History Film / Zathura

* OneWordVocabulary: Sort of. The robot seems capable of speaking only ''five'' words, not just one.
-->'''EMERGENCY: ALIEN LIFEFORM. MUST DESTROY.'''

[[caption-width-right:300:Working Title: [[RecycledInSpace Jumanji in Space]].]]

* SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay: For starters, there is oxygen and gravity (unless for the latter, you attempt cheating).

* LuckBasedMission: To get home, you must complete the game by spins. The only real skill comes with surviving whatever horrors the game warps into existence with each turn

* LuckBasedMission: To get home, you must complete the game by spins.

** The game knows when someone is cheating (deliberately or inadvertently so) and takes steps to punish those who do so...[[spoiler:by throwing them out into space to die.]]

*** When helping them get rid of the Zorgons for the first time, he tells Walter to go into the basement and turn off the furnace, despite having no possible way of knowing that the house even has a basement. [[spoiler: Except he does, because he lived in the very same house a long time ago.]]

* ItCanThink: Zathura, the eponymous board game.

** The game knows when someone is cheating (deliberately or inadvertently so) and takes steps to punish those who do so...[[spoiler:...by throwing them out into space to die.]]

* 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'' trapped inside a magic board game.

* 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 even be affected by the intense heat of being that close to a blazing hot celestial object. Probably justified however as they ''are'' trapped inside a magic board game.

* 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 and severely affected by the star's gravitational pull, neither the house nor anybody in it seems to even be affected by the intense heat of being that close to a blazing hot celestial object. Probably justified however as they ''are'' trapped inside a magic board game.

* 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 it's AI that is.]]

* OneWordTitle: ''Zathura'' (unless you count the subtitle, ''A Space Adventure.''

* OneWordTitle

-->'''EMERGENCY'''
-->'''ALIEN LIFEFORM. MUST DESTROY'''

* AIIsACrapShoot: The robot summoned by Walter is apparently supposed to protect humans from potential alien threats. 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.

* AIIsACrapShoot: The robot summoned by Walter is apparently supposed to protect humans from potential alien threats. 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.

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

* RaygunGothic: The eponymous board game is full of it. {{Retro Rocket}}s, [[TheReptilians Reptilians]], robots and astronauts with [[RocketBoots jet packs]], etc.

* TheReptilians: The Zorgons are large raptor-esque lizard aliens.

* SkewedPriorities: Walter and Danny both realize everything will “reset” no matter who reaches the end first, but when Walter notices Danny’s piece somehow got ahead of his he acts like Danny cheated and that the situation they are in is just a game instead of life and death. If anything Danny being ahead was a good thing because they were both closer to the end, but all Walter cared about was that he was behind because Danny “cheated.”
** It all adds up if one assumes Walter genuinely believes Danny cheated and that the magical game will punish them for it.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler: 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.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zathura_poster.jpg]]

* AdaptationExpansion: The boys gain a sister and an experienced astronaut mentor in the film, among other things.
* AerosolFlamethrower: When Lisa gets frozen by the "cryonic sleep" card, Walter tries to thaw her with a flamethrower improvized from one of her cans of hair spray.