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. Tim Robbins

also had a small role as the 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.

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.

The main villains in the movie are the Zorgons, reptilian humanoids who are fond of heat and get attracted to a heat source much like bees are attracted to nectar. 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, and it instead sets its sights on the Zorgons. The robot is destroyed when a Zorgon ship explodes with it.

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 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, as well as an old fashioned stove.

The house the story takes place in is a classic turn of the century California Arts & Crafts style house located in Glendale, 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.