On the surface, the rebooted Jumanji movies appear to have a major continuity issue when compared to the 1995 movie.
In the original movie, Judy and Peter don't remember anything about what happened in Jumanji when they leave the game. However in the rebooted series, Spencer, Bethany, Fridge and Martha remember exactly what happened.
Related: How to watch Jumanji: The Next Level online at home
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Does that mean Judy and Peter's aunt Nora – who returned in Jumanji: The Next Level –knows what Jumanji is? Or does she not remember the events of the original movie either?
Spoiler alert: she doesn't.
But that's not a plot hole, as director Jake Kasdan has cleared up how time works in the world of Jumanji.
To understand it, we need to give a refresher of the events at the end of the original movie.
After Alan wins the game, he returns to 1969 with Sarah (when they entered Jumanji) and they remember what happened. They throw the game into a river and then we jump forward to 1995, prior to the events of the movie.
Alan and Sarah are married and they meet Judy and Peter's parents for the first time at a Christmas party. Alan convinces them to cancel their ski trip, meaning they don't die in a ski accident.
This means that unlike in Avengers: Endgame (for example), Alan has managed to change the future. Judy and Peter don't go to live with their aunt Nora in Alan's old house, they don't find Jumanji and they don't ever play it.
"We've tried hard to stay kind of consistent with the set of rules that is started in the first movie, but the design in the first movie does not take into account the weird reconception that would happen 25 years later, unsurprisingly," Kasdan told Collider.
"The way that the first movie ends, because they have emerged at the time that they entered the game, [that's] the way we've sort of played the role also, right? Which is like, you come back out at the time that you went in.
"[Alan and Sarah] are able to preemptively prevent the kids from having that experience in the first movie... There's this moment at the very end where they alter the course of the present day in the original Jumanji."
In other words, the players in the rebooted Jumanji movies don't ever have that person to warn them against playing it or to alter the events that led to them playing it.
The only possible person who could have done this is Alex Vreeke who exited Jumanji at the time he entered it in 1996. As Bethany and co discover when they leave the game in 2016, he is now an adult with his own family.
It seems that instead of destroying the game when he left it in 1996, Alex just threw it away and it led to it being in the school basement where they discover it in 2016.
So selfish, Alex.
These rules mean that Nora won't remember Jumanji either as she never moved into Alan's old house in the first place because he was still alive.
Instead, she decided to turn to the restaurant trade at some point since 1996 and bought Eddie and Milo's place to turn it into the brunch place to go to.
But if you're still a bit confused over the timey-wimey business, don't worry, Kasdan feels your pain.
"I spent a lot of time trying to figure that out, that exact thing. And specifically trying to figure out how it would [work]," he continued.
"With my first movie, we wanted to find a good organic connection to the original. But what made that so challenging was... the end of the original movie sort of undoes the events of the movie."
And it's to Kasdan's credit that he managed to make it work.
Jumanji: The Next Level is available to buy from Prime Video UK, iTunes, Sky Store, Google Play and other UK streaming platforms.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
