History Fridge / Jumanji

* When Alan rolls the dice and gets the message "A hunter from the darkest wild, makes you feel like a child". He immediately associates it with Van Pelt and becomes terrified. Aside from his connection to Alan's dad, Van Pelt has no real-life equivalent so how would Alan recognize him so quickly? Well, he's been trapped in the game for 26 years and spent his time in the game with the animals and beings that would be summoned when a player rolls the dice. It's not hard to believe that Van Pelt would spend his time in limbo hunting the animals for fun and would have encountered Alan during his entrapment.

* If you wondered why Aunt Nora couldn't hear Jumanji's drums, consider the players' introduction to the game: Allan was angry at his parents, Sarah was annoyed by the actions of Allan's bullies, and Judy and Peter became introverted after their parents' death. Of course they would want to "leave their world behind".

* Van Pelt's name can be seen as an IncrediblyLamePun. He is a hunter, and one of the things hunters do is to gather pelts. However, Van Pelt is also a real Dutch surname that originates in the city of Pelt in Belgium (it literally means "From Pelt"). Now what is the historical Belgian jungle experience [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Humanitarian_disaster infamous for]]?

** [[AllThereInTheManual According to a shooting draft of the first script]], the weapon is a 6 gauge shotgun - a caliber used for lions, buffalos, rhinos and elephants. This only underscores how dangerous Van Pelt is - he's a hunter of incredibly dangerous beasts and got to late middle age.

*** Due to Alan's disappearance, a nasty rumor floated in the town that Alan's father murdered his son and hid his body in the mansion. Guess what Van Pelt's main objective was?

* We take it for granted that Alan was still in his family home when he got out of the game in 1995, but imagine for a moment if the game had been given to someone else, or much like at the start and end of the movie, thrown away and forgotten about? Alan's situation is already difficult enough, just imagine it all happening in a country that doesn't speak English, maybe on the other side of the planet entirely

* We see at the end, after the timeline reset, that Alan's father Sam returned home only a few minutes after he left to grab his speech notes. Consider what must have happened in the original timeline from Sam's perspective: he comes home, finds his son is nowhere to be seen, and probably assumes he's off sulking in his room. He goes out to his party, comes home again... and sees he still can't find Alan. Imagine the moment as the realisation comes crashing down on him, knowing that the first time he was home, he might have only just missed Alan leaving, and he may have been able to find him... but by the time he got home later, it was far too late. No wonder he was so desperate to find Alan, he probably feels guilty over both the argument and missing him leaving

** In the series after getting out of the jungle briefly Alan threatens to do exactly that, and Jumanji immediately sends him back to the jungle. Presumably it simply won't let it's players or anyone else do that.

* Some other Brilliance: the reason they used the same actor to play Alan's father and the hunter is that the hunter is the representation of Alan's way to deal with problems, to run away and not face them, as well as the fact that he has a bit of an antagonistic relation with his father. It isn't until he realises that his father, despite everything, loved him with all his heart - to the point of bankrupting his own factory in order to find him - that he finally begins to take a stand, and the moment he faces his biggest fear and faces it head-on instead of just running away is the moment he finally wins. Who says that the Jumanji game wasn't "cheating" so that it ended in the moment Alan finally learned his lesson?
** As further evidence of this: one die is still rolling as Alan and Van Pelt have their final showdown. It isn't until he stands up to the hunter and faces his fears that the die lands and gives him the correct number to reach Jumanji--as in, he won ''because'' he stood up to Van Pelt.

*** Don't forget the game's description of Van Pelt: "He makes you ''feel like a child."

** All these points (and the fact that the one we see in ''Film/JumanjiWelcomeToTheJungle'' is entirely different, to the point he is played by a different actor) to the fact that, at least, Jumanji Based *this* incarnation of Van Pelt off Alan's own father, which raises this question: [[FridgeHorror How were "other" version's of Van Pelt personalized to certain players who summoned him while playing the game?]]

!!Animated Series:
* In the movie, the kids meet Alan when he gets out of the game after 26 years. In the animated series, which runs on AlternateContinuity, the kids get sucked into the game and meet Alan there, having been trapped for 23 years. But after three seasons, Alan is released for good. Thus, Alan gets out of the game, both in the movie and the series, after 26 years.
* In the animated series episode "El Pollo Jumanji", the BarbaricBully Rock has the time of his life in Jumanji, to the point that Alan speculates that the game is purposely playing dangers easy for him. When the Manjis capture Rock, they ask Peter if Rock is his friend. He tells them he isn't, and they proceed to cook him, forcing the trio to save him. The "easy pass" given to Rock earlier seems a deliberate move by Jumanji to feed Peter's jealousy and hate for him so he could sell him to the Manjis and either cause his death (if that's what Jumanji wants to do with its players), or teach Peter a life lesson about pardon and showing kindness to everyone including your enemies (if that's what Jumanji is actually about).
* It has been heavily foreshadowed what Alan's clue was. The episode where Alan got bit by a centipede bite has Judy almost figured out what his clue was until she had no choice in order to save Alan. However unknowingly, Alan had already solved what he has to do and he didn't know it. He leap into death to save a life.
* Tribal Bob is at his most noble yet when he slips a clue to Peter to save Alan. Possibly since Peter became a Manji, Bob and the other Manjis may have been other players but tragically stuck here forever. However what's touching is that Bob's rage against the villains may have been more than just being bullied but remembered a time when his own friends were killed by this game. He rallied his tribe to stop them from harming Judy and Peter in order for them to fulfill what they couldn't.

** It would have skipped Sarah again. It was still Sarah's turn by the time Judy and Peter find the game, but it skipped her because there was no possible way at the time for her to roll. If Alan did not come back, Jumanji most likely would have skipped Sarah again because there would still not be a way for her to roll. The reason it won't let Judy roll again after Alan is free isthat Alan actually knows about Sarah, thus there is a way for her to roll.

* Animated series: in the final episode [[spoiler:Alan learns and solves his clue, then leaves the game as an adult. There's no rollback, like in the movie. That means Judy and Peter's parents are ''still dead'', since they were living with their aunt in the series as well.]]

* Alan repeatedly displays his expertise about the threats which the game conjures up. In particular, he offers detailed warnings about what stimulates the carnivorous vines to attack and which parts of them are dangerous. Just how many close calls did young Alan have, while he was "waiting" in the jungle, to have acquired so much knowledge?
* In the series, Jumanji seems to have fondness towards Alan, Judy and Peter as it subtly helps them to complete their clues or get them out of sticky situations. However the other kids after Alan and before Judy and Peter weren't so lucky. Makes you wonder what did these kids do that would infuriate Jumanji so much that it willingly allowed its players to be mounted on Van Pelt's walls, eaten by Lions etc.

* In the series Van Pelt is supposedly killed and his killer slowly becomes more and more homicidal until they are the next Van Pelt. What if that is true of the Van Pelt we see? The man we see little more than a meat puppet for the Van Pelt persona simply passed from player to player for all eternity?

** All these points (and the fact that the one we see in ''Film/JumanjiWelcomeToTheJungle'' is entirely different, to the point he is played by a different actor) to the fact that, at least, Jumanji Based *this* incarnation of Van Pelt off Alan's own father, which raises this question: [[FridgeHorror How was "other" version's of Van Pelt personalized to certain players who summoned him while playing the game?]]

** All these points (and the fact that the one we see in ''Film/JumanjiWelcomeToTheJungle'' is entirely different, to the point he is played by a different actor) to the fact that, at least, Jumanji Based *this* incarnation of Van Pelt off Alan's own father, which raises this question: [FridgeHorror How was "other" version's of Van Pelt personalized to certain players who summoned him while playing the game?]

** It gets ''even worse'' if we assume these empty spaces were also present in the fictional version of the game from the film and our heroes just managed to avoid them by pure luck. If Alan, Sarah, Judy, or Peter happened to roll on one of these spaces, [[NothingIsScarier what would've happened to them]]?

** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Would a player cheat on purpose just to become an alligator?]]