Zathura (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Zathura | |
|---|---|
 Zathura film poster |
|
| Directed by | Jon Favreau |
| Produced by | Michael De Luca Scott Kroopf William Teitler Peter Billingsley |
| Written by | Chris Van Allsburg (book) David Koepp John Kamps |
| Starring | Jonah Bobo Josh Hutcherson Dax Shepard Kristen Stewart |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | November 11, 2005 |
| Running time | 113 minutes |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Zathura is a film directed by Jon Favreau, released in November 2005, based on an illustrated book by Chris Van Allsburg. It starred Jonah Bobo as Danny and Josh Hutcherson as Walter. Tim Robbins also had a small role as the divorced father of Walter and Danny. The film also gave a sister to the boys, introduced a derelict astronaut to the plot, and multiplied the number of the Zorgons and Zorgon ships.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Two boys, Walter and Danny, discover a space themed board game where everything inside it becomes real. The boys are eventually drawn into an intergalactic adventure when their house is magically hurtled through space. The story is similar to Jumanji, another illustrated book by Van Allsburg (because in the book, the Zathura game is contained inside the Jumanji one).
During the course of the story, the boys must overcome their personal ill-feeling held toward one another in order to survive. They are aided in this by a derelict astronaut who appears as a result of the game. This astronaut is eventually revealed to be an older version of Walter, who had been trapped as a character in the game's world as a result of causing the disappearance of Danny, without whom he was no longer a player.
The main villains in the movie are the Zorgons, reptilian humanoids who are fond of heat and are attracted to a heat source much like bees are attracted to nectar, because they are cold-blooded. They travel space searching for heat. They are nomads because they burned their world for heat.
Another character, a robot, first appears (as a wind-up tin toy that quickly becomes life size) rampaging through the house. It can switch sides via the "Reprogram" card from the game. One of the boys uses this on the robot, which is attacking him, and it instead sets its sights on the Zorgons, committing suicide to destroy them.
Danny eventually completes the object of the game, whereupon the house and everything within it are drawn into a black hole. Moments later, they have returned to Earth. All the "pieces" of the game (the house, its furnishing, and the players) have been replaced as they were before the game began. The brothers are thereafter much more co-operative with one another.
[edit] Retro style
The film was set in present times while the book had illustrations with a 1950s look, before and after the board game started. The game was changed from a cardboard board game to a retro tin toy.
The Zorgon spaceships look like the archaic submarine-style types seen in science fiction serials of the 1940s or earlier. In a scene on board a Zorgon starship, we see a single Zorgon acting as a stoker for an old-style furnace fired by wood or anything combustible. The movie's design is an example of "yesterday's future," based on what the future was imagined to be like at different points in history. The Zorgons have the "look of the future" from the 1930s and 1940s, the robot from the 1950s and the derelict astronaut from the 1960s. The robot also arguably resembles Cylons from Battlestar Galactica or Darth Vader from Star Wars is in 20th Century Fox, as well as an old fashioned stove.
The story takes place in a classic turn of the century California Arts and Crafts movement house located in South Pasadena, California. The style, resembling the Greene & Greene houses in Pasadena, emphasizes perfect square shapes (the floor-plan for the house itself appears square-shape). Windows, sliding doors, fireplace, and dumbwaiter. Squares recur in various places in the movie, including a flat square television. Presumably this is to allow the house to clash as much as possible with the natural shapes of rock, fire, and gas that surrounds the house for most of the movie.[dubious — see talk page]
[edit] Box office
Despite having very positive buzz from critics (75% on Rotten Tomatoes) and screenings, it was considered a box office bomb. It grossed only $29,258,869, less than half of its $65 million budget. The international box office total was $35,062,632, for a total of $64,321,501 worldwide
[edit] Cast
- Jonah Bobo: Danny
- Josh Hutcherson: Walter
- Dax Shepard: Astronaut
- Kristen Stewart: Lisa
- Tim Robbins: Dad
- Frank Oz: Robot (voice)
- John Alexander: Robot
- Derek Mears: Lead Zorgon
- Douglas Tait: Zorgon
- Joe Bucaro III: Zorgon (as Joe Bucaro)
- Jeff Wolfe: Zorgon
[edit] Card sayings
1. METEOR SHOWER - Take evasive action. The meteor shower that comes through the ceiling of the living room, climaxed with a larger meteor. Appears on Danny's first turn.
2. YOU ARE PROMOTED TO STARSHIP CAPTAIN - Move ahead 2 spaces. Self-explanatory really. Appears on Walter's first turn.
3. SHIPMATE ENTERS CRYONIC SLEEP CHAMBER - For 5 turns. Turns the bathroom in Lisa's bedroom into a freezer-like chamber, freezing her with it. Appears on Danny's second turn.
4. YOUR ROBOT IS DEFECTIVE. This summons the robot (it starts off as a 10-inch toy, and grows pretty quickly into an 8-foot giant robot). The robot's only spoken dialogue (repeated various times) is, "Emergency! Alien life form. Must destroy!". Appears on Walter's second turn.
5. YOU PASS TOO CLOSE TO TSOURIS-3 - Enter gravity field. this brings the house close to a Sun-like planet which starts to pull the stuff in the house towards it. The robot is put out of action after this, when its buzzsaw goes into itself. The robot then proceeds to fix itself (via a small bird head-like device inside it). Appears on Danny's third turn.
6. YOU ARE PROMOTED TO FLEET ADMIRAL - Move ahead 4 spaces. Again, self-explanatory. Appears on Walter's third turn.
7. YOU ARE VISITED BY ZORGONS. Once again, self-explanatory. A Zorgon ship appears and procceds to open fire at the house. Appears on Danny's fourth turn.
8. REPROGRAM. Also self-explanatory, but Walter first didn't know its proper use until later on. Appears on Walter's fourth turn.
9. RESCUE STRANDED ASTRONAUT. Self-explanatory. This summons said astronaut. Appears on Danny's fifth turn.
10. CAUGHT CHEATING - Automatic ejection. Self-explanatory. Walter cheated, despite that he thought Danny did. In turn, he loses his gravity and flies through a hole in the ceiling. Appears on Walter's fifth turn.
11. LOSE MAP OF GALAXY - Go back 2 spaces. Self-explanatory. Appears on Danny's sixth turn. Lisa is also revived from her cryonic sleep.
12. SHOOTING STAR - Make a wish as it passes. Self-explanatory. But, an argument starts between Walter and Danny involving that everything is all Danny's fault. When said shooting star passes, Walter makes his wish. The astronaut thinks that he wished Danny never existed (which could have caused a paradox), but Walter wished for an autographed football. Appears on Walter's sixth turn.
13. FLUNK SPACE ACADEMY - Go back 1 space. Self-explanatory. Appears on Danny's seventh turn.
14. HIT TIME WARP - Go back 3 spaces, Repeat last turn. Self-explanatory. Walter then wishes that the astronaut had his brother back, which WAS Danny, so it's revealed that the astronaut was Walter's older self. Appears on Walter's seventh turn.
15. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SWING ON A STAR? - Move ahead 9 spaces. Self-explanatory. Fortunately, Danny was nine spaces away from the end. Appears on Danny's eighth (and final) turn.
16. GAME OVER - Thank you for playing. The house arrives at the black hole Zathura, and everything reverts back to before the game started.
[edit] Pop culture references
- A poster for the film Bullitt is visible in several scenes.
- In the living room, a leg lamp resembling the one from A Christmas Story can be seen in the background.
- Danny plays Jak 3 at the beginning of the film. He also has a poster of the game in his room.
- A character burns a couch and tosses it outside to deflect an enemy, in the same way as is done in Night of the Living Dead.
- Danny watches the Bubblestand episode of SpongeBob SquarePants at one point in the film; Patrick Star can be heard laughing and saying "It's a giraffe!". After Walter changes the channel to SportsCenter, Danny says "Hey! I was watching that" and asks Walter "Can we watch SpongeBob?" When Walter refuses, Danny says "You used to like it," to which Walter replies "Times change." Danny then mutters "Tartar sauce" under his breath.
- Walter gets angry at his father for agreeing to play Super Smash Bros. with Danny.
- Lisa remarks at one point that "we should have never rented Thirteen".
- Lisa has a Tenacious D - The Complete Masterworks poster in her room.
- In The Apprentice week 5 (which aired in 2005), one of the tasks candidates were given was to create a parade float to promote Zathura for Sony Pictures. To win the task, the float needed to reflect the spirit of the film and be relevant to the core audience of the film.
