Tear Jerker / Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

• Jumanji

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• It's surprisingly sobering when Alex's dad finds the original Jumanji board game, only for Alex to boredly state "Nobody plays board games anymore" and toss it aside unceremoniously. This is the game that inspires fear in players, and it's just been looked down upon as just another board game. Not only that, it makes one feel old to realize times have changed and board games are not as prevalent as they once were in the past.
  • A touch of Fridge Horror here that validates people's suspicions - Jumanji, a game over 200 years old, is sentient and wants to be played - so it changes its own format to stay relevant.
  • The four teenagers, having returned to 2016, destroying the Jumanji game with a bowling ball. A sad fate to the majestic game of Jumanji. Assuming the attempt at destroying it actually worked, as the drums start up again at the end of the credits.
  • Word of God says it didn't. The drums after the credits were meant to signal that it is still around. Jumanji allows successful players to "get rid of it", in this case by allowing them to smash the console it had been, before it seeks out another set of players. Apparently, it has now become a mobile app game.
    • This was then Jossed by the sequel, where Jumanji remained as a video game, albeit a heavily glitchy one and with returning players too.
• After the Time Skip from 1996 to 2016, we see the state of the "Freak" House. It's fallen under near-disrepair, and the father of that home is no better. He's a shell of the chipper dad who brought home his teenage son a board game out of curiosity. After he lost his son, 20 years later, he's just a bitter lonely old man.
  • One might say, he's a reflection of what Alan Parrish's father was like during his final days after his son went missing.
• When Spencer comes face-to-face with Van Pelt in the Bazaar, he tells him simply, "We just want to go home." Kind of like how in a movie the good guy might tell the bad guy, "All this fighting is stupid". Only Spencer's 100% serious. Just like in the original when Van Pelt told Sarah that Alan rolled the dice, not her, once again, he's following the script, but he's still more aware than the other Non Player Characters, and it's so hard to tell how sentient he is compared to the others.
• Alex being stuck in the game for over eight months (or so he guesses, it's actually been far longer), completely resigned from trying again and subsisting in a world far away from home for possibly forever because he is on his last life. The party members are so moved by it that they recruit them into their team so that they could go home together, once and for all.
  • Alex's shock at learning he's been in the game for years, not months. Jumanji essentially stole his life.
  • Leading up to this, the entire team becomes uncomfortable at realizing Alex has been in the game for years. And it doesn't make it easy for them to break the news.
  • And then, when Spencer promises to get him home, Alex simply says, "Yeah" in appreciation, but you can tell by the look on his face that he's thinking "What home?". Alex knows that, having been in the game of two decades, he's going to become a stranger in the world he's released into, especially considering their recent conversation about Cindy Crawford and "fly". Thankfully, this was averted since Alex, like the others, returned to the exact point in time he was transported into the game.
• Alex's near death from being bitten by a mosquito (his character's weakness). Thank goodness he's saved but, assuming that players who hit a game-over don't respawn in the real world when the game is through, if Bethany hadn't resuscitated him, it would've been a tragic end to a player who never made it home.
  • Also, it might've lead to a Bittersweet Ending where the players would've been able to finally explain what happened and also break the news to Alex's dad, as if the old man isn't broken enough.
• Spencer and Fridge's argument in the game when they pretty much hit below the belt with each other, verbally regarding why they're stuck in the game and why their childhood friendship dissolved. It's Played for Laughs at times but it's a pretty serious argument between two teenage dudes who really were close at one point.
  • The friendship still sat at rock-bottom when Spencer forced Fridge to be bait for charging rhinos, costing Fridge his second life. Even worse, right before then, Fridge was getting pumped up about helping him however he needed and talked about how he had Spencer's back. A remarkably different attitude to when he first found out he was just the valet. And he gets pushed into rhinos for this show of loyalty and support.
  • It's a small detail, but Fridge tells Spencer at one point that his sports activities is the only thing he's good at. Considering he needs Spencer's help to do his homework, plus the reaction he has when Spencer mutters, "Dumbass" after their first argument, there's little doubt that Fridge has just as many self-doubting issues as his former friend does.
  • During a particularly vicious argument, Fridge tells Spencer that he's still just an annoying kid that he's been trying to get rid of since the seventh grade. Spencer can't even come up with something to say, clearly thrown off balance, before finally muttering 'dumbass'. Fridge's response is to literally shove him off a cliff.
• When the players first physically encounter Van Pelt, we get a gut-punching reminder that in spite of their adult appearances, these are four frightened kids that got trapped in a very dangerous environment.
  Spencer: We just want to go home.
• After the players finish the game, everyone is happy to be back home. But they find that somebody is missing: Alex. Luckily, it turns out he did return home to his own timeline.
  • While in the game, it was easy for them to forget that Alex was from a much earlier time than them (mainly because he didn't mature past a teenager), so Bethany and Alex got closer. They later escaped the game but saw Alex wasn't with them. When they did see Alex again, Bethany was sad to see that he had grown into an adult with a family (likely because they were expecting his teenage self to be spat out with them in 2017). However, she is still happy for him all the same, and especially happy that he named his daughter Bethany.
  • From Alex's end, it must've been bittersweet to return to his timeline, only to realize his new-found friends aren't even born yet.
• A bittersweet moment, given the Reality Subtext, when Alex takes the kids to his hideout: A house in the middle of the jungle with a sign reading "Alan Parrish was here."
  Alex: This is Alan's house. I just live here.