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Jumanji
37 Plays1 year ago
A discussion of the book and 1995 film Jumanji.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Letters and Legends' and Jumanji Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Letters and Legends. I'm your host, Trevor Maloof. This show is about history, literature, mythology, and everything in between. In this episode, I spoke with Zeb Girard about Jumanji. Here's our discussion. Okay. We are joined by Zeb Girard talking to us about Jumanji. Hi, Zeb. Hi, Trevor. Pretty excited about this one. Thank you for joining me.
00:00:30
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Okay, so let's get right to it because we love Jumanji.
The Challenge of Adapting Jumanji
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm going to try to approach this like it's a serious subject, a historical moment in time, but we know that it's not really, but it did happen. And it was a big part of our lives as kids. So in that way, we're going to treat it as such. Yeah, that seems fair.
00:00:56
Speaker
going to talk about the book and the movie, but there's this other thing that we need to discuss that's sort of like the little isthmus that's connecting the two. And that isthmus is the absurdity of trying to make a film
00:01:17
Speaker
that is an hour and a half or hour and 40 minutes about a book that is potentially 25, 30 pages and mainly pictures, which is what the Junan book is from. They get me very important, always reliable Wikipedia here, 1981.
00:01:43
Speaker
And then we're going to discuss the film from 1995, which I was thinking that's not a quick turnaround. In my mind for a book book to movie because sometimes it's made with sometimes they're made within the first year or two.
00:01:58
Speaker
And this was made like in different generations, essentially, the Jumanji book and the Jumanji film and then like another generation went by and they made these other movies with the rock and stuff that we're not going to talk about unless you want to. No, I don't I don't think I can talk very
00:02:20
Speaker
uh, informally about those movies. I don't think I've seen any of them though, though I should. I mean, just to say I was part of that cultural phenomenon. Yeah, I think I saw the movies or something. I mean, they're not bad really. They're just totally different from what we're going to be talking about in my mind anyway.
Nostalgia and Childhood Memories of Jumanji
00:02:42
Speaker
So let's move to the book first. So the book, would you like to take over? I mean, what would you like to start with?
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, I read the book recently, and I think it was really a lot of the Van Alsberg books are such a great capturing of storytelling time, if that makes sense, that
00:03:08
Speaker
When people first start reading books to children, so they may not be able to read yet or they may not be able to read full books themselves, the idea of just like, I think everyone knows this and they can picture it in their head, even though this is audio, that you open the book and then you just pan it around slowly so that everyone's sitting around in a circle and see this picture.
00:03:34
Speaker
And that's exactly what the story captures, this idea that anything could happen, but whoever is reading it then gets to reveal that to the listeners, the audience, that this is the picture that you could have been forming in your mind. So I think that's something that Chris Van Osberg does pretty well, like Polar Express too. There's a lot of other books that
00:03:59
Speaker
Whoever's listening doesn't know what's happening until, oh wow, that's the picture? A lion is in the piano? That's crazy. This is funny. Now, this is interesting. That was a specific type of way teachers read that book. But see, here's what I'm wondering. Was it that specific book of Jumanji and maybe that author, Chris?
00:04:26
Speaker
Van Alsberg was it that? And then did he know that? Because I know exactly. I had not thought of that until you just said it for that. That was a thing that they did. Like you read it and then turn the book and oh, my God, it's a Python going through the New York Public Library. Can you believe that?
00:04:55
Speaker
wow yeah i totally forgot that and then that would be immediately followed by what i thought was incredibly disgusting and nobody else talked about it where every single teacher without fail would lick their thumb just like shove it in there and just go boom boom and then turn the nuts page and i'm like that's our book i'm gonna have to read that later during break time and i do not want your
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a Billy Madison moment right there. I mean, there's a lot of, when you look back on elementary school, the grotesqueness of being in, I don't know why there's this grotesqueness that isn't just the kids. It's, I mean, I remember putting my fingers in hot asphalt, like the tar of the
00:05:46
Speaker
of the playground had melted and somehow I touched it because I was like Icarus. I had to know. I was eating the apple and I
00:06:01
Speaker
I got tar everywhere. So it's like this memory and they took turpentine, took me into a weird, tiny custodial room and they're putting turpentine on me. It's disgusting. I still remember that. I still remember this tar all over my hands. Just the disgusting kind of rot, the smell of rot in the cafeteria.
00:06:25
Speaker
where like all the slop of food is thrown into the and you look walk by and there's a slop of food that like would just you don't even know what what it was it smells terrible like and you know kids with the puke and you know whatever I don't need to go in the but it's like there is this grossness that when you say that I'm immediately transported back and that's interesting too because that wasn't that was a teacher
00:06:55
Speaker
And yet it's the still that touching the, I don't know, getting saliva everywhere. It's like, what? Yeah. I would get it if it were their book, but then they put it back on the shelf so that during recess or indoor recess or during reading time, that's on the shelf.
00:07:25
Speaker
I don't know where to go from here. Well, I think if anything, where we could go from here is to think of how this book magically transports you away from that land of disgust. But we just kind of got used to as six and seven year olds. We're just like, yeah.
Exploration of Jumanji's Themes
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah, the two of us. Anyone might throw up at any point in time and we just have to back away waiting for the janitor to show up.
00:07:49
Speaker
Well, it's very loud. Yeah, exactly. Loud, it's smelly, it's gross, disheveled, and also like frenzied, this frenzy of running around. And those books, this is interesting too, but you actually get like your own copy. I don't know if I ever had this real copy, but
00:08:11
Speaker
The copies at the library are always covered in that film, like that sort of waxy plastic thing. And then it's, you know, it's been smudged. So again, it's gross, like this gross elementary school book. And when you get your own,
00:08:31
Speaker
And this was what I was talking to Andy about Dymatopia when I got my own copy. It was like, you're mine, my precious. You can't go anywhere. No one will have you. I've got you. I don't know where I'm going with this. This all of a sudden become very abstract. But let's try to... We'll bring it in. The book is about a board game that
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I think like you said, it's about 20 pages and there's a couple pages of setup and then a couple pages of dot, dot, dot what's going to happen next. And then in the middle is just roll the dice, something happens, roll the dice, something happens. Then in each roll of the dice.
00:09:22
Speaker
The thing that happens is something somewhat jungle themed. So in one of them, we're saying a lion shows up and then a lion is there in the house on top of the piano. And then there's some monkeys and then those monkeys show up in the kitchen. So if anyone's seen the movie, it's a lot like the movie except way shorter.
00:09:45
Speaker
it's just a few rolls of the dice and then the game's over there's no there's no suspense of oh the dice dropped in a hole or something we'll get there eventually but um in this in this particular game uh they're just trying to roll the dice to finish the game and it feels to me it feels almost too sudden that the game is over almost before it began and you know
00:10:09
Speaker
uh i don't i don't think this is a critique against van ausberg i think it's a wonderful book but uh i think it may teach the wrong lesson to children that like if a lion shows up and is on top of a piano but the rule books say you have to finish the game just keep rolling the dice and then monkeys will show up and then just keep rolling the dice and then there's going to be a monsoon in your living room and then just keep rolling the dice and a guide will show up with an elephant gun you're like why is this
00:10:38
Speaker
We should not be teaching children to just keep rolling the dice if a lion showed up on the first round Maybe just get out of the house. Right? Yeah, that's interesting roll the dice We're getting ahead of ourselves now The There's so much there's really so much this is a Dave Matthews moment because there's so much to say and
00:11:04
Speaker
And I can't get it all out. But I remember this so well. This is the kind of thing that is more imbued with an age. Some of these other topics I think about, I was always encountering them at different ages, so I remember them. But Jumanji, like that book, is such a specific memory of being a kid and being read to.
00:11:29
Speaker
So that when you said that, it was like a lightning bolt that went through me, this thing about reading it and revealing that photo. And I was thinking, that's what this book is. It's the magic of, you don't really know how they even appeared.
00:11:45
Speaker
like a movie or something, they have to think like, okay, what's the special effect call up Tom, like, what can we do with the there's a bubble and they'll come through the bubble. No, there's no bubble. There's no whirlpool. As far as I know, right? They just appear and that's the mat that creates the magic. Like it's already there. The line is in the room.
00:12:10
Speaker
So that magic and then I like, I mean, of course what you're saying is accurate that it is ridiculous to, it's the benign nature of the game that they're trying to convey that this is fine. This is a, yes, it's a lion, but it's a different type of lion. It's not a lion you would see on the savanna that would like trample you and eat your foot. I mean, this is a lion that would lovingly sit on a countertop with the
00:12:40
Speaker
Central parks, you know, I don't know, reservoir, and maybe gallop back and forth and take a nap. That's the kind of lion. But it's ridiculous because there is no lion like that. Yeah, I don't know that the book portrays them that way.
00:13:04
Speaker
Except for at the very end right all of a sudden everything goes back to normal True somehow which is again magical and and there's some trust there that that's somehow going to happen like they they lock the lion in the bedroom and They dodged that they dodged that bullet Yes, they could have been mauled to death
00:13:24
Speaker
Okay. So maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. How about this? Maybe the book wants it both ways. It wants the lion to be able to, oh, you're scary. Maybe you'll kill me. Maybe you'll get at me somehow. But also, you're magical and whimsical.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what I like the most about the book is it does dip so much into that fantasy that you could invent anything else, like anything else could come out of that board game too. So there's rhinoceroses and monkeys. And so I think it plays well towards elementary school teachers who might then ask, okay, what happens on the next page?
00:14:13
Speaker
And I have a feeling we did an exercise like that. I don't know if it was for Jumanji, but I definitely remember one of the Van Ellsberg books where I ended up making another page for it. And most of his books lend themselves to that pretty well, that now a child could think.
00:14:31
Speaker
Well, what could be next in the game? So we've got a hunter. We've got some rhinoceroses. Maybe we'll go to the ocean, and there's going to be whales. And then you have to draw that out. And that's all that it takes. That's the beauty of a child's imagination. You're still in that age where you're not so concerned about what definitely happens all the time. And gravity is this constant that's pulling you towards Earth.
00:15:01
Speaker
Maybe not. Maybe we're just all balloons. I don't know. Like anything could happen in this game. And I think that that's very indicative of a child's imagination that anything really could happen. And so why do we have to have these board games that are so
Comparing Book and Film Adaptations
00:15:16
Speaker
boring? You go around the circle and then sometimes you pay money and somebody else pays you money. Like that's all we got. What if a lion were to come out? Yeah. Yeah. Um,
00:15:30
Speaker
Do the children, they're in the book though, right? From what I remember. But they never have a face of terror. Or anything. Yeah, they're kind of like, they're kind of like, Hey, this is great. This is wild. You know, I mean, literally, does it all jungle based creatures?
00:15:50
Speaker
There's definitely a look of shock here. Okay, shock. Yeah. Yes, it is all jungle based creatures or occurrences, right? So you've got monsoons. Monsoons happen. Oh, occurrence. This is the black and white, right? Yep. Yeah, it's all black and white. And it's like, the style is kind of etching. Slash photo, it's sort of in between photo realistic and an etching.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. I don't know what the media is. It's sort of maybe, uh, is it pencil or is it oil? Let me see. Oh yeah. That's like a charcoal type. Yeah. That's very realistic looking, but I, I believe we could ask him, but I think Andy had this game.
00:16:53
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah, it's pretty sweet. I don't think he has it anymore, but you can probably get it on eBay for a pretty penny.
00:17:05
Speaker
But anyway, I but that's had nothing to do with the book. As far as I know, that was a movie based thing. That's the board game and no actual live lions came out except for a few who won the sweepstakes and they were had a door slide open from a room when a real lion came out when they were playing and, you know, they were scared for their lives and everything. But no, in general,
00:17:33
Speaker
You couldn't, you had to just play another boring, like, sorry game, Parcheesi, or... I think that's what it's supposed to be, right? Parcheesi? Maybe. I mean, certainly it's... Yeah, you have your little, whatever they're called, the pawns on a chessboard, and then you go through rectangular spaces. Kind of like Candyland, too. Yeah, Candyland. Was that a film?
00:18:04
Speaker
Is that a movie? Did that get turned into a 400 page Dostoevsky novel about people trapped in Candy Land? Starring Laurence Olivier. Trying to think what else, what else is there to say about the book?
00:18:34
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I think, I think the biggest things are what I touched on that, uh, it really gets to the heart of a fairly standard childhood experience, which is boredom. You know, and how do, how do we break out of that boredom? And it kind of blurs those lines between, is this real or is this just in the kid's imagination? Um,
00:19:01
Speaker
I think we've touched on those topics. And then towards the end, I think it's very different, maybe not. We can talk about it when we get to the movie, but I don't think it was the same as the movie where the neighbors kind of pick it up. And so if the neighbors pick it up, now there's more story to go, but you don't have to have an hour and a half long movie. We're just saying that.
00:19:26
Speaker
somebody plays this game and then just puts it on with somebody else like you may die uh playing this game and uh we're just gonna leave this loaded weapon here by a tree in the park i think that was the other thing that kind of kind of shocked me a bit uh a little bit sadistic i think on the part of these children because the game's over so what they could have done is just lock it away but i don't think that would have made as interesting of an ending but it definitely does make it
00:19:58
Speaker
a really twisted ending, that they just put this thing that will make monkeys and rhinoceroses just leap out into your house, destroying property and potentially risking your life and limb. Well, or let's be honest, like become a tableau in your home, because that's what it seems to be. It's like, I don't even know where you came from. It's like in Hangover part
00:20:22
Speaker
One I guess the new the new patrol now the new that they renamed Star Wars the new hope Yeah, hang over the new hope but they open up the door and there's a tiger in there and they don't know how because it's a hangover and whatever and
00:20:44
Speaker
I feel like that's Jumanji. I turn the page and there's a lion. I don't even know where you came. I said it earlier, but there's no portal. Where's the portal? I didn't even get to see it. Did you appear? Was it a curtain that you went through? Like the MGM lion?
00:21:05
Speaker
I have no idea. And then you disappeared. Now in the film, they have to render all this literally. And that's what makes it kind of not as good in my opinion. Like, oh, we have to, everything gets sucked back in. Yep. Yeah, it's boring. It's visually boring after a while to see what you know is going to happen.
00:21:30
Speaker
I sometimes like what low budget productions, TV or whatever, they have a character appear and then you know that thing where the guy puts, he says something and the character says something and he's like, ties his shoes and he looks up and the guy's gone. And it's like, well, who came up with that? Well, they did that because they didn't have money to do anything else. That's why they did that, not because it doesn't make any, how could he disappear in a second?
00:21:57
Speaker
makes no sense. If you're standing on a bridge and you look down, other than the guy jumped off the bridge, and imagine the guy thinking like, man, to disappear, I'm going to have to jump off this bridge. I have to swim to shore. It's the only way that if he ties a shoe and he looks back up, I'm gone. Anyway, enough of that.
00:22:25
Speaker
What else do I want to say about the book? Are we done? Do we want to move on?
00:22:30
Speaker
I think, I think that's everything that can be said about the book, which is, which is fine. It's like I said, 20 pages. You can't really say too much about, about that book. It's just kids finding a magical game. And my interpret, everyone has a different interpretation. Mine's a little bit more like it's a benign game. Yours is like, it will literally kill you. It has, you know, there are many in its death wake that it has taken. And that might be true.
00:22:57
Speaker
That might be true. I don't think they want to let us know. There's a little wink. Yeah, I think in both, kind of the only real rule is that you have to finish. Let me find the exact... Roll the dice! Once a game of Jumanji is started, it will now be over until one player reaches the Golden City.
00:23:26
Speaker
that I like in the, so I'll skip, we're gonna go to the movie, but I like in the movie, just skip ahead a little bit, like it does have that feeling like the treasure of Sierra Madre or something like, we started this, we're gonna finish it, or Indiana Jones, like, Jones, you said you were going to, you know, nothing I can take that you do not possess, like there's something about the way they have that, or a tontine, or the,
00:23:56
Speaker
everyone, the last surviving member gets the treasure. There's something about it that's like Agatha Christie or old school, that binding nature of the game to the, I think the two original players in it, in the movie, and then the kids. So it's four that are bound to the game. Yeah. Robin Williams and every, and Bonnie Hunt. Then I don't know.
Jumanji's Film Themes and Melodrama
00:24:27
Speaker
Kirsten Dunston, I don't know the other, the brother character. Yeah, is not even in the starring in the Wikipedia article. So that's great. The little boy is not even in it. Yeah. And then they have another little boy who plays young Robin Williams.
00:24:55
Speaker
And it's such a strange choice to start the film the way they do. But let's talk about that isthmus I mentioned, where you're getting that little thin connective tissue between very two different disparate media. A feature length fantasy film and a thin, I mean, this is a thin,
00:25:23
Speaker
I, I wouldn't want to support anything on this book. It's that thin. I mean, I wouldn't want to even, you know, you couldn't crush a leaf that you had picked for botanical class with the, with the Jumanji, Jumanji book. This is not the pretend encyclopedia Britannica. So what is that besides money? Cause obviously Jumanji sold a lot of money, uh, sold a lot of money in which case it had no money.
00:25:53
Speaker
No, it's so a lot of books. And so somebody was like, we're doing this. So neither of us, as far as I know, did the research about how we got from 1981 book to 1995 feature film. But it happened. And it happened in a big way. And it's a strange movie. And
00:26:22
Speaker
And my take is you have to add, you have to pad it considerably with plot that does not matter. Like that first scene where the, where young Robin Williams is in a shoe factory as a little kid, and he's like a rich kid, but his parents are always mad at him about
00:26:40
Speaker
being like you need to be tough and you have bullies and there's a whole element to this story and then he gets the girl that he has a crush on and they're playing the board game and she he rolls the dice and gets sucked into the game and he screams roll the dice he sucked in the board game closes and she screams not realizing if you had just rolled the dice
00:27:10
Speaker
he would have reappeared. And this is going back to your thing, where I think what you were just saying about you've got to finish it to get to the, what is it? What's the final?
00:27:24
Speaker
that you have to reach the Golden City. If somebody doesn't reach the Golden City, the game's not over. And that's not in there. And I think the later films, I don't know specifically, but they're more actually in Jumanji. That's another weird thing where Jumanji is like the game is a portal to a singular world.
00:27:48
Speaker
It's not like it's taking a lion from the savannah and bringing it or zoo and bringing it here from our world. It's bringing it from this perhaps limitless world of jungle. This haunted me as a kid, you know, that you would be sucked in as a little kid and you're isolated. You're now like Ben Gunn and Treasure Island. No one knows who you are.
00:28:20
Speaker
you're you have to survive by your wits you you never see anyone to know again because no they didn't roll the dice yeah yeah i think that's the big thing is is how do you in any children's work
00:28:42
Speaker
anything that is targeted with a child's audience, how do you maintain an air of security while still pushing the boundaries of what's possible? So how do you create that tension while still, for the most part, trying to reassure the children that are watching this movie that like, oh, well, this is safe. Yeah, and I think that's one of the,
00:29:10
Speaker
the more difficult things to accomplish in the movie that can kind of be accomplished in a 20 page book is straddling the line between some semblance of security, because these are children we're talking about, and imagination, right? Anything could happen, but hopefully not one that would cause permanent injury or death. And a lot of things in the jungle are known for doing exactly that. And I think it's
00:29:40
Speaker
It's particularly interesting in the movie where they get out of the house. It's not just animals going through their house. There's actually Robin Williams in short shorts shooting through diapers and cereal with an elephant gun, just holes in shelves, which certainly clearly has lethal force, right? If he can blow open a diaper box, then he could also blow open a child's sternum,
00:30:08
Speaker
It's not a good picture. And so I think I had a really hard time watching the movie, even as a child, because I was like, well, what is real here? I want to get lost in the story, but I'm constantly having to reevaluate. Well, what is realistic? Because what is realistic is that both of these children would not make it to the end of this movie. And what a dark thought for a children's movie.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, I that's interesting. It shows that there's a lot about it. That's that's adult or dark. That's like Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. But instead, it's by Joseph Conrad. I think you had your response, but I thought that the
00:31:01
Speaker
first part was so dark to me that the kid is sucked in and he was kind of a dork to begin with so it wasn't like they could have played it another way like he was the perfect basketball star and he also got sucked in no he was like this kid who was teased in his
00:31:20
Speaker
his parents were yelling at him and all this stuff. And then he also was sucked in. Oh, by the way, he sucked into a jungle and he's literally in it from, and the fact that they really play up the film tones are different in the beginning. It's like sepia kind of.
00:31:41
Speaker
so that you're like this is a really long time that he was stuck in this jungle i think it's like 20 years yep and it's
00:31:54
Speaker
weird that it's shot in keen new hampshire so it adds this kind of blandness to it but also coziness like why are you in a family dollar and there's some scene when they're in what appears to be like a real store a real walmart family dollar something and they they're having like a battle with the with the
00:32:25
Speaker
what the jungle, like it's now kind of an entity. The Jumanji is attacking them. Oh, yes. Yeah, that is. So I got it wrong then. So we can go remembering Robin Williams. It's not Robin Williams. It's the hunter who comes out and then Robin Williams is the kid who was trapped back in the 60s. And now comes out of the game in the 90s.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yes. Got it. Well, there's a kind of Looney Tunes element to the hunter where it's like, I'm just playing a part. Like, it is my job to hunt you. It's like Aesop's fables, the snake and the scorpion and the fox. I am here. I have nothing impersonal about it. Is he hunting?
00:33:22
Speaker
He is hunting Robin Williams. Is this happening? I'm sorry to the audience if we don't have pitch perfect understanding a movie, but I've seen this movie so many times. I don't think I have to rewatch it again to have a few blanks. Is he hunting Robin Williams? He is hunting, I think really anything.
00:33:49
Speaker
He just, he has this need, this existential need to hunt something. And then I think, yeah, that gets directed towards Robin Williams and the children. He doesn't start shooting anything that moves. Yeah, this is the first time I was probably made aware of the story, the most dangerous game.
00:34:16
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's basically that, yeah. They're kind of, quote, borrowing or stealing this idea. What is the character's name? Van Pelt. Van Pelt is the hunter, and it's played by Jonathan Hyde, so definitely not one of the original players. It is like you said, when you roll the dice, you get the hunter, the hunter comes out.
00:34:44
Speaker
and that that hunter is shooting the diapers in the cereal. Yeah. And that's where the diapers. Yeah, it shows that you and I both our brains are jumbled by this film book franchise. Like we're going all over the place because you talk about the diapers and then I'm bringing in that it's in a the Dollar Tree, the Dollar Tree in like 1994 in Keene, New Hampshire.
00:35:10
Speaker
where you could go get ice cream like now i want to go there i want to see this like i want to tell people i've been to all these movie locations you know i want to see all this stuff oh you mean like north by northwest oh no um jumanji from 1995 i went and saw the downtown where um lilith
00:35:36
Speaker
from Frasier. She's like the guardian of the kids. Yes. Literally Lilith from Frasier. People talk all the time about how Croatia and Spain have just been mobbed, especially Croatia, been mobbed with tourists after Game of Thrones. Right. Like they can't handle the amount of tourists that go to Dubrovnik.
00:36:05
Speaker
And I don't think Keene, New Hampshire has that problem of people trying to find where they were shooting things in a family dollar. No.
00:36:16
Speaker
don't get a lot of tours like that. It shows that the yeah it's more it's a it's an older style film because I think some of those other movies they were just filmed in a green screen or maybe they go to a jungle briefly and actually film in a forest or something but other than that it's all done on sets and
00:36:36
Speaker
everything i'm i don't know exactly but i'm just saying a lot of movies are like that but this is different this is like we're gonna film in a new england you know a new england town and uh we're gonna have the first part in an old shoe factory uh that's closed so we can make a comment about you know the the economy and in the time of uh clinton
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know if we had to. And also, it's weird to make the connection of any kind of economic thing to a board game that sucked a kid in and made him live for 20 years in a jungle, Hobbesian environment where he had huge bugs trying to eat him. It's like, what?
Technical Aspects of Jumanji Film
00:37:29
Speaker
This is a lot to throw at a kid and I'm having to absorb all of this bad computer animation that at the time was like really cool and really well done but even now doing animation in daylight is tough. That's why so much of Jurassic Park's at night. Like that famous T-Rex scene is done at night because it's so much the texture is easy.
00:37:55
Speaker
Oh, to make computer animation look a little more realistic. Yeah, I mean, I would say it's almost like 80% more easy to make it look, you know, or double as easy because yeah, it's the texture sunlight is doing all kinds of things. And, you know, and I'm not gonna say anything bad about the animation in this movie, because they did a good job.
00:38:23
Speaker
uh... and that was that that empty houses also weird
00:38:29
Speaker
that was like Robin Williams' home, the character's home, not literally Robin Williams' home, that would be weird if he lived in Keene, New Hampshire. And then I guess that's not even a real, it's always the case with this too, because I think I looked it up and that's not a real home that was just like a set or whatever. It's like, come on, can't you just for my wonder and joy, film it in a real house? No.
00:38:57
Speaker
Well, Trevor, I have to disappoint you yet again. Unfortunately, the Sir Save a Lot scenes were not filmed in New Hampshire. They were filmed in British Columbia. Oh, I thought you were going to say Los Angeles. I mean, like, that would really ruin it. No, it is so ruined. Yeah, it is a real store. It just happens to be in British Columbia. Well, and it makes sense because that store would not be in key New Hampshire. Right. Yeah.
00:39:28
Speaker
that wouldn't be there it would be like a small dollar tree from what i remember it's kind of more like a walmart yeah but not really a wall it's lower ceiling this is the problem when you see these movies so many times that you even have it like in your head this is a separate issue from jumanji per se but it's like i have these images of these films in in my head like
00:39:53
Speaker
Oh, they're in that scene in the department store or whatever. And then he said he shoots the diapers with the double, those are elephant guns, so they're not shotguns. They're like full, I don't know what you would call, they're like slugs, they're not even slugs, they're rifles.
00:40:22
Speaker
but they were just like, they get two shots. They're awful. They're basically used to kill big animals.
00:40:33
Speaker
I mean, and I hope, I don't know what to say other than, you know, it's a complete caricature of a British imperialist, but I guess we don't have to feel bad about it because they are the worst people in history, British imperialist. So I think we can make fun of them as much as we want.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yes, totally fine. I don't know if there's anything else I can say about other than expanding it, basically what they had to do is pad it incredibly and that might explain these weird non-plot related scenes that have kind of become burned in my mind like the whole shoe factory.
00:41:19
Speaker
that's a waste of time. There's a whole scene where Robin Williams is in his weird Peter Pan leaf costume and he's running around going, mom, dad, I'm home. Like under the idea that they would be around at that point and it's very strange and it's haunting that the house is empty.
00:41:47
Speaker
And you have this other thing where the kid's parents died in a ski accident and it's like, or on the way to a ski lodge. So you have two sad things in a kid's movie. And then they're trying to be killed by a jungle that's inversely invading their hometown or their new place they're coming to.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost an introduction to stranger things, right? There's this parallel universe that's trying to take over their town is really what's happening. And yeah, I don't know why Robin Williams aging. Why Robin Williams aging is a problem to me. But when you look at it, like why is Van Pelt still, he's kind of the same age. Yeah, he doesn't age.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah, as Alan Parrish is Robin Williams' character. Well, then there's a science major. He doesn't age and. And? Like he said, he's from the British imperial period. So he hasn't aged for centuries. Meanwhile, in 22 years, Robin Williams has aged. Is that what it is? Is it what year? What year is he sucked in 1973?
00:43:04
Speaker
1969. That's so funny. That's, that's, that's way longer. He's, he's out. He's in there for 26 years. Isn't this a 1995 movie? For 26 years. Yep.
00:43:32
Speaker
And also, I'm like, I hope you don't think that's what Robin Williams looked like in 1969. I don't think that is what he looked like. I think he was a fully grown man at that point.
00:43:51
Speaker
He was starting his street performing and stand-up career. He was doing like the juggling on the streets of San Francisco or New York City or whatever. He was like looking in the television and Juilliard. But yeah, I mean, he was certainly a college age guy. Yeah. So that's weird. Maybe it's slightly like, well, this takes place in 1993.
00:44:21
Speaker
or it says present day. So that means that it might not, but I feel like it's one of those movies that makes the mistake of making it present day. So that means that like, if it's 1969 now, that means that he's been trapped there for, okay, 54 years.
00:44:48
Speaker
He would be like an old grizzly man with a giant beard. Well, he has a beard in that, but you know, it would be like ragged. He's like, I don't speak English anymore. I mean, cause you can't say present day and then be whispering. Well, what they really meant was 1995 because that's what this movie came out. I might be wrong. It might not say present day. It could say 1995.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, there's a curious lack of smartphones. Oh yeah, all our technology. Yeah, it's a Luddite community in Peean, New Hampshire. Yeah, there's so many things, leaps you have to make to make that make sense if that's what it...
00:45:33
Speaker
And they do that in a lot of movies. Sometimes it's ironic, like it's set in the distant future and it'll say present day. Flying cars and everything like, oh, or, you know, giant skies, a space elevator, giant spaceships, present day. Okay. Well, you're just messing with me now. You don't want it, or it'll say in the near future.
00:46:03
Speaker
Well, how near, but I think that, you know, this isthmus that's connecting these two is they just find a, you can find a screenwriter, a desperate screenwriter in Hollywood who will write anything you give him. If I told him like, I need you to write a frog and toad action thriller, he would have it on my desk in a month.
00:46:28
Speaker
and it would be like toad and frog, you know, living and making fun adventures. They don't know that they have to, you know, go on a journey. You can make anything into a story, but how close is it? The actual Jumanji element is fairly small and that could have been expanded. Maybe like a national treasure type story. That wasn't done.
00:46:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, thankfully, Chris Van Allsburg was at the time and still is, right? Still is alive. So I think what happened was Chris Van Allsburg ended up filling in those blanks, which I think works a lot better than when somebody tries to take an author's vision and cram a whole bunch of more story into it. At least it was the same author trying to put another 400 pages into Jumanji.
00:47:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting. I do remember that in some other sad moment where I read the entire Wikipedia about the making of Jumanji. But I do remember he was consulted.
00:47:44
Speaker
as if this were like an experience that he had actually had in his life, you know, that they wanted him on set. Okay, was it like this when this happened to you and Jumanji leapt through the board? Yes, it was like, you're never gonna quite get it, but yes, it's pretty close to what happened to me. No, but anyway, he was part of the, I don't think he wrote the screenplay, did he?
00:48:08
Speaker
No, he wrote a, he wrote a treatment that built out the story more. Okay. Well, it's, it's, it's kind of like how much, oh, I know what I was going to say is these characters, like, are we to believe that the hunter had one time played this game? Yeah, I think not, right? The, the hunter. Like he found it in one of his colonies and he got sucked in.
00:48:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's the tough thing, right? Was he part of the game? Like someone made this, some sorcerer made this game. Again, we don't know where the game came from. How old is this game? It can't be true. It's ancient. It's from the ancient Egypt. It can't be true. Well, also the instructions are in English. So it can't be true that
00:49:07
Speaker
that this hunter was a player because he doesn't age and yet Robin Williams does, right? We can't have one and not the other. I think by higher reasoning, yeah. So he must be an ageless part of the game. He's like a holodeck character in Star Trek. He doesn't have a soul. Yeah, upon creation.
00:49:31
Speaker
A-P-A-W-N, or A-P-U-P. One pawn creation, no. Pawn creation of the board game. The hunter must have been created, right? Yeah, he was created. Hold cloth.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah. And continues. So he's not an agent of, he doesn't have moral ethics because he's just, he couldn't, he didn't decide to be that way. Yeah. He just is that way. Yeah. And he just wants to kill big stuff, but does he also want to kill up Williams?
Animated Series and Storytelling Depth
00:50:11
Speaker
It seems that way. Yeah, I think.
00:50:14
Speaker
yeah because there is a cartoon which I also watched and I think that's the main thrust the other keen is gone there is no keen
00:50:32
Speaker
It's like it didn't happen. He sucked into this world and it's like he's moved. He's basically been drafted into Jumanji for lack of a better word. I mean, he's in, he's in this world. He can't get out. And that cartoon is just him. He has a tree house and the main villain is this guy, this elephant hunter.
00:51:03
Speaker
And I think, you know, I'm not sure who the, does the Robin Williams character have anything else to it? There must be kids, maybe there are kids. The animated TV series. Yep, here it is. Judy and Peter, yeah, okay, so I was wrong. They're in it, Judy and Peter Shepard.
00:51:31
Speaker
maybe that first episode is interesting this is what you find with in my opinion with animated series like the first episode which you never saw as a kid because you never had the opportunity but that's actually more interesting because it has the plot like they get sucked in yeah if if at some point in the future you want to discuss transformers and or beast wars yeah that's
00:51:55
Speaker
That's what I would say about those types of shows too, where the setup are these robots that can turn into other things, and trying to put a narrative behind it is great.
00:52:09
Speaker
It slowly gets more and more cyclical. She's like, oh, the bad guys need to fight the good guys. The good guys need to fight the bad guys. It becomes cyclical. Yeah, the gargoyles and one that I watch that's a bit more esoteric. People don't know is SWAT cats, which is literally cats flying
00:52:34
Speaker
airplanes, jets, it's crazy, but I loved it. Gargoyles has a whole story. It's like they have films, and somehow they got all the Star Trek Next Generation cast to be in it.
00:52:54
Speaker
it's it's weird but as you say a lot of gargoyles is like nothing happens they do the same thing over and over i'm like i want more story it turns out they were in the middle ages and the gargoyles came to life anyway it has a bit of a jumanji feel okay um i i think you know we didn't do a plot of a point by point breakdown of jumanji but i think we pretty much got the main points of the film
00:53:25
Speaker
but there is one thing at the end which is this time warp where they they're able to finish a game and everything collapses on itself and time compresses and at one point she's like they go back in time as their selves Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt and they're and they're like wait kiss me before we forget who we are and forget everything and then
00:53:51
Speaker
That happens, so his parents don't die?
00:53:57
Speaker
and then skip ahead, and they're gone all the way back into the future, and they're saying, oh, we're gonna go on a ski trip. Don't go! This is to the parents of Curse and Dunce, but they were supposed, how did they remember that? In all these years, they've lived these two lives, and this is what I think about what happened. Someone wrote the screenplay to this movie, and there were so many loose ends,
00:54:28
Speaker
that made no sense. The only way to do it is to make time go back on itself and do all this weird stuff. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's tough to reconcile. So first, Robin Williams has to go back in time. Right. Which I guess on its face kind of makes sense. So once the game gets finished, then he goes back to what would have been happening
00:54:58
Speaker
had he never really played the game at all, give or take, right? I don't have a hard time with that, but then, yeah, how does that create an alternate version of the present where they still somehow have the memory of playing the game, even though, like, Robin Williams was never trapped in the game in the first place, right?
00:55:26
Speaker
right, except they had gone through this portal, and he had done it, and time looped back on himself, but woo! I mean, it's nuts, and if that were true, he would somehow have lived all that time in Jumanji, had that brief encounter in keen,
00:55:48
Speaker
time folded in on itself he lived a whole other life from the age of 12 or whatever he was even though as we know that makes no sense if that's Robin Williams and then he had to get all the way to the age again this time he's clean shaven he's just a normal person and he goes no don't go on the the ski trip it's crazy
00:56:15
Speaker
And it didn't need to be included. There's so much drama that is missing from the joy that could be transpiring about Jumanji. Instead, we're trapped in this mellow drama, in my opinion. Yeah, I think that's hitting the nail on the head. Perhaps my biggest issue with the movie is not that it tried to jam a whole bunch more story in,
00:56:43
Speaker
because you can jam good story in and then it would be totally fine. It's more than that they're trying to jam in that melodrama, that tension. It's again flirting with that line of, oh, well, is this actually safe? This game that they had could actually kill you for sure, or could trap you for decades. And so somehow they have to undo that, but they never, I don't know. I don't think they really ever had to undo that.
00:57:12
Speaker
It's just a crazy thing. Isn't it crazy that somebody might lose decades of their life? I don't know, Ann. I'll give you an example of this. Marty McFly was originally played by, is it Eric Stoltz? Is that the actor's name? I mean, he's been in a lot of movies. I'll double check.
00:57:41
Speaker
he was he was cast and fired obviously because yeah that's him eric stoltz he's a good actor but he was um they didn't they didn't think he was a good fit and the reason there were probably a few different reasons like gelling with um doc
00:58:08
Speaker
Christopher Lloyd. Anyway, I'll try to get to the point here. He took it very seriously. And he would say things like, well, so he's coming back in the future. And his dad is like a popular writer now, and he's well dressed, and they live in their home is really nice. Like, isn't that sad that they don't remember who they were before?
00:58:38
Speaker
And I know Leah Thompson was saying like, don't say that to the director. He's like, this is supposed to be a funny movie. You're not supposed to be focusing on the strangeness. Like, that would be really weird if you literally came back. And it's like, I don't care if your dad was suddenly more successful.
00:58:58
Speaker
or something, it would be very alarming that all your memories of them are now gone. It's like they're not there there. They're still there as your family, but like, okay, I don't really know you anymore. But they just completely go past that. They don't discuss it.
00:59:22
Speaker
And you're like, oh, okay. But even as a kid, I thought that's kind of weird. But in Jumanji, I feel like they really double down on the drama. Like, this is so sad. The house is lonely and the factory is closed and everyone's dead and you had to live inside this jungle, horrible Hobbesian jungle for 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. And when, um,
00:59:52
Speaker
Peter Shepherd turns into a monkey. There's that same existential crisis. This kid... This kid is concerned that he might always be a monkey for the rest of his life. In a chimpanzee prison of sorts.
01:00:24
Speaker
Who what is he like a gray monkey? I don't remember what any any look I remember there's a look that he has on his face He said he's sort of I remember he's kind of down and as I remember his down he looks up to his Sister's face. He's like, what am I going to do?
01:00:51
Speaker
yeah it's like what if you had taken the monopoly game and that became like people worried about losing their life savings or are they going to be you know chased out of town or something like you can make anything incredibly stressful I mean not to mention that the absurdity of turning all these board games into movies is to begin with ridiculous
01:01:21
Speaker
but that's really funny so yeah you're saying he's sad yeah i think i think that's the exact metaphor what you said is if if we take monopolies and we make it into this fanciful place where you can buy hotels and there's money flying out of the cash register and
01:01:46
Speaker
if you go to the bank they just give you money for free every time you come to the bank isn't that cool you could make that and that's kind of like the book what you could also make is a literal interpretation of atlantic city in the 1920s or so or isn't that what monopolies based off of right you could have like people
01:02:08
Speaker
That would be the movie. It's exactly that part. It's Boardwalk Empire. What is happening? You could have people like cutting people in the chin with a knife like, hey, I told you, I want my 20 G's.
01:02:23
Speaker
You don't run Baltic Avenue. I run Baltic Avenue. We're running a monopoly here. Yeah, you could. That penny money, money bags. He's like an evil tycoon looking out.
01:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's good. You could take it that's it. And that's what you're saying with the adaptation is like, what is making them decide to have melodrama in a children's and this filmed in like a dreary colorless tone so much of it is dreary. If you watch the movie, it's like overcast and
01:03:06
Speaker
What is going on here? Did you film this in March? I mean, what is happening? I mean, there's a few parts of it that are cozy, because it's like, to me, reminds me of New England. So that part is cozy, like, sure.
01:03:23
Speaker
There's like a scene where they're driving through the woods at one point. So many questions. No one's writing. There's plenty of books about North by Northwest. No one's going to write the Jumanji history. No, unfortunately. And another thing that we've definitely forgotten too is David Allen Greer's fine work in this movie.
01:03:46
Speaker
as the incredibly scared but well-meaning police officer, right? That's right. That's right. That's right. That same kind of thing. Like, maybe I feel like he's kind of trying to bring that levity back to the to the movie in a way. He's very, very slapstick about it. Like he runs around the cargo. That's what I want in a kid's movie.
01:04:12
Speaker
I don't want the threat of permanent monkey transformation in my kids' movies.
01:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, certainly there's a lot of, there's so much here. I think it's kind of interesting how a lot of what we've discussed with these different things are the versions of the same thing being reinterpreted for the new media or, oh, you have to go into a producer's room and the guy's like, I love your idea about Jumanji, but I just need more melodrama.
01:04:47
Speaker
And the writer's like, well, he wants more melodrama. I don't know why. And you'll never get a straight answer from the producer, but okay, now we're doing melodrama. Yeah, there's a couple things I want to say there. The first one is this is 14 years after the book, which is an appropriate amount of time to build like a generational difference, right? So somebody might have read the book as a child,
01:05:17
Speaker
and they now have kids that they're taking to the movie. And so that that for sure happens on Netflix now, like every 20 ish years you get a reboot, because those kids are now adults that have kids. And so they can watch it together. What's interesting is kind of like you're saying, we have a like a generational reinvention of these tales, Romeo and Juliet for sure come to mind, that
01:05:42
Speaker
even Romeo and Juliet written as Shakespeare was a reinvention of another story for Shakespearean
Reimagining Jumanji for New Generations
01:05:48
Speaker
times. But then you see the versions from the 20s and the 50s and the 90s, and they're all different. They all they all lean into themes that kind of play well to the crowd at the time. And I guess, yeah, this is this is the era of grunge. So that is that is a popular theme. And then you make it now. Right. And
01:06:10
Speaker
it's it's a blockbuster action-packed jumanji with the rock is like oh it has to be noisy vibrant the colors have to be saturated these bright rich colors greens and and
01:06:29
Speaker
and blues and everything's got to be it's like wait a minute what about the sad melodrama of a child being sucked into this place and he comes out and he goes mom dad i'm home that haunts me i'll be walking around and all of a sudden think mom dad i'm home and i'm a 50 year old man covered in green pajamas
01:06:58
Speaker
And then his reaction where he totally brings it, where Bonnie Hunt is saying, I did, I ran away. He's like, why didn't you roll the dice? There is humor in it, but it's, it's over. There's too much drama. That's yeah. And it's supposed to be funny that a kid's turned into a monkey. Yes.
01:07:26
Speaker
Yeah, he could jump around on his tail and swing and do things. There is some of that, for sure. There's like, oh, look at him eat this banana. He's doing it like a monkey would. But yeah.
01:07:40
Speaker
That feeling of a monkey prison. Do you remember the monkey prison? And he looks at her like, what am I going to do? I'm like, okay, now so I have to worry about Roman Williams and he's sad. And then Bonnie Hunt is sad. She's gone mental, like her mental health is deteriorated. Okay, the kid's parents have died. Now he's a monkey.
01:08:05
Speaker
like this is supposed to be fun and i have to wait for the only way to resolve all this crap that's the other thing okay here's one thought they knew there's no way in a kids movie to resolve that kind of thing and in a movie for adults it's like well i learned to you know i climbed a mountain and that allowed me to accept these things about no about jumanji i finally accepted it no they're like none of it happened
01:08:33
Speaker
Everything you saw, none of it happened. None of that happened. So that makes you feel like, well, why did I watch it? Why did I watch this movie? None of it happened. Yeah, it's a different take on Alice in Wonderland, right? The idea behind Alice in Wonderland is that she lives a life that she needs to escape from.
01:09:01
Speaker
dreary and like gender normative restrictive but she escapes to a world where anything can happen at any point in time and in this case that world is coming to us and what we instead get so you have like domestic issues you have family issues that for sure people would would like to escape from kids would like to escape from that
01:09:29
Speaker
certainly the the boredom that comes with childhood but also like potential death in a ski trip i don't know like there's a lot of stuff that might happen to children if their parents go off to a ski trip and they die and then they don't have parents anymore yeah i'd want to go into a board game too i'd want to get that out of that situation um
01:09:57
Speaker
At a certain level, it sucks you in, I will admit. I don't agree with the dreariness of the beginning part and the randomness of it, and they sucked in. But it is a more mature film for kids, and I was sucked in to the story.
01:10:23
Speaker
I certainly wouldn't want a movie, especially if I were showing it to the next generation, people who are kids now, I wouldn't want to show them something that just says, oh, well, you can escape to a board game, then everything will be fine. But that's kind of what happens in this movie, right? That they escape into a board game, and then they find a way to undo all of the things that happened in the board game. Not only that, they find a way to undo things that happened in real life. Right. They don't go on a ski trip now.
01:10:53
Speaker
Okay. It's not just the lion that disappears back into the board game. It's also the death of their parents. Jumanji. Jumanji did resurrect their parents from because it wouldn't have happened. It doesn't happen because of Jumanji. Right?
01:11:15
Speaker
Well, I thought they went, their parents went on a C trip and so they're home alone playing this board game now. Oh, they have Lilith. Lilith is the Guardian. Oh, gotta, gotta, gotta.
01:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, the death of the parents of the ski trip, it happened well before this game was played. Off screen. I mean, if they want to make the four hour Jumanji, where you see the parents go to the ski lodge, like they go out to eat, that would be the next level of padding, where there's really no plot. This is a thing you'll see in a movie where there's just like, what is happening? Nothing is happening. You're going out to eat.
01:12:00
Speaker
But that, let's just say, I'm on a roll there, but anyway, that doesn't, we skip ahead from one thing, from the factory closing because of Jumanji, and I guess the factory is open.
01:12:17
Speaker
but they know I think he runs the shoe factory that's why he's like well off that's weird though when he says this is what I mean about the loose and slash we can't have a sad ending because they they say this really haunting thing like hey before we forget who we are they go back and then
01:12:36
Speaker
They go through the whole thing and then they go, we're going to go on a skiing trip. Don't go. How do you remember? Is it something you, is it, was it a neat knee jerk reaction or do you literally remember your whole other life? Does it end on the, I don't think it ends on the Jumanji like heartbeat of the or drum of the game. Yeah, it should have.
01:13:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that is the the last scene right is is when somebody is walking on the beach or something and then There's the board game and the drum beat. Okay. Okay, the drum beat. Okay, good Between the two of us we've remembered the whole movie so That that's good. I like that ending The sinister ending it's like monkeys the monkey's paw Yeah
01:13:32
Speaker
but i mean and you also wonder there's a part of you as a kid that's like what else is on the board game i want to know how bad can it get can you get turned into an elephant can you have can you get turned into a tree i mean can you be sucked into
01:13:54
Speaker
Jumanji as an animal? You're like just a monkey running around a Jumanji? Because that happens in games, right? You get stacked up with issues like, oh, no, now I got this. Oh, so like what if the kid is a monkey and then he gets sucked in? Yeah. And then he comes back, he's like, I was a monkey for 30 years in a Jumanji.
01:14:25
Speaker
You could have a quicksand that is made of monkeys. You're slowly sinking into a pile of monkeys. Yeah, and all of those monkeys had been people who had played the game. And they're waiting for you to roll like a 10. And they come back. He's like, well, I was sucked in in 1780. I've been waiting in Jumanji. It makes you ask questions you don't want to ask.
01:14:49
Speaker
Wait, are we saying that Jumanji is a Robin Williams crossover to what dreams may come? Well, it could be. It definitely has some of those elements to it. But it's a kid's version of it. So it's making you think things that you don't really want to think when you go to what's supposed to be an escapist. But I guess I'm the only, well...
01:15:13
Speaker
We seem to be having the same ideas about it, but I think a lot of people just went, it's just kids running around with elephants, okay? It's not purgatory. It does have a purgatorial feel, though. Yeah, for sure.
01:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, and we never see it, except in the animation, the animated show, which it makes it slightly more. But again, you're like, my God, he had all of these adventures in this world. It makes you think things that the book did not make you have to think about. And the melodrama. I mean, what if you had really played a game and a kid was sucked in? Like, imagine if you were playing Jumanji and
01:16:03
Speaker
the rhinoceroses just stampeded over somebody, right? Yeah, because you're rolling the dice and then you're just like, I guess, what was his name? Alan's just gone now. They're just okay with that? Well, I think they should have, they needed to make the stakes higher, like, you know,
01:16:26
Speaker
again well a much better movie is Goonies and again like that's a gross movie it's filled with gross stuff to go back to the gross thing but this movie isn't really it i guess some of those animals are kind of gross and there's some weird stuff like the spiders giant spider those are not i mean those are they have creatures that are from like the deep past like deep time
01:16:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, Jumanji is not just a jungle. Yeah, it's creatures that lived like 100 million years ago. But suddenly, they're in Jumanji. But they're also in Jumanji have like a Nile River, but it's five times the size of the Nile River. It's like, it's like miles wide. And it's I got it. I got it. You roll an 11.
01:17:25
Speaker
And that makes the algal bloom that caused the extinction level event before the dinosaurs, right? Where there was too much oxygen in the atmosphere because there were too many plants. It causes microorganisms to come back that have been long extinct that would cover the entire world. But why?
01:17:50
Speaker
but what why are why are you killing creatures when isn't it filled with creatures that's what i'm saying they're coming out all all of these creatures that have in the past caused other extinctions can come back any any form of life can come out of jumanji uh any any villain right right it's
01:18:15
Speaker
I think it's got to be Earth-specific though, right? It has to be something that has existed on the Earth at some point. And that's it. That's the only rule. What about in one's imagination? Well, that's a good point, right? Is Jumanji supposed to actually be real things or just things that you could think of? And the human mind is so limited by things that we know exist for like big spider.
01:18:41
Speaker
That was that was sphere with People I don't know Samuel L. Jackson where you would you would think it and the thing would appear It was a mined defense system some alien spaceship. Anyway, it wasn't that great of a movie But yeah Before it before we wrap up here. Are there only 12 things that can happen then? I
01:19:09
Speaker
um oh no it's what space you land on so however many spaces there are on the board right yeah wait what is your point
01:19:25
Speaker
We're limited here in Jumanji to how many things can happen, right? There's a finite amount, however long the board game is. That's the amount of weird things that can happen. Oh, right. I think we were also just trying to figure out what is behind it. What is the deus ex machina of Jumanji? Is it made by... Who made it?
01:19:51
Speaker
We'll never know. Maybe guess it was, there was that other one that they made that was about kids looking into us. Their house became a spaceship. It was like from the makers of Jumanji. Do you remember this? I don't know. That guy, I think it's the same guy.
Comparisons and Legacy of Jumanji
01:20:09
Speaker
We got to look this up. It was like. Oh, are you talking about Zathura? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was made into a movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:20:22
Speaker
It wasn't as big, though. Yeah. And it was like, we're doing Jumanji, but in space! And no melodrama. Maybe you need the melodrama. It did give it a bite, didn't it? It was like, yes, this is consequential. Yeah, again, it's a tough line to ride.
01:20:50
Speaker
what of our actions have consequences? And in the end, if we can travel through time and not do things. Oh, this reminds me, because I just watched Multiverse of Madness, the Doctor Strange movie, and we had a really hard time watching that movie. And a lot of people looking at critics, it got really good critics ratings across the board. People were like, yeah, it's a Marvel movie, but it's really good.
01:21:19
Speaker
And then people talking about it like you got to know when you're walking into a Marvel movie that like sometimes they're going to reference other movies like that's not my critique at all. You know it's like it's a lot of action and like it's not not that's not my problem at all. You can do anything at any point in time ever. That's not a good premise for a movie.
01:21:40
Speaker
You can just like make a portal and then the portal will become upside down and then your mind can make humans turn inside out. So there's no challenge anymore. You can do literally anything. You can bend time, space. So why am I watching? The end was determined at the beginning. Once I knew that you could do anything ever when I'm bored. And so I guess that's the issue potentially with Jumanji here is if you can do really anything,
01:22:09
Speaker
I don't think it's that fun of a board game. I like that it's just, oh, rhinoceros has come out. Oh, lions come out. I don't know that I like the idea that you could get sucked in forever. Just never come out. And the only time you come out is when somebody else gets the board game.
01:22:26
Speaker
You have to come back out through it. I don't know. It just seems like it's haunting. And I think that was the, that's what I was saying a bit with the board game. Like it does seem benign. Like, Oh, the lion, it's a lion. Like, yeah, it'll rip your, rip your foot off. Um, but if you keep your distance, you know, it's fun. Yep.
01:22:51
Speaker
There's like, oh, it's a potentiality. I mean, it's like, but it's such a, but this is not that. What if his thing was like, actually literally told the story of the movie. It was like, their parents died in a ski trip and then they were sucked in. Oh, another guy was sucked in and he came back and he looked like Robinson Caruso and he ran around the house.
01:23:16
Speaker
And then there was some filler story just to get through the next 20 minutes. And then more animals came out and they ran around a department store. And then the movie kind of just ended because they rolled.
01:23:32
Speaker
That's the other thing. How do you have a story where it's a board game? Because usually the board... This is my final thoughts on this. Most board game movies take the board game and make that the plot, like Clue, which I enjoy. So this is unique. I'm just realizing this. The game is not the story. The story is about the game.
01:24:02
Speaker
And the only way, you can just roll the dice and the game will be over. That's very, fairly straightforward. So how do you keep stopping people from rolling the dice? Oh, he's got to get sucked in. And she has a mental breakdown. It's like, that's, that was your choice. Yeah, I think what could have happened, right, if we wanted to, we wanted to make this story.
01:24:32
Speaker
And I want to make it the way that I think would be really cool. It would probably be several different instances of playing the game and seeing that randomness play out to the people who are playing, not trying to connect them together and weave in and out that all these people might know each other or might be somehow related. And there's a shoe factory somehow that got shut down because somebody got sucked into the game.
01:24:59
Speaker
I don't think I want that. What I want instead is to see, okay, when you roll the dice, what comes out for you. What an interesting, like, I'd rather it be six or seven mini episodes. I think that could be really fun. But we didn't get that. Yeah, we're getting days of our lives. Or general hospital. We're not getting...
01:25:28
Speaker
what i would imagine i mean what is the closest thing to this that i would want would probably be like raiders of the lost arc i guess but that's it that's not a kids movie per se kids like it but just something like boom adventure um it's also not set why is it the the book is set in new york city why are they in key in new hampshire
01:25:58
Speaker
Doesn't make sense. Wasn't it in Central Park or the New York Public Library? Am I making that up? I don't know that there's a, is there a setting for it? Let's see. Peter and UB. Maybe I made that part up. I think their parents just leave them. They're going out to the opera.
01:26:29
Speaker
that's in the book that's in the movie oh really yeah they go to the opera the parents that's why he gets sucked into the thing because they're gone yeah you were thinking you might have been thinking about that when you thought they were at the ski trip
01:26:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. But they set off across the street to the park is what we get about Central Park. That might have been what I was thinking of. So it's it's not New York City, or it could be but it's not. It's not laid out. It's certainly a city that can afford a statue of a person on a horse. That's what's in the image on that page. It's a pretty, pretty interesting part. Is it a nice? It's a nice statue.
01:27:21
Speaker
Do not begin unless you intend to finish. See, why not give the guy his own dice if he's gonna get sucked in. He can roll again. He just gets a little taste of horrid jungle and then he can... It's like those places where you can jump on a wind tunnel and pretend you're skydiving. But instead they're just like, oh no, you're actually skydiving now.
01:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. Boom, the game made you really skydive. Oh my god! But oh, never mind, you're back on it. Oh, you're safe, it's fine, no problem. Oh, okay. The stakes, they want the stakes to be so high. He could have been trapped for eternity in that jungle. That just gave me the creeps as a kid. I was like, what? She had to roll the dice. What if she had died?
01:28:15
Speaker
Right. Too many loopholes here. I don't know if that's a loophole. It's just kind of a, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of a nauseating addition to a kid's movie. It's just, it's like, I don't get it. No. But I guess they didn't want to make a elementary school. And it goes all the way back to when we first had that joy of Jumanji. Like you said, the turning, the book.
01:28:46
Speaker
Anyway, all right. Well, we're gonna wrap up then any final thoughts What I'm really excited about because I just finished reading the book The new versions of the book Come with a bonus audio read by Robin Williams. I am very excited for
01:29:07
Speaker
Very excited. He reads the story aloud, looking forward to that. And we didn't even, I guess my final thought is we really should have touched on this, but we both love, and Andy too, loved Robin Williams. He was an incredible human being and so fun. I mean, everyone thinks this, but when you're of our age, it meant something a little bit different. He was like an uncle, at least that's how I saw him.
01:29:37
Speaker
Everyone thinks it, but to us, I feel like we really loved all his movies and we do like to tease him occasionally, but it's all in good fun. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that he was such a figure for so long. I've certainly been thinking this lately because I watch an exorbitant amount of TV and movies, but that those things start to become part of your culture, your language,
01:30:07
Speaker
when you spend two to four hours a day watching other people talking. And I think the things that I watched when I was a kid were so dominated by Robin Williams that I think what you said about him being an uncle, just like someone that sometimes visits you and tells you how to tell jokes the right way or
01:30:30
Speaker
is there when you're feeling sad, need a little pick me up. And I think he certainly served that role in this movie. I do wish that it weren't in such an existentially draining way, but he shines with all of his improvisations, all the jokes that he says throughout the movie, and yeah, bringing that tension
01:30:57
Speaker
But in a way that is, I don't know, like you said, the stakes don't need to be that high. But yeah, I think that Jumanji, the book, wonderful book, Jumanji, the movie, I've got, I've got some issues. But in general, what a, what a fun way to dive into the imagination of what could be. Yes. Okay. And we will, we will end it there. And thank you, Zeb. Thank you, Trevor.
01:31:27
Speaker
Thank you, Zeb, for joining me in this discussion of Jumanji. And thank you for listening to Letters and Legends. This podcast is produced by me, Trevor Maloof, copyright 2023. Tune in for more soon. Goodbye.