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Jumanji is a board game in Jumanji.
History[]
Origins[]
The game's origins date back to the 1800's during the infamous period of African history known as the Scramble for Africa, during which the British Empire conquered a vast slice of the continent primarily through miliaristic means. During the conquest and colonisation of the southern half of the continent, British soldiers and settlers took over lands won or taken from African tribespeople. In the very north of the lands that would become the nation of South Africa during the 1840's, a regiment of British soldiers was stationed in a fort to guard against raids by the native tribes. To pass the time, the soldiers most often played a board game purchased from a South African merchant which was named Jumanji. In one instance, a troop of soldiers from the fort was sent to visit one of the local tribes to establish better relations and brought with them the board game for possible use as a medium for talks, a strategy which was surprisingly effective. The soldiers continued to visit the tribe several times and developed good relations with them but one night, one of the British soldiers accidentally shot and killed a member of the tribe due to mistaking him for a predator. Enraged, the tribes people turned on the soldiers and drove them away, killing many in the process and resulting in the game being left behind.
The survivors returned to the fort, called in reinforcements and commenced a bloody massacre of the entire tribe in revenge. As it was ending, a soldier went to pick up the abandoned Jumanji from where it had been left. As he did so, the tribe's shaman went to attack him from behind but the soldier heard him just in time and shot him first. As he lay on the ground dying, the shaman placed his bloody hands on Jumanji, summoned dark magics and in that instant placed a powerful and terrible curse on the game, vowing to the soldier in tribal-speak that no matter where they went, the monstrous horrors, evils and dangers of the darkest African jungles would find them. Visibly shaken, the soldier grabbed Jumanji and left with his comrades.
One week after the contingent returned to the fort, it suddenly went completely radio-silent and nothing was ever heard from it again until months later, when backup British forces arrived to find the fort obliterated, reduced to a smoldering ruin and the entire populace dead or missing. The only survivor was ironically the same soldier, grievously wounded and close to death, who had brought back the game from the previous massacre of the local tribe. Driven insane by whatever had transpired, he could only mouth over and over the word "Jumanji". He was subsequently declared insane and sent to a military hospital on the western coast, always with the game in hand for he refused to let go of it and became manically violent when anyone attempted to wrest it away from him. Not long after he arrived at the hospital, he broke out and vanished into the expanse of Africa. Neither he nor the game was ever heard from again.
The game remained lost and forgotten for almost a decade until it was recovered from the skeleton of its previous owner by a team of British hunters in the Congo circa 1888. The hunters foolishly played a round and were quickly overwhelmed by the game's evil until only one was left. The hunter finished the game, banishing the evil back into it and resolved to make sure it would never kill again. He returned to England and joined an expedition to the New World, always with the game close at hand but ignoring the sinister drumbeats used by the game to tempt in victims. When he arrived in the New World in the land that would eventually become New Hampshire, he set up a new life guarding the game.
1995 film[]
In 1869, Benjamin and Caleb Sproul discovered Jumanji, survived to win the game but were frightened of its power and set out to bury the box in the woods. When one boy asks, "What if someone digs it up?" the other says, "May God have mercy on his soul". After some time, the game is found 100 years later in the year 1969 by a young boy named Alan Parrish and his friend Sarah Whittle, when a construction company inadvertently digs it up. They both start playing the game, until the game starts to show its dangers by incorporating bats in the house's fireplace that chase Sarah down the street, while Alan is sucked into the game until another player gets a 5 or 8 in the dices. 26 years later in 1995, two other kids, Judy and Peter Shepherd, move into the house Alan lived before with their Aunt Nora after their parents died in a skiing accident in Canada and find the game, unleashing more and more dangers as they progress, but also releasing Alan when Peter rolls the dice and gets a 5 after Judy informs Peter that everything will only be reversed if the game is finished. They find Sarah and get her to play the game, and after escaping a stampede, a vicious hunter known as Van Pelt, carnivorous plants, a crocodile and venomous spiders, Alan manages to win the game and send everything back, including time itself, allowing him to hide the game once again. Alan and Sarah throw the Jumanji game tied up with heavy bricks into a river, where it sinks below and out of sight before Alan and Sarah begin a romantic relationship and alter the future.
However, it was later seen washed up on a beach, half buried in the sand where two French-Canadian people heard the sound of the game's drums and began to approach it.
Trivia[]
- In Pooh's Adventures of Jumanji it will be revealed that Dr. Facilier is the creator of the game.
- As revealed in Barney Plays Jumanji, Barney was the creator of the game, but he wanted it to be different than how it ended up. Barney did the same thing to the space game Zathura.
- It is similar to how Steven Spielberg felt about the final result of his film Hook, another TriStar live-action adventure movie from the 90s starring Robin Williams.
- Barney was also not happy when the game turned itself into a video game but was amazed at the avatars it created.