What happens to the Jumanji game module?

Question

In the initial timeline in 1997, Seaplane starts Jumanji and is sucked into the game. His parents supposedly donate the game to the city school, which is found again in 2017 by the new four players.

Upon beating the game, all five get back home: Seaplane in 1997 and the others in 2017.

What happens with the game module between 1997 and 2017 in this new timeline?

My best guess is that Seaplane needs somehow to restore the original events so that the four players join the game 20 years later, so that he can come back.

However who they are and how they joined the game is not mentioned in the movie, so how would he know where to put the module? It would also need to be found by exactly these four people being unexpectedly together at the same time (so 20 years later) without anyone grabbing the module before.

Answer 1

We don't know.

We can't say specifically how time travel works in that universe. But we do know that the Jumanji game itself basically has magical powers and a certain control over reality.

So, since it's not deemed important enough to mention in the movie, my best guess is that the magical game made it so everything happened as it happened.

Basically the Back to the Future-school of time manipulation where it can affect very specific people in a very specific way.

Answer 2

Alex could have arranged for the game to go to the school after he returned so it was still there for the kids. He would have known who the kids were and how they came across the game. Their lives wouldn't have turned out any different after Alex's return so there's no reason they wouldn't have still ended up getting detention and playing the game.

However, Alex could have just carried on his life and done anything with the game. After completing the game, time is reset to the point before the game was started with the players retaining their memories of the game (provided they're even alive at the time the game started).

In the first movie, Alan and Sarah remember everything because they started the game and Judy and Peter aren't even born yet.

Grown up Alan and Sarah meet up with Judy, Peter, and their parents before the parents were killed and before the kids join the game thus changing Judy and Peter's future from then on. They won't remember Alan, Sarah or their experience with Jumanji at this point because it hasn't happened for them yet (and never will).

There's no reason to suspect time travel works differently in each movie though.

One significant difference, and I beleive it to be the main reason, is that in the second movie, all players were inside the game and were sent back out from inside the game.

That probably has a lot to do with them remembering everything when they returned and not being affected by the changes in the timeline. They had become part of the game rather than just playing it.

In the case of Judy and Peter, they were just rewritten when the timeline reset. I think if they had ended up inside the game, it's quite possible they would have come back out to the time they went in and found themselves in the changed timeline with their parents still alive etc. and with their memories from their original timeline and their time with Jumanji.

Answer 3

You might already know that this film is a sequel to 1995 film not a reboot, if not then that's what Rock said:

"And now in two weeks I'll reunite with ol' friends Kevin Hart & Jack Black and we have the honor to introduce a whole new generation to the amazing world of #JUMANJI. *(for the record we are NOT making a reboot, but rather a continuation of the awesome JUMANJI story). It's also crazy to me how much me, Kev and Jack look like triplets when we're together. Man this is gonna be FUN."

So time travel rule will be same as Jumanji (1995), in that film when you finish the game, everything get fixed and you don't have to play the game again as it's not a repetitive close loop. In that film, only older player had the memory of the game and younger players don't even play it in new timeline and even Alan successfully saved Judy and Peter's parents from upcoming death and new timeline work pretty fine without Judy and Peter playing the game again.

Answer 4

Ok its very simple, Seaplane aka Alex played by Jonas was stuck in the game. The parents wanted to help him, it's not they can say " Hey come to the house and play a dangerous videogame, I have pizza " ( lol ). So they thought if they give to the high school, someone would play the game and save their son. But no one played the game. Since it was in a storage area, in the basement no one was there except the janitor I assume. So no one touched the game for 20 years.

And I think of the remembering aspects, you have to remember the game transforms its self. Honestly its easier to suck everyone in a videogame than " bring the game to life " So it added different features which is perfectly fine. That's the only reasonable answer I have.

Answer 5

They completely botched the ending and time travel, this is not a reboot but a continuation.

At the end of the first Movie Alan and Sarah drop the game in the river weighted with bricks and then when meeting Judy and Peter many years later both Judy or Peter have no knowledge of the game.

So that would mean at the end of Welcome to the jungle Alex should now be the only person with knowledge the game was ever started.

Which pretty much screws up the last 10 minutes of the movie.