History Film / Zathura

** Walter, at first. He is entirely uninterested in doing anything with Danny, and even turns off Danny's UsefulNotes/PlayStation to watch ''Series/SportsCenter''.

* WhatBeautifulEyes: Lisa at one point gushes over the Astronaut's eyes...too bad he's [[SurpriseIncest her brother]] all grown up.

** Lisa comments that her crush The Astronaut is very protective of her, Danny and Walter and that she feels really safe around him. [[spoiler:She should. He's her brother]].

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Sure, Walter's having a hard time because his parent's are divorced, but that doesn't give him any good excuse to blame everything on his little brother Danny.

*** When the Astronaut asks whose turn was it that wished him, The Astronaut has this to say to Walter

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Sure Walter's having a hard time because his parent's are divorced but that doesn't give him any good excuse to blame everything on his little brother Danny.

* AngerBornOfWorry: The Astronaut yells at Walter after Danny seemingly disappears from the wish. Only because he didn't want Walter [[spoiler:to make the same mistake he did with the wish years ago: ''wishing that his little brother had never born'']].

* SurpriseIncest: Lisa is obviously attracted to the astronaut before she finds out he's a future version of her brother Walter.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The results of Walter wishing away Danny in the first timeline are very ambiguous. It's never explicitly mentioned where Danny was sent, nor is it mentioned what happened to Lisa or what occurred in the real world while Walter was gone. Though it's possible the timeline was erased once everything was restored.]] It's completely left up to the audience what happened to the game after the movie's events.

* AngerBornOfWorry: The Astronaut yells at Walter after Danny seemingly disappears from the wish. Only because he didn't want Walter to make the same mistake he did with the wish years ago: ''wishing that his little brother had never born''.

* Not a Morning Person: Lisa is introduced lying in bed well past the break of dawn, looking relatively disheveled, and behaving irritably when her dad wakes her up to give her babysitting orders. Afterward, she goes back to bed for the next several scenes and sleeps through the house being launched into space. This is apparently normal for her, given how her brothers beg their dad not to wake her up on their behalf and are nervous about waking her up themselves.

* SirSwearsalot: Danny is quite foul-mouthed for a six-year old.

* MonsterDelay: {{Zigzagged}}:

* BrotherSisterIncest: Lisa develops a crush on the hunky astronaut, who turns out to be an older version of one of her ''brothers'', and once she learns this, she is understandably squicked out.

* ConvectionShmonvection: At one point, the house passes close by what appears to be a star after Danny takes a turn. Despite being close enough to be caught in the star's gravitational pull, neither the house nor anybody in it seems to be affected by the intense heat of being that close to a blazing hot celestial object. Probably justified however as they ''are'' currently trapped inside a magic board game.

!!This film provides examples of:
* ActorAllusion: Perhaps it was unintentional, but:
-->'''Walter:''' I'm not mean, Danny, I'm in fourth grade, [[Film/LittleManhattan I have a girlfriend.]]

* AIIsACrapShoot: The robot summoned by Walter is apparently supposed to protect humans from hostile aliens. Unfortunately, it's AI is defective and it can't differentiate Walter from an alien. This causes it to [[TheDeterminator relentlessly]] try to kill Walter until he uses a special card that reprograms it into ignoring him and attacking the Zorgons instead.

** Their older sister Lisa zigzags this. She is grouchy the first time she interacts with them, but they had just woken her up while talking really fast at the same time, confusing her, and she thought it was night out and she's missed a date, and afterwards she mostly subverts this and shows some BigSisterInstinct

* AnAesop: The Astronaut delivers a helpful one to Walter and Danny: "There's just some games you can't play alone and you must work together as a team". The brothers have spent a majority of their time together fighting. It's only thanks to the board game and The Astronaut did they learn that they have to put aside their petty sibling rivalry and work together as a family to survive.

** Walter doesn't have much of one to begin with, considering Danny a nuisance, but it develops as the movie goes on. At a dramatically appropriate moment, he assures Danny, "I'll never let anything happen to you, because that's what being a brother means", and thereafter does his best to live up to it.

* BondOneLiner: Lisa, after crushing a Zorgon with a piano, "LISA...is upstairs!".

** Lisa's compliment about her crush The Astronaut's gorgeous eyes. [[spoiler: Little did anyone know was that The Astronaut was actually Lisa's brother Walter from an alternate timeline. Much to her disgust]]. When everything goes back to normal and the siblings leave to their mother's car, Walter jokes about it to Lisa, which earns him a Death Glare from her: [[spoiler: "Still think I have gorgeous eyes]]?".

* TheCameo: Creator/TimRobbins has a cameo as Walter and Danny's father.

-->'''Danny:''' [[SurvivalMantra "It's not a goat! ]][[MadnessMantra It's not a goat!"]]

* DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler: Danny appears to be the main character--much of the film focuses on his perspective, not to mention it's Danny who first starts the game. Turns out Walter/the Astronaut's actions have far more impact than Danny's.]]
* TheDeterminator: Absolutely nothing will stop the robot from killing Walter. Not the gravitational pull of a star, getting stuck in a wall or falling down the stairs and being put out of commission for several hours. So long as the robot is active, it has one singular objective: ''Alien lifeform, must destroy''. [[spoiler: Until Walter uses the reprogram card on it and reboots its AI, that is.]]

** Upon the revelation that ''Film/{{Zathura}}'' is a black hole, Lisa attempts to carry him to safety, only for them and Danny to get sucked into it as the game resets both itself and time upon the latter winning it near the end of the film.

* {{Expy}}: Some of the characters in the movie share elements of the characters from Jumanji.

** Lisa is like Sarah Whittle: (1) being the fourth member to help complete the game and (2) filling in as the love interest role for The Astronaut like Sarah Whittle to Alan Parrish. Except [[spoiler: they're actually siblings but she doesn't know that]].

-->'''Walter:''' ''(Immediately gesturing to Danny with his head)'' [[TheStoolPigeon He did.]]\\

** When after insisting on allowing the astronaut to stay against his wishes, [[spoiler: Walter asks Danny, "Whose brother are you, his or mine?" [[TheReveal The correct answer is both.]]]]
** The astronaut's story about how he played the game with his brother, and accidentally erased his brother from existance by wishing on a shooting star; the way the astronaut is certain that Walter has wished for the same thing foreshadows [[spoiler:them being the same person]].
** The astronaut mentions that [[spoiler: he passed through time to get here]]. It's treated as a joke, until you realize that [[spoiler: the astronaut is Walter]].

** Lisa comments that her crush The Astronaut is very protective of her, Danny and Walter and that she feels really safe around him. [[spoiler: She should. He's her brother]].

** The game's ultimate goal is to get to Zathura, represented on the board as a black ball with the letter Z on it. [[spoiler:In space a 'black ball' generally means only one thing: a black hole. Even when they reach it on the board, said black ball spins and 'floats' for a little while, with spark effects that make it heavily resemble the real thing they're about to encounter, also making it FiveSecondForeshadowing]].

* FusionDance: [[spoiler: When present-day Walter wishes the astronaut had his brother back, a second Danny appears, leading into the reveal of the astronaut's true identity as an alternate timeline version of Walter. The two Dannys then merge just by touching, and the older Walter fuses into his younger self in much the same manner shortly after.]]

* IHatePastMe: [[spoiler: The astronaut is noticeably a lot harder on Walter than he is on Danny. At first it seems because this is simply due to Danny "rolling" him out of the game, but it's actually because the astronaut is a time-looped older version of Walter, who in his timeline wished his brother out of existence in anger after an argument and regretted it ever since. After years of reflection--and the fact that he can't continue the game since it was Danny's turn after he made the wish--he's more than a little resentful towards his past self's brotherly callousness, but ends up being very proud that the current Walter learned his lesson where he did not.]]

** It knows whose turn it is to play and refuses to let anyone else press the button and make it work. [[spoiler: The Astronaut/Walter shot himself in the foot with this one in an alternate past, as he wished his version of Danny out of existence but became trapped in the game forever as a result, because it was his brother's turn.]]
** The game knows when someone is cheating (deliberately or inadvertently so) and takes steps to punish those who do...[[spoiler:by throwing them out into space to die.]]

* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: Walter and Danny both mutally agree that wishing for a football and everything in Zathura never happened in the first place. Lisa invokes this trope at the end.

* MinimalistCast: Five main characters--Walter, Danny, The Astronaut, Lisa, and Dad. [[spoiler: Technically, four main characters, since Walter and The Astronaut are the same person.]] And a few guys in alien costumes. That's pretty minimal.

-->'''Lisa:''' Oh my God! And I wanted to...

* PeopleInRubberSuits: The Zorgons are portrayed by people in lizard-man costumes (but [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools well-made and convincing costumes]], so you're not that likely to notice.) The robot is also a person in a suit, although its various appendages were added in CGI.

* PointOfNoReturn: As soon as you start playing the game, you aren’t allowed to stop until the game is finished. [[spoiler: This turns out to be the reason why the astronaut is eternally lost in space.]]

* RewatchBonus: The second time you watch the movie, you'll realize that [[spoiler: the astronaut being Walter]] is {{foreshadow|ing}}ed all throughout the film.

** The astronaut [[spoiler: is a former player--in fact, he's actually Walter, who wished away Danny only to find he couldn't complete the game without him.]]

* RiddleForTheAges: What exactly gives Zathura its reality warping abilities? Who made the game and why? How did it end up in the basement of their father's house? None of these questions are ever given any explanation.
* RunningGag: Walter says something won’t work and [[TemptingFate it ends up working anyways]].

* TelescopingRobot: The robot from the game as it starts out small but then rapidly grows into a human sized killing machine.

* ThrownOutTheAirlock: [[AC: Caught Cheating. Automatic Ejection.]] Walter is instantly tossed through the hole in the ceiling, but manages to hang on by his fingertips long enough for the astronaut to get his jetpack set up to rescue him. Fortunately, SpaceIsAir, so he's fine.
* TimeyWimeyBall: So, the first time he played the game, Walter never met an older astronaut, and he was stuck in space after wishing his brother away. The "second" time, which was actually the same time, they ''did'' roll up an astronaut for some reason, and things turned out differently. Or else they already met the astronaut the first time, when Walter wished his brother away, and no one knows where he went, leaving Walter alone in space till he was rolled up himself. (Also note: the astronaut quoted the card that rolled him up, so he seems to have seen it before). Another example: If the game granted the wish that the brother had never been born, he wouldn't have been the second player, so the game shouldn't have become unplayable. Furthermore, since the brother wouldn't have been there to start the game, the whole game should have been undone.

* WhamLine: When Danny sees another version of himself after Danny makes a wish to help the Astronaut.
-->'''Danny:''' You wished for ''two'' of me?
-->'''Walter:''' No, I-I-I wished for The Astronaut to have his brother back...

-->'''Danny:''' ''(frightened)'' IT'S A BLACK HOLE! ZATHURA IS A BLACK HOLE!
* WhamShot: Walter wishes for the Astronaut to get his brother back. Said brother appears in a flash of light and it is revealed to be Danny because the [[MyFutureSelfAndMe Astronaut is a grown up version of Walter]].

-->''"Pieces reset at the end of each game. Play again and again for different adventures."''