Jumanji
Book By: Chris Van Allsburg, 1981
Movie: TriStar Pictures, 1995
Jumanji is a story about a board game that is different than most. This board game fills the house with wild animals and adventures. The book and the movie shared some similarities and lots of differences.
The Book:
In the book two children are looking for something to do because their parents have gone out and they are bored. They go to the park and find Jumanji, a board game underneath of a tree. Judy, the girl, decides you wants to take it home and play it, so she convinces her brother Peter to join her. They soon realize that although the game looks a lot like the other games they have, it is really much different. In this game, animals appear and real life things happen based on what the board says. Peter and Judy play the game and encounter the lion first. The lion appears on the piano and chases Peter and Judy. Next, they come into contact with monkeys in their kitchen. After the monkeys, they roll the dice and find that their next adventure brings a monsoon through their home. Once this occurs, they continue to quickly roll the dice to move through the game and meet a tour guide who is lost. Then a tsetse fly appears and sends Peter into a deep sleep. Judy quickly rolls to keep things moving. She brings a pack of rhinos through the house, followed by a python, and then a volcanic eruption. Finally, the children realize that if a twelve is rolled the game will be over. To their surprise, the twelve is rolled and with a cool breeze the house is back to normal again. The children decide to take the game back where they found it.
The movie is much different than the book. The game concepts are kept the same in the movie as in the book. In the movie and the book, the game had to be played until it was finished for it to end. In both of them there is a lion that appears on a piano, monsoons, monkeys in the kitchen, and rhinos. Not to mention, in both someone has to roll a twelve to conclude the game. However, in the movie the twelve does not get rolled. There are many differences between the book and the movie. The book makes the game seem fun and interesting. The movie makes the game out to be a dreaded curse that should be avoided at all costs. In the movie, Peter and Judy are not the first to play the game and they do not live with their parents.
In the movie, it begins in the year 1869 with two boys, Caleb and Benjamin, burying the game. Then it flashes forward to 1969 and introduces Alan Parrish. Alan finds the game in a building lot and takes it home. He has an upsetting fight with his parents and tells them that he doesn't plan on speaking with them ever again. His parents leave to go out and as Alan packs to run away someone comes to visit him. Sarah, a friend from school arrives, he asks her to play the game he has found, Jumanji. She teases him that games are for kids, and throws the dice down, which involves her in the game. Immediately bats start flying through the air and Sarah panics. Alan rolls and gets banished to the jungle, the game pulls him into thin air. Sarah, shocked and horrified runs from the house. The movie flashes forward again to 1995 and introduces Peter and Judy (the original book characters). Only this time, Peter and Judy are living with their aunt because their mother and father were killed in an automobile accident. Peter and Judy find Jumanji in the attic of their new house (the old Parrish place) and decide to play. Unlike the book, the game sends out a drumming beat to lure children to it, adults cannot hear the noise. Peter and Judy realize the game was more than they bargained for when giant mosquitoes attempt to attack them after the first role. Soon after they realize that they must play the whole game to end it. Peter and Lucy experience the same adventures as the children in the book did, just with different animals and in a different order. For Peter and Judy, the monkeys appear in the kitchen (just like the book) after the mosquitoes. After the monkeys, the lion on the piano appears, but so does Alan. He is released from the game because Peter and Judy rolled a five or an eight. The kids convince him that he has to play with them after they help him find out his parents are no longer alive and their only hope for ending the game is if he plays. Alan decides that they also need Sarah to play too. They find Sarah who is very relentless about not playing, but they force her to anyway. Unlike in the book, the next hurdle to cross are large vines and poisonous plants that fill the house. After the next roll, a hunter appears and spends quite a long time trying to kill Alan. In the book, a tour guide shows up, not a hunter. In the movie, there was a need for something more dramatic, so a violent hunter was added in. Next, a stampede of rhinos, zebras, and other animals trample through the house and around the town. In the book, the animals stayed in the house, in the movie the animals, vines, and water spread throughout town, wreaking havoc everywhere. At some point in all of this, Peter is turned into a monkey, which does not happen in the book. As the movie nears its end, a monsoon is released (which appeared in the book as well), then Alan gets stuck in quicksand with Sarah, and soon after that large spiders attack. The quicksand and spiders were not mentioned in the book. Finally, the hunter reveals himself again and fires a shot at Alan, but before the shot can strike Alan the dice rolls and the game ends.
The movie is of course much more theatrical and detailed than the book. The movie takes the book to new heights and lengths by adding a deeper storyline, more characters, and more action. Although, the names, the game, and some of the adventures stayed the same, a lot of new things were added to make this a very entertaining film. I enjoyed the book and the movie and would recommend them.
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