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Fridge: Jumanji


  • What would happen if it came to Alan's turn but he was still trapped in the jungle?
    • He gets skipped until someone frees him. Basically, a permanent "Lose a Turn" scenario.
    • He doesn't get skipped, Peter only went twice because he got doubles the first time.
  • The rules do not state that you have to roll the exact number to reach the centre square. What happens if you roll too high a number or get your piece stuck one square away (there are two dice)?
    • It probably stops when your piece reaches the centre, regardless of remaining numbers.
  • So how come nobody who tried to dispose of the game tried something more permanent like fire for burning it and reducing it to ashes?
    • It can't be destroyed because it's magic. Sometimes "A Wizard Did It" is a perfectly rational explanation.


  • The first several times I saw Jumanji, I couldn't stand the appearance of the CGI animals, which looked so cheap and fake that they detracted from an otherwise extremely engaging fantasy movie. Sure, it was only 1995 when it came out, but Jurassic Park had far superior CGI two years earlier. It wasn't until recently that I realized the animals are supposed to look fake and slightly misty—it marks them as supernaturally created intruders in the real world! —Karalora
    • Not only that, but they came out of a board game. A board game that would have all of its images painted on it. And the game is also very old. Hence, the animals looking more fake and faded!
  • Some other Brilliance: the reason they used the same actor to play Alan's father and the hunter is because 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 when 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 of the dice is still rolling as Alan and Van Pelt have their final showdown. It isn't until he stands up to the hunter, 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.
    • His final line ("Finally you're talking like a man"), which would fit perfectly in a father-to-son talk, further hints that he's just playing his part in the game as an ordeal for Alan.
    • Slightly unrelated, but I'm sure the creators said once it was a reference to how in Peter Pan productions, the actor to play Wendy's father would always be the same actor who played Captain Hook... probably for some similar, "it's all a dream"-like reason.
  • The reset to 1969 happens because the game is calling back everything released while Alan and everyone were playing. Including the bats Sarah let out on her first turn, which, given the relatively short life cycle of a bat, would have been long dead in 1995.
    • And yet, they were briefly encountered in the attic in 1995. Game constructs don't have to conform to real-life lifespans, I don't think. More likely, the game calls back all EVENTS that it caused, from when they first rolled.
  • What happens if one of the players gets killed? What happens if all but one of the players gets killed? What happens if you get sucked into the game but you don't get out before its conclusion? What happens if ALL the players get killed? Does it stop the game? Are you stuck forever? Will the animals stay? Will it reset without them? It's a big question, and nobody's entirely sure of the answer. Which is why it's so important to survive and beat the game - NOBODY WANTS TO FIND OUT.
    • However, look at some of the ridiculously close calls throughout the film. Alan being pulled out of the game at the same time as a lion, who would have easily mauled the two defenseless children otherwise. Absolutely EVERY shot Van Pelt makes at Alan misses by a hair, along with him running out of ammo just when it seems he has him in his sights. And note, Van Pelt is a deadly good shot, as seen when he shoots the small lock off fthe tire stand in Sir-Sav-Alot or tips his gun with only a second's glance to quickly shoot the light fixture above Carl's head. Furthermore the stampede bursting through the wall just as the group exits the room, and rushing past where Peter was fleeing them before getting pulled to safety by Alan in the nick of time. Later, during the stampede through town, Peter takes shelter in someone's abandoned car, only to have it be meticulously crushed by several animals— but only to the point that it pins him down, rather than turning him into a Peter-Sandwich. Then when Judy, Peter, and Sarah are cornered by Van Pelt, Alan unintentionally and unknowingly crashes his commandeered police cruiser into the shelf of paint cans, toppling them only onto Van Pelt. Miraculously, no one else is harmed by his blind drive through the store, without brakes. Several instances of extreme good fortune occur during the monsoon seen, involving the crocodiles. First off, when the group is climbing onto the table to get out of the water, Peter (who is a supreme cheater of death, among other things) starts slipping in and is pulled back by Alan before one of the crocodiles emerges to make a snap at the spot he was a mere moment before. Then, after a sudden tip of the chandelier they were taking refuge on sends Peter back into the water, he is once again pulled out by Alan a split second before another crocodile gobbles up the air he had once been occupying (in addition, Alan pull's Peter out by his tail, which he would not have had if Jumanji hadn't started turning him into a monkey hours earlier for cheating. In other words, if Peter hadn't been turned into a monkey, he would have been dead, as every other part of him was submerged.) And in the game's finale, Judy is poisoned by a plant (and possibly dies, but that's never stated for certain, she may have just lost consciousness.) just a turn before the one that wins the game. Lastly, the elements of the game being sucked back into the board just before Van Pelt's bullet hits Alan directly in the head. In conclusion, Jumanji controls everything, and sets everything up so that none of the players die, or at least not until the home stretch. It throws the players in life-threatening situations only to save them by the skin of their teeth by tipping the scales ever so slightly. Jumanji: A game for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind. Not a game for those who seek to die very quickly and painfully.
    • Given that Jumanji is a board game, with multiple players, it is likely that it is played as a competitive match. the losers gain nothing, but the winners get everything. Those who won are those who make it out of the game with their lives, those who lose are those who died in the process. If you Die in the game, you lose your play and your game-piece is reverted backward. no other player can enter the play (which differs from being Stuck in the game, which means that if you're stuck in Jumanji, your turn is passed until someone rolls 5 or 8. But if you manage to live through until someone reaches "Jumanji" then those who remain alive get to witness time reverse back to where it all started. The prize is being given the time you lost playing the game, and coming out with the lessons that you learned. those who lost, cannot remember the events from the game. Then if all the players Die, then Jumanji would not revert back, and a swarm of unstoppable beasts and plagues would consume the world the players held in their hearts- "A game to leave your world behind" - the entire town in Jumanji would become a world left behind in chaos and destruction.
  • this Troper always wondered why Aunt Nora couldn't hear Jumanji's drums, then the introduction to the game made sense. Allan was angry at his parents, Sarah was annoyed by the actions of Allan's bullies, Judy and Peter were introverted after their parents death, Of course they would want to 'leave their world behind."
    • Considering what we see it's entirely possible it might just go after children. After all Nora doesn't seem much happier with the situation than Judy and Peter.
  • The owner of the gun store who was so ready to chuck aside the various regulations on purchasing firearms in exchange for shiny gold pieces. It's played for laughs in the movie, but it's still quite illegal of him, but the store owner gets his payback in the fact that unless he cashed those gold coins quickly, they definitely disappeared along with everything else from the game, leaving him less one weapon, some ammo, and without any money in exchange for either, because of his greed for gold.
    • However since finishing the game reverts everything to how it was before it started he never sold the gun in the first place. Hell, he probably doesn't even work at the gun shop the second time around.


  • What would've happened if one of the others tried to cheat? Would THEY have become more like THEIR tokens? I mean, one of the pieces was an elephant!
  • Just think, if Alan hadn't gotten that roll at the end, then they would have never finished the game. Judy was dead at that point, so once it's her turn it's GAME OVER.
    • There's a lot of debate on that. Jumanji is a game that wants to be played. Only when the game reaches its end will the exciting consequences return to normal... but if somebody were to die, would the game freeze? Or maybe you could continue without them, but upon the rewind they would not be there, but in the game forever? Or maybe you just need to end the game to bring them back with a reset? So far, nobody's wanted to find out...
    • It wouldn't have gotten to Judy's turn in any case. Alan was three spaces from the end: the only way for him not to win with that roll was if he got a two, and that would mean doubles and another turn. His victory was inevitable with his next turn unless HE got killed first (which makes the issue about his fate, not Judy's).
      • The problem is, Alan may have had to land by exact count. In the game Sorry, you had to do just that for the home space. Jumanji probably had a similar rule seeing as the movie's pacing made a big deal of whether the second die would land on a 2. However, the game IS able to think, and as suggested above in the Brilliance section, it probably had control of THAT to begin with.
      • There was a drama over rolling a 2 because they couldn't retrieve that die anyway, not necessarily because an exact roll was required. Although that brings up potentially WORSE horror. How many board games do you own that you haven't lost pieces of? Aw, the hippo is missing! suddenly becomes a lot less funny.
  • What would happen if all the main players died before they could complete the game? Would the game be still 'frozen' and the jungle animals prowl the city forever?
    • My guess is that the game would reset its pieces, but not necesserily bring back the escaped animals, since the players are still dead so time cannot rewind. Alan's town would turn into the jungle. That is why it is so important to finish the game.
  • If neither Judy nor Peter had rolled a 5 or 8 on the first turn, even if the game had skipped over Alan's turn because he was still in the jungle, it would be Sarah's turn... with no way for Judy or Peter to know whose turn it was. From their perspective, the game would be stuck.
    • The game probably knew that Sarah would be inaccessible without Alan so it made sure to free him.
    • 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 is because Alan actually knows about Sarah and thus there is a way for her to roll.
  • For the animated series, in the final episode Alan learns and solves his clue, then leaves the game as an adult. There's no going back in time, 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.
  • When Alan and Sarah go back in time to their young selves, they still have all their memories from those 26 years. Sarah remembers all the time she spent in therapy and Alan remembers those years in the jungle.
    • Not necessarily. When they have their first kiss at the bridge, Sarah makes mention of their memories fading, particularly in the context of wanting to kiss him before she forgot what it was like to be an adult. They later know about Judy and Peter's parents, but that could have been covered by writing the information down before they forgot, then referring to it in the future to help them locate them.
      • Forgetting what something feels like isn't quite the same as forgetting about something completely. Think about it, you grow up and you forget what it felt like to be a kid. That doesn't mean you forget what happened to you as a kid. This is the same, only inverted. Thus, how they knew about Judy and Peter, as well as their parent's fated accident.
    • Does this mean that Judy and Peter retain their memories too? That would mean they were conceived and born as fully-formed minds, Dune suggests that this is a very bad thing.
      • The ending of the film indicated that Judy and Peter didn't remember anything.
  • The French children at the end. They presumably don't know English, so they wouldn't be able to read the game's clues. (Or the rules, for that matter.) They would have absolutely no way of knowing what was coming.
    • The only lettering on the game is JUMANJI. The words that come up in the crystal ball probably adapt themselves to language.
  • All that happened to Sarah after the game. Can you imagine being a young girl who saw her best friend get graphically sucked into a board game then be chased by bats for who knows how long? And then when you try to explain what happened, having no one believe you? She says that she spent thousands of dollars on therapy, trying to convince herself that what she saw happen didn't really happen? And then after all those years of trying to force what happened out of her mind, to see Alan on her doorstep.
  • Who created the game in the first place?!
  • Alan needed someone to roll a five or an eight in order to free him from the board. Since it was only Sarah and himself playing originally, imagine what would have happened if Sarah had rolled again and she didn't get the number needed to free Alan. The game would've probably been stalemated and Alan would've been stuck in there forever. It was a damn lucky thing that Judy and Peter had started playing and managed to free Alan.
    • Fridge Brilliance: If Jumanji works like most games players who are "out" are simply skipped and play continues. Even if Sarah never rolled doubles if she kept playing rather than running away Alan would have been released when the game ended.
  • There's a card in the real life board game that becomes the most horrifying prospect of all if it too is a random roll in-universe. To draw this card is dreadful news. The game is done. All players lose.
    • Not quite. In the real-life game, there is a set of ten empty spaces on one side of the board. When the players (as a team) fail to dodge the hazard on the card (by all rolling either a designated symbol or a wild hourglass within eight seconds), that card is placed on one of those spaces. The tenth space reads, "A card placed here brings dreadful news. The game is done. All players lose!" Just to drive the point home, that space also has one of those yellow flesh-eating plants from the movie. (The real-life game's instruction sheet suggests adding a Self-Imposed Challenge by placing up to six cards on those spaces at the beginning.)

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