook something you're not looking for, especially if you have other things on your mind or things to do. His dad was working and had the banquet on his mind when he returned.
62	*** A better question is; How did the game migrate from the downstairs to the attic? Especially without anyone jostling it accidentally? Did the game close itself up?
63	*** It's probable whoever found it thought nothing of it. Plus, Alan closed the game, the pieces don't move, and it seems the players have to actually ''intend'' to play, not simply jostle the game.
64	*** Not true. The pieces fell to their starting positions on their own when Alan picked them up. When Alan dropped the dice as he was startled by the clock, and when Alan tricked Sarah into rolling by tilting his hand when she wanted to give him the dice back, the game interpreted it as a roll both times despite them not intending to.
65	*** So basically the game chooses a person as a player when that person picks up a playing token.
66	*** Or possibly before: only certain people hear the drums.
67	*** Both pairs of players that we see (Alan/Sarah and Judy/Peter) indicate some desire to play by the time they pick up the tokens, if only through sheer curiosity of the game. It seems to be that which causes the tokens to fly to their starting places and that marks a person as a player - they have to at least show an interest in starting the game (and it's implied they have to have some dissatisfaction with their lives given the inscription on the game itself). As for the dice rolls, while the actual intent to roll the dice doesn't seem to matter, the game is shown to not respond at all when the dice aren't "rolled" by the correct player (Sarah and Alan are forced to play along with Judy and Peter for this exact reason). So when the game was moved from the sitting room to the attic, even if the dice inside moved it wouldn't register as a turn if it wasn't specifically Sarah who caused the dice to move since it was her turn and clearly no one else started playing the game before Judy and Peter discovered it.
68
69	* Carl Bentley made a prototype sneaker, why did he only make one shoe? Surely it would've made a better impression with a pair of sneakers, and he wouldn't have been without his shoe to present.
70	** Maybe he ''did'' make two, but only showed one to Alan. After he was fired, it could have been hard for him to pitch his idea to anyone.
71	** And it wouldn't matter if he did have another prototype. He was fired because Mr. Parrish thought he left a shoe on a conveyor belt and it got caught up in a machine. Not only is that a very dangerous accident, it sounded like it severely damaged the machine when it went through.
72	** For the record, after briefly looking around in vain for the first shoe, he turns back toward the box he took it from, but is interrupted by the accident. Apparently, he was going to get out the second shoe.
73
74	* If it was such a big deal that all Parrish boys go to the same boarding school generation after generation, why did Alan's parents wait to tell him about that until a few days before sending him there? Wouldn't it be a lot easier if he grew up knowing about it from his earliest days, so going to this school would just seem perfectly natural to him?
75	** A family tradition such as this is definitely something Alan knows about having probably heard stories about his father, grandfather, and uncle's youth. It's really a foregone conclusion that doesn't need much explanation.
76	** They were waiting for the right time to tell him, and apparently, his father felt Alan was ready since he stood up to five bullies and "took it like a man."
77	** In the original draft, Alan's parents were sending him to Cliffside (or Boden as it was called there) for a different reason: they were noticing that he was unhappy living in Brantford with all the bullies and his inability to fit in with his classmates, and felt he'd make friends with kids who more his status easier.
78	** I was under the impression that you had to ''apply'' to get into Cliffside, so there was some concern he might not get accepted. (Even with his family pedigree, it's possible that there's only a limited number of spots available.) They applied on his behalf without telling him, then they got his acceptance letter just recently. Apparently they just assumed that he would want to attend, and so maybe they didn't want to get his hopes up in case he got rejected.
79	** Or Alan had always known he would be sent away to school eventually, he just hadn't expected it to happen when he was only ''twelve''. His dad and other male relatives may not have been enrolled until they were high school age.
80
81	* This is probably the question we asked ourselves two hundred times, but why is Van Pelt so obsessed with catching Alan. Is he bound to the rules of the game to hunt the one who rolled the dice (it's also mentioned by him) or was there some conflict between him and Alan when he was still in the jungle?
82	** Van Pelt actually states it outright that this is the case. "You didn't roll the dice, Alan did!"
83	** Though Alan does already know him so presumably they did encounter each other in the game as well.
84
85	* So, what exactly was that huge freakin' rifle that Van Pelt upgrades to? I can't really tell the model, just that it appears to be loaded to the brim with GunAccessories like a decidedly non-standard looking drum magazine and an over-sized scope.
86	** According to the Internet Movie Firearms Database it's a Daewoo USAS-12 automatic shotgun (which come with drum magazines) and then given a scope and silencer to make it look like a sniper rifle. Similarly, his original gun is not actually an elephant gun but a Winchester 1901 with added scope, faked box magazine and barrel shroud to make it look like an elephant gun.
87	*** It [[http://www.imfdb.org/images/a/ab/JumanjiiJungleGun.jpg didn't have a scope]] (just a fancy sight), but does have a custom stock.
88
89	* OK, the quicksand bit. When Alan is sinking into the floor, and Judy takes her next turn, it causes the quicksand to "harden," for lack of a better term. What would have happened had she waited a few seconds longer? Would he have simply fallen to the floor below, or would he have disappeared all together? We see him hanging by his armpits in the ceiling.
90	** I think that is a pretty clear indication that he would have fallen through. The ceiling was pretty high, though, so falling through isn't exactly no big deal.
91	*** You'd think he'd notice that. You'd think he'd not only feel the air on his legs, but also the fact that he can struggle around freely, and therefore get the idea to tell his friends to just push him through.
92	** I'm going with "disappeared altogether". You don't hear the box crashing into the floor below. Either that, or if he did fall through, then the floor beneath would keep turning into quicksand, and he'd be sinking forever until the next person rolls.
93	** Something else to remember is that Judy's next turn was basically a ResetButton ("There is a lesson you must learn / Sometimes you must go back a turn.") It's likely he would have disappeared forever if not for Judy's next turn (Alan did compliment her quick thinking.)
94	** If the liquefied floor was replicating actual quicksand, he probably would've begun ''drowning'' in it if his face had been covered.
95
96	* When Alan makes the roll that summons Van Pelt he reacts with extreme fear and says Van Pelt's name before Pelt even shows up. Where and when did he meet Pelt, and why isn't this explained in the movie?
97	** Every hazard the game brings forth comes from a jungle world "inside" the game itself. Alan was sucked into that world for decades after his first roll, so he already met monkeys, mosquitoes, venomous plants, spiders and Van Pelt himself.
98	** How is this at all unclear? Van Pelt outright ''says'' that he's been hunting Alan for years in the game.
99	** Alan's remarks suggest that Van Pelt has been taking potshots at Alan because, for whatever reason, he finds Alan's attitudes "offensive". The fact he hadn't killed Alan outright during all those years when he had the chance to do so - especially not during the early years, when Alan was still an inexperienced boy with no survival skills - suggests that it didn't become Van Pelt's actual ''mission'' to kill him until Alan's second roll of the dice.
100
101	* Why is Van Pelt the only hazard that focuses on the one who rolled it? The other hazards were just as dangerous to all four players, regardless of who rolled what.
102	** Alan's first roll sucks him and only him into the jungle. Peter's attempt to cheat turns him and only him into a monkey. In the attic, the quicksand only tries to swallow Alan up. Also perhaps Van Pelt was really only sparing the other players because he could lure Alan to them, and would set his sights on them after Alan was killed.
103	** He was also the only human. It's possible that his only hunting Allen was more of a personal code of honor than a rule that he ''has'' to follow.
104	** How is it unclear? Van Pelt says "You didn't roll the dice. Alan did." Being the only hunter in the game (at least, that we know of...) - and being a hunter in general - he hunts whoever's roll summoned him. Plus, he and Alan have crossed paths before in the game's jungle.
105	** He's a hunter. Thus he hunts him.
106	** Possibly he's the only one intelligent enough to articulate that he's only hunting Alan. All the rest were also attacking the person who rolled the dice, it just so happened that they're always standing right by each other. The flowers attacking Judy and the spiders attacking everyone but Peter when he was getting the ax kind of undercut it, but he was probably the only one sophisticated enough to tell the difference.
107	** Probably a case of different hazards with different effects and different targets. Either that or the game really hates Alan considering that each of his rolls have specifically targeted him.
108	** A hunter tends to be going after a single target rather than randomly attacking everything in sight. It's thematically appropriate for him to target just Alan while the animals are just randomly aggressive (''real'' wild animals don't behave like that of course but the game's animals are DarkestAfrica creatures, not real animals).
109
110	* Why do they insist on playing the game within the house, a confined space where it is already overgrown with dangerous plants and a lion locked in the bedroom, rather than in the open where they can escape from dangers much faster.
111	** It's also a lot easier to lose the game, which is what happens halfway through.
112	** If they play out in the open, people will see them summoning animals from the game, when they don't want anyone to find out. Remember, their initial goal was to finish the game as quickly as possible before their aunt finds out and sees the destroyed house.
113	** Sara asks Alan at one point whether they should be playing somewhere else. Alan responds that he's been living in the jungle for 26 years, so the environment inside the house is more familiar to him - it's "out there" that scares him.
114	** Playing indoors isn't necessarily a bad strategy. Yes, it means dealing with the threat in a confined space, but it also lets them ''seal up'' certain threats in confined spaces, like they did with the lion and (initially, before the stampede trashed the barriers) the killer plants.
115
116	* Sarah was quick to believe Alan was back after 26 years. She could have easily believed that Alan was someone teasing her about her supposed "crazy-ness". But it's possible Sarah neglected to mentioned the part about hearing drum beats coming from the game. Which is why she was surprised he would know that before knowing he's Alan.
117	** She presumably recognised his appearance. In the film they're played by different actors, but story-wise he'd have probably looked enough alike (even after 26 years) for her to realise it was him after he told her.
118	** Note that Sarah was still doubting herself when she came round, because the first thing she did at the Parrish house was call her doctor to state that she needs her medication dosage checked.
119	** And Alan knew some pretty private details about what he and Sarah did. The town legend was that Alan's father killed him. So Alan repeating Sarah's story that he got sucked into the game likely resonated with her. After thirty years, who would still know about that story besides Sarah herself? She convinced herself she'd only imagined that, so she'd hardly be shouting about it from the rooftops.
120
121	* So how does a bunch of misplaced wildlife suddenly lead to widespread looting?
122	** Humans are opportunistic and the misplaced wildlife was causing enough general chaos and property damage that people could easily get away with looting.
123	** Also, the biggest problem going on in the background was the mosquitoes. Their bites were causing a catastrophic local epidemic which the ambulances and CDC didn't know the cause of. People were probably rioting in response to what they assumed to be an extremely fast-spreading plague.
124	** Plus the town was going down the toilet, economically speaking, with lots of down-on-their-luck types that would be faster to take advantage of such a situation than in a less screwed-up town.
125	** Not to mention how all the local cops and even the police dispatcher seem to have been incapacitated or just plain mugged by the rampaging monkeys. Who's to ''stop'' the local troublemakers from looting?
126
127	* Something I just noticed: Some of the things from the game only happened after they were said out loud, like they were spells or curses. Usually it could be chalked up to them only noticing after they finished reading, but the quicksand only disappeared after Judy finished reading her turn. The implication is there since the directions said they will only finish the game when someone reaches Jumanji '''and calls out its name.''' Is it possible that's how the magic of the game works and everything could have been avoided if they simply read quietly to themselves?
128	** Most likely in that case the game won't continue until the words are said out loud.
129	** Or the effects of the roll would just happen anyway, and them reading it out loud is for the audience's sake. (As well as that of people sitting on the other side of the board - it's not exactly easy to read something when you're looking at it upside-down.)
130
131	* Even in 1969, could an unsupervised 12-year-old really just walk around an active construction site without at least someone asking him to leave.
132	** Usually not, but considering Alan's status within the town as the son of one of its richest men and primary economic anchor, perhaps the workers didn't want to risk getting involved with him.
133	** There's an excuse given but not called attention to in the film: a food van arrives while Alan is heading towards the site, and all the workers are shown going to get their lunch, most of them aren't paying him any attention. After he find the game, he sees one of the workers has taken notice of him and immediately rushes off. It was simply good timing that they were all distracted by the lunch van, had they been all working he presumably wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to the game.
134
135	* After the game is over, Alan and Sarah still remember it, even though they went back in time 26 years. Since Judy and Peter weren't born yet, how does remembering the game work for them? Are the memories already there the second time they're born, or do they wait until the new timeline reaches the point where they joined the game in the old one, or do they just never remember?
136	** In the final scene, Alan states Judy and Peter are 'just like he remembers'. Their reaction is to look like they don't know what he's talking about.
137	** That's clearly happening quite some time earlier, though. Judy and Peter's parents are still alive.
138	** Even when it came to the point where they would've remembered everything, it's worth noting that Alan and Sarah made three changes to the timeline that all would prevent Judy and Peter from ever playing the game. 1.) They threw the game off a bridge instead of leaving it in Alan's attic, meaning Judy and Peter will never find it there. 2.) They continue to live in the Parrish mansion, meaning Judy and Peter won't be able to move in with their aunt. And 3.) most importantly, they convince the parents against going on the trip that will result in their deaths. (Note that I have not seen ''Welcome to the Jungle'', which I believe has its "future characters" retain their memories of the game, so I don't know how well this reasoning fits into that.) But yeah, since Judy and Peter will have never been able to play the game in this timeline, it's debatable whether they'll spontaneously gain memories of events that never happened.
139
140	* We know from the ending that the game's creatures and environmental effects linger and keep causing trouble until play is complete and/or the next player takes a turn. So what the heck happened to all those bats that Sarah's first move unleashed? We see them fly out the door when she runs off, and they're never mentioned again. Did they migrate south to a real jungle, or could they have stuck around roosting in the Parrish attic until they died of old age, waiting for the game to resume?
141	** They're mentioned once more. One of the bats is found in the attic by Peter. It's unknown what happened to the rest.
142	** They're bats. Unpleasant certainly but weak sauce compared to the rest of game's effects. Likely they stuck around until winter messing up the local ecosystem some (which would likely go unnoticed in '69) then most of them died when winter hit.
143	** Maybe they're just magic animals that don't need to feed or anything like that, and just stay in suspended animation until potential players come along. The majority of events take place during the day, and bats are nocturnal. So they basically slept through all the fun.
144
145	* The movie makes a point that Sarah's turn comes up after Judy, and it refuses to let Judy take a turn. So the gang goes to find Present-day Sarah. But Judy already skipped Sarah's turn once and the game accepted it: Peter goes twice because he rolls doubles (Summons Monkeys, Frees Alan), Judy goes again (Summons a Lion). Clearly the game doesn't care about Sarah, it just wouldn't allow Judy to go twice in a row without a double.
146	** You are incorrect. Sarah rolled the bats. Alan rolled his entrapment in Jumanji. Judy rolled the mosquitoes. Peter rolled the monkeys WITH DOUBLES so he rolled again. Peter rolled the lion AND RELEASED ALAN since he rolled a 5. Sarah was the next to roll successfully after Judy tries twice with no success and Alan realizes the same game he started is still being played, and therefore whose turn it actually is. They find Sarah and she rolls the killer flowers, etc. Here are all the rolls in the movie: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/5mju7n/the_dice_rolls_in_jumanji_make_no_sense/
147
148	* Why do Judy and Peter decide to continue the game once both of them have taken their first turns? Okay, Judy tells Peter that once they finish the game, everything that came out of it will go away, but they've only summoned some mosquitoes and a band of monkeys at that point, both of which have already left the house. They don't know that the mosquitoes are biting people and causing diseases, so unless they believed finishing the game would also repair their kitchen after the monkeys wrecked it, there's no reason why they wouldn't avoid summoning anything worse and let the authorities deal with the pests.
149	** They read the game's warning "Do not start unless you plan to finish" and realized that, since they started the game, it was now their responsibility to finish it.
150	** I had the same headscratcher. They've just found out that Alan was stuck in a jungle of unimaginable horror for 26 years because of the game (and been unable to finish it as a result). They don't really know how the game works at this stage. They do know that Sarah and Alan had left their game unfinished for 26 years without any apparent harm to the world or Sarah (and the harm to Alan being because he was trapped in the game). The reasonable assumption would seem to be that playing the game was extremely dangerous but not playing didn't present any obvious risks based on the information they had to hand at this stage. For all they knew, their very first turn would have resulted in them all being trapped in the jungle forever with no way out and they would have all died there. I don't think the game's warning was sufficient reason for them to play it.
151	*** They continued to play to get rid of the consequences of playing. When they freed Alan they also unleashed a lion, which they trapped in their Aunts bedroom.
152	** More morbidly, these children are grieving for their parents, and possibly in a bit of an abnormal mental state; Judy loves trolling people by making up elaborate lies and Peter refuses to talk to anyone. Sometimes when someone has suffered a loss or trauma, they might have the urge to do something reckless and exciting.
153	** They're also worried about Aunt Nora coming home and finding out that they're responsible for unleashing mosquitoes, monkeys and a lion. Plus, the monkeys trashed the kitchen, and they don't want to get blamed for that.
154	** Out of universe, the film is aimed mainly at children - so it's pandering to the intended audience to have the child characters be the more level-headed and sensible ones.
155
156	* How come Carl is able to drive his police car and use its brakes successfully after retrieving it from the Sir Save-A-Lot? It was brake failure that caused Alan to crash it into the store in the first place, and we're shown that the brake fluid is leaking out just before the collision.
157	** He fixes it up while in Sir Sav-A-Lot. One scene shows him filling his car with more brake fluid.
158
159	* In the animated series episode "The Law of Jumanji," Judy asks "doesn't anybody else see the unethical hypocrisy of [hunting van Pelt]?" What unethical hypocrisy is she seeing? Van Pelt is actively hunting all three of them, intending fully to murder them, has murdered an unknown number of players, and Peter and Allen, so far as they know, are responding correctly: acting to eliminate a lethal threat.
160	** Probably she sees hunting people as wrong. So hunting Van Pelt, when they've all believed that his hunting of them is wrong, is therefore hypocritical.
161	** IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim.
162
163	* Do the crocodiles eat Carl offscreen? The last time we see him (before the game resets time) he and Nora are floating down the street on the front doors, they see the crocodiles, Nora screams, but the crocodile passes her. Then, one growls at Carl and he screams. Later, when Nora comes back to the house and Peter locks her in the closet, Carl is not with her.
164	** Not necessarily. He may have been too afraid to go back to the house.
165	** Or he was washed much farther away than Nora, and encountered some other people who needed his immediate help.
166	** Crocodiles are actually ambush predators, who rely on sneaking up on their prey and catching them by surprise. A sudden increase in current wouldn't put it in the mood for catching food.
167	** Also Nora had more notice to go back, it being her house with her niece and nephew possibly in danger there.
168
169	* If Sarah hadn't been scared off by the bats and taken her next turn, what would have happened next? Would Alan have got his next turn?
170	** There's no way to know for sure. It's possible that the game would've skipped Alan's turn until someone managed to roll him out of the jungle. Or the game would've stopped altogether in the absence of more players. (''Zathura'' seems to hint toward the latter of the two, since the astronaut was unable to finish the game after wishing his little brother had never been born. But even then, it's debatable since ''he'' made his brother disappear, not the game. Jumanji might've made an exception for Alan.)
171	** Jumanji is a game for 2-4 players. If Sarah had rolled, it would have cemented that the game was 2-player, and she could have kept rolling until the dice rolled 5 or 8, for Alan to be released and join in, or to reach the end in two or three goes, when it would have been reset. However she would have had to do it alone.
172	** The rules only say that Alan has to stay in the jungle "until the dice read five or eight". It doesn't clarify whether he skips his turns in the meantime. Perhaps if Sarah rolled again it would then be Alan's turn, and the dice would simply get sucked into the jungle, and Alan would take a roll from inside the jungle.
173
174	* If the game is meant to teach its player a valuable lesson (such as Alan's was about facing his fears and confronting his father), what lessons did it teach Sarah and the kids?
175	** I don't know that the game is designed or intended strictly to teach morals. You could argue, though, that Judy learned not to cover up her emotions by lying to people and Peter learned to open up and speak to others where he didn't before - and Sara probably didn't learn anything because the game didn't call out to her to find it like it did Alan, Judy, and Peter.
176	** I think it taught Sarah to be more courageous, considering she did run out and left Alan trapped in the game for 26 years and she clearly felt regret over that for all those years. Over the course of the film she confronts and defies her fears to play the game again, stands up to Van Pelt when he steals the game and then when he has her Judy and Peter at his mercy (even though he really wanted Alan) She tries to pull Alan out of the quicksand, gets stuck in the floor with him and refuses to let him go when the house breaks into two during the earthquake and on top of it at the end of the game, she nearly takes a BULLET from Van Pelt that was meant for Alan... I would say she learned a whole lot about bravery.
177	*** You could also say that her particular lesson was about ''taking action''. One of Alan's troubles as a child was the fact that he was tormented by bullies, the lead one in particular because he had a crush on Sara, and young Sara and Alan were friends. On the fateful night they played the game, Sara had brought back the bicycle that the bully and his cronies had stolen from him, but there's no mention of her confronting said bully about taking it from Alan in the first place. One could argue that some of their troubles could be taken care of if Sara stood up to the bully alongside Alan, and that her lack of taking action enabled some of her and Alan's troubles. And throughout the game she learns to take agency for herself and not simply stand by passively while troubles affect herself and others.
178	*** She does say that she told Billy to stop picking on Allan, but who knows who assertive she was about it while doing so, and how much bravery it took when she knew that he already liked her and hated Allan.
179
180	* How did Alan manage to make contact with Judy and Peter's dad? From what we see in the movie, he never learns their last name or their parents' first names. All he knows is that their dad was in advertising which isn't nearly enough to go on.
181	** Who said he made contact with them? The movie doesn't say that he deliberately sought them out or anything. Given the hasty, reflexive, last-second nature of of Alan and Sarah urging them not to take their vacation, they probably hadn't met them in person until right then and there. Otherwise they'd have acted sooner.
182	*** But Alan says "Jim! Glad you could make it!" and says he's told him so much about Judy and Peter. You can watch the scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-dIdqQfvaE.
183	*** Fair enough, it's been a while. Still, they appear to have a business relationship, and they already have a connection to the town Alan's in. Over 30 years it wouldn't be hard to figure out -- if he indeed deliberately sought the person out. It's just as likely that they met simply because their dad is in advertising, and Alan sells a product that needs to be advertised.
184	*** Yeah, that's plausible, but given what the film as shown us so far, I wouldn't call it "just as likely". I think we're meant to assume that Alan and Sara went out of their way to meet Judy and Peter's parents.
185	*** For that matter, how did Alan and Sarah know that the Shepards' fatal car crash was during a ski trip to the Canadian Rockies? All Judy told Alan at the Parishes' grave was that their parents were dead as well and the only time the circumstances were mentioned at all in the movie was when Aunt Nora told the realtor in their introductory scene.
186	*** The simplest answer is conservation of detail. There are several points where the duo/trio/quartet travel and we don't see the entire trip. Chances are that Alan got more details during one of these trips.
187	** Alan may have missed out on the last 26 years of town events, but ''Sarah'' didn't. She may previously have heard about the accident because it involved the family of a local resident, namely Nora.
188
189	* Would Jumanji react differently to a player that genuinely enjoys the danger it introduces into their life? In all the movies so far the game seems to want to attract people who don't really have their lives together and easily find themselves in over their heads once the game starts. But would Jumanji treat a player that actually finds the whole thing fun rather than scary differently?
190	** As I understand, you want to know if the game adjusts its difficulty to a certain person? As if a 5 year old would roll something easy like monkeys or bats or even "skip the punishment" clue? It may be so, we don't know if the game is malevolent for sure, there are only speculations that the game specifically targets Alan - staying in the jungle for 26 years (the greatest ordeal of the game), Van Pelt (dangerous ONLY to Alan), quicksand (again dangerous ONLY to Alan), and the winning roll. The game itself may know somehow how evolved human you currently are, and summon the horrors accordingly. For Sarah, it were the bats (she was young and probably easily scared, not much of a danger), the plants (targeting everyone, mildly difficult), monsoon (everyone, pretty lethal with crocodiles), earthquake (everyone, dangerous, but not lethal by default); for Judy mosquitos (comatose, if not cautious), stampede (easily evaded with strafing, but dangerous to everyone else in town), turning the floor to harden (actually beneficial for everyone); Peter had monkeys (really easily evaded), lion (somehow the most dangerous for the youngest player; it may be that he was on a streak and rolled again), cheating turn (somehow justifiedly turning into monkey which isn't hindering the progress that much), giant spiders (really easily knocked back/defeated). So it may be that the younger/weaker you are, the easier to evade the danger. If a marine soldier played, his clues may include something like fighting off a grizzly, survive thunderstorm, swim away from piranhas/shark, and so on... and back to your question - if someone actually enjoyed the dangers, then the game may raise the stakes. You enjoy the danger/adrenaline? The game forces you to jump a really high waterfall, to swim really deep for some reason, send not just one man like Van Pelt, but a cavalry of soldiers/guerrilas/cannibals after you. In the movie, the game seemed to be limited to only jungle/Africa themed critters. But who's to say that it won't reach farther and send flesh eating zombies after you?
191
192	* On the board, we can clearly see the paths of the players they must go through. And sometimes the paths of two players cross so they share a square. What would happen, if two players ended up on the same square? Would [[FridgeHorror something terrible]] happen (like one of them instantly dying, parallel to taking a piece in chess)? Would they (or at least one of them) be forced to go back at the start? This territory was sadly unexplored in the film.
193
194	* I haven't grasped the whole ordeal of Peter cheating. My question is not only WHAT says he cheated, but also HOW did he cheat? The situation, as is described, is that he is 10 squares to finish Jumanji. He tries to throw 12 (we don't actually know, if you need the exact number to finish, like in some board games, or you can overshoot the number and finish nonetheless; as Alan got the exact number to finish). And he's accused of cheating by the game and by Sarah. From what I understood, it was his turn and he rolled the dice and hoped for 12, everything fair play. Am I mistaken? Did he do something like trying to physically influence the numbers? Did he try to roll multiple times? I believe the game would only register the first attempt as valid, disregarding the other attempts. Did he throw and bump the dice with his hand while they were rolling? That is pretty improbable thing to accomplish, you don't know what the numbers change to eventually, because dice roll relatively fast. Did he set the dice on their edges and just let them fall on two sixes? Would that even be counted as a throw? That would be like placing the dice on the board directly with the desired side up.
195	** He says he tried to drop the dice so they would land on twelve. So he made it so the dice were the required numbers up and dropped them onto the board, hoping that would count as a roll. So yes, it was cheating.
196
197	* The same troper of the last two questions - I came up with another, connected to the end of the last one. How does the dice rolls work actually? At the beginning, Sarah did not mean to roll the dice, she THREW them AWAY in contempt. But the game still thought that she played her move. Alan didn't mean to roll it either, he was startled by a clock sound and DROPPED them BY ACCIDENT. Yet the game still went with the roll. 26 years later, Sarah doesn't want to play and gives the dice to Alan, who TRICKS her to drop the dice on the board. At the end, Van Pelt commands Alan to DROP anything in his hand. Yes, you know it, the game counts it as a deliberate roll. Where does it end? It seems there are no rules. Yes, we know that the game is an ambiguous troll, but some rules must exist. If a person touches the dice by hands and does any movement which contains the dice being at least for a while in the air, is it considered a roll? At the scene where they run with the folded game, the dice are surely inside. If a person is holding the box and shaking it, the dice are flying in there without a doubt, until he stops moving. If it was that person's move, would the game consider it also a roll? Or is there a rule that you have to use body part to "roll" (hands, mouth, etc.)? Or it wouldn't consider it a roll, as it is folded at the time and figures can't move and nobody can read the clues?
198	** If someone drops the dice while the game is open and it's their turn, it counts as a roll.
199
200	* What would happen, if they didn't give the game a chance to summon the disasters? They always roll the dice, read the clue and then patiently wait what danger comes at them. What if they switched their turns really quickly? Roll, the figure moves, another player grabs the dice and rolls, and then another and so on, until one of them finishes. Would it be possible to [[{{Speedrun}} speedrun]] the game like this and not be endangered by the summonings? Or would the summonings just all happen with a delay? Or would the game be like ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem , and force players to have a cooldown period between rolls?
201	** The pieces seem to move very slowly so probably they'd speed out one after the other. But they likely wouldn't try that, so they can make do with one disaster at a time.
202	** They likely didn't want to risk rapidfire disasters, especially once they realized that it didn't stop at the fairly mundane monkeys, spiders and lions - all of which could be foiled by a door. Once things had ramped up to ''monsoons and earthquakes'', a bad combination of disasters back-to-back could easily kill them all. Imagine the quicksand trap combined with a flash flood or stampede.
203
204	* What's the purpose of trapping someone in the jungle? The riddle seems to suggest it could be a very long time before you're released, but Alan was only in there for 26 years because the game went on a super long hiatus. When playing "normally" surely you'd only be in there for something like 2-3 minutes tops, right? Or did [[DevelopersForesight whatever force created the board]] anticipate that games could potentially take years from start to finish?
205	** Trapping players gives the remaining participants motivation to stay and finish the game, despite all the threats it unleashes. For the person trapped, they're going to be stuck in a deadly otherworldly jungle, which is ''their'' threat to cope with, however brief or prolonged their sojourn.

Context Headscratchers / Jumanji