The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Volume One DVD Box Set Review

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Title: The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Volume One

Region: One

Genre: Historical Drama

Episodes: “My First Adventure”, “Passion For Life”, “The Perils Of Cupid”, Travels With Father”, “Journey Of Radiance”, “Spring Break Adventure”, “Love’s Sweet Song”

Stars: Sean Patrick Flanery, Corey Carrier, Lloyd Owen, and Ruth de Sosa

Guest Stars: Oliver Ford Davies, Joseph Bennett, Lukas Haas, George Corraface, Max Von Sydow, Pernilla August, Michael Gough, Francesco Quinn, Ronny Coutteure, Elizabeth Hurley, and Vanessa Redgrave

Executive Producer: George Lucas

Feature length: 10 Hours and 49 Minutes

Extras: Historical Documentaries and Featurettes, Interactive Bonus Disc including Historical Feature: The Promise Of Progress”, Interactive Timeline, Revolution Interactive Game

Languages: English Stereo Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles

Packaging: 12-Disc Digipack Gatefold Within A Glossy Cardboard Slipcase

Sound: Stereo Sound

Years of Television Broadcast: 1992, 1993, 1996/DVD Release: 2007

Home Video Distributor: CBS DVD And Paramount Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark Rivera - The Brooklyn Critic

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles debuted on ABC in 1992. The series was designed to be edutainment in that the viewers can watch a family friendly drama that features either Corey Carrier as young Henry Jones Jr. at approximately ages 9 through 11 and Sean Patrick Flanery as young Indiana Jones beginning at approximately age 18 through his early twenties. The original one-hour TV episodes that aired on ABC for two seasons featured bookend vignettes with a one-eyed patch wearing elderly Dr. Jones in the early 1990s recounting stories from his youth. George Hall played this incarnation of Indiana Jones. Unfortunately the vignettes never really worked well on television because no one wanted to see an elderly Indiana Jones wearing an eye patch and recounting stories of his early life as if he were a lonely doddering old fool because it is depressing. Harrison Ford triumphantly returned as Indiana Jones at age 50 in the 1950s for the episode “Young Indiana Jones And The Mystery Of The Blues.” That one brief bookend appearance on the show brought back a bit of the feeling of the feature films for TV viewers and I have often felt that Lucas should have just created a bunch of generic bookend introductions and closures that could be used later for whatever amount of episodes they would eventually produce and just pay Harrison Ford whatever he wanted for the small segments, shoot them all in one to three days, and then move on to the actual production of the show or even better shoot an entire season and then bring Ford in to shoot the openings and closings in a few days so they match up better with the episodes. I feel this way because Indiana Jones is high profile enough that no one would consider it a step down for Ford to appear on television despite being a movie star and I think it would have boost ratings for the show in general because everyone can relate to Ford as Indiana Jones and thus they would be willing to stick through the dramatizations of his character’s early years and it wouldn’t be this one-eyed stranger attempting to be whimsical and full of light, but ultimately depressing fans with the question, “What the hell happened to Indiana Jones?”

With the May 2008 premiere of Indiana Jones And The City Of Crystal Skull less than a year away now at the time of this writing, perhaps Lucas and Spielberg will have a scene that will explain how Indiana Jones loses an eye, but since these vignettes with George Hall have all been removed and with more than a decade having past since the show first aired, I am guessing that either those segments no longer exist like the Star Wars Holiday Special as part of Indiana Jones cannon or no one will care if the question is answered or not because it is not nearly as popular and thought provoking as the questions, “How did Anakin Skywalker turn to the Dark Side of the Force and become Darth Vader and why?” After the second season, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was sold by ABC to The Family Channel and instead of having 50-minute episodes, the network requested 90-minute TV movies and thus four more feature length episodes were produced featuring both actors as Young Indiana Jones and the George Hall vignettes were dropped. Afterwards the rest of the series episodes from the first two seasons were altered and aired as movies of the week and released on VHS in this format. For the three volumes on DVD box sets the movie of the week versions are what is included and the title of the series has now been changed to The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones perhaps to keep in line with the 2003 box set release of The Adventures Of Indiana Jones: The Complete DVD Movie Collection, which will not be so complete anymore once the fourth film comes to DVD sometime in the future.

The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones was never meant to be an adventure series in the same vein as the movies. The goal was to teach young people about history through Indiana Jones encounters with various historical figures and then the supporting documentaries and interactive content would give greater detail regarding the people, places and events depicted in the series and their impact on contemporary society. I must admit when the series first aired in my twenties, I watched it, but was not drawn to it the way I was drawn to the films, but now in my late thirties, I appreciate the show a lot more as not only being a great program for the entire family, but truly a quality TV show that helped pave the way for Lucas to experiment with ILM on how digital effects could be used in the media and bringing a wholesome almost old school Wonderful World Of Disney like entertainment that frankly is sorely missing on the television landscape today.

I even liked the films with Corey Carrier as young Henry Jones, Jr. now while when I was in my early twenties, if I saw the episode was going to feature the younger Indiana Jones, I watched something else assuming that because the lead character is a little kid that it was going to be boring. Well while I obviously was not in the intended target audience when the series originally aired, I am happy to say that my judgment back then was wrong though to paraphrase a running theme from the Star Wars Saga, perhaps I was wrong only depending upon my point of view, which has changed with age and experience? In other words perhaps it would have seemed boring to me back in 1992, but now that I am more educated and mature, I can appreciate what Lucas was accomplishing in a way I could not back then. Now if you are expecting behind the scenes featurettes or interviews related to the production of the series, you will not find it in this first volume. It is my hope that perhaps in the second or third volume some material related to production of the series will be included, but this is as I mentioned above, edutainment, the historical featurettes and so forth take precedence here. However if you would like to learn more about the production of the series and many other things related to George Lucas, let me recommend to you The Cinema Of George Lucas by Marcus Hearn, ISBN# 0-8109-4968-7 published by Abrams books. I used it as a reference book for my review of this for volume DVD set and it is well worth having in any library for someone with an interest in the films of George Lucas and so forth.

Since some of these films are actually two episodes bridged together instead of true TV movies and while the individual segments are interesting, at times it just seems as though story points are just being dropped or left unresolved. Other times it is clear that Corey Carrier has grown a few inches because he is noticeably taller because the segments were filmed years apart. Unfortunately for continuity it seems as though in one film Indiana Jones grows several inches taller and in the next episode that could be set a year later, young Henry Jones Jr. somehow shrunk back to the size he was in the first episode. Once in a while a story seems to have consequences revisited later and as a result it seems impressive that they were able to bring actors back again for additional parts, but the reality is the first half of “My First Adventure” and the second half of “Spring Break Adventure” were actually part of the series premiere back in 1992 to introduce both actors who would be playing Young Indiana Jones.

There are a few interesting developments in the continuity of Indiana Jones’ life that we know of from watching the movies, but what the series reinforces are answers. In “My First Adventure” we see Henry’s dog Indiana and are introduced to his parents played by Lloyd Owen and Ruth de Sosa. We see through much of the younger Indiana Jones life that his father has little patience with him, but ultimately his father’s love shines through in their bonding episode “Travels With Father,” which echoes the scene where Henry Sr. hugs his son after learning he did not die aboard the tank that plummets to it’s destruction in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. The events that featured the late River Phoenix as young Indiana Jones occurred before the adventures featuring Sean Patrick Flanery. In “Spring Break Adventure” we learn Indy’s mother died of Influenza, which the earlier episodes set up in a way since the actress is usually made to seem as though she’s not up to all the world traveling they are doing. In addition Jones’ father speaks to his son in Latin at certain points where he is being stern or imparting important information. This kind of emphasis on learning languages was introduced in the third Indiana Jones feature film and collectively the show gives the viewer a reason for how the character developed into the hero we first met in Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark, with particular attention to the roots of where Doctor Jones first acquired his interest in archeology as well as how he gained his knowledge of so many foreign cultures.

There are simply too many historical featurettes that can be discussed in great detail, but from the ones I viewed in particular regarding T.E. Laurence and the Seven Pillars Of Wisdom (36:05), Russian Writers (26:00), and others are all well produced and in my opinion are priceless tools that support the films families can explore together and then revisit if they choose to whenever they wish. The episodes on this first volume cover the years 1908 to 1916 in particular and feature guest stars Oliver Ford Davies, Joseph Bennett, Lukas Haas, George Corraface, Max Von Sydow, Pernilla August, Michael Gough, Francesco Quinn, Ronny Coutteure, Elizabeth Hurley, and Vanessa Redgrave. Oliver Ford Davies and Pernilla August would go on to appear in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and behind-the-scenes Jonathan Hale, who co-wrote Attack Of The Clones with George Lucas and Frank Darabont, who has developed a distinguish writing and directing career in his own right penned episodes of the series. Producer Rick McCallum went on to produce the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition and the prequel trilogy and Gavin Bocquet would also join others behind the scenes as Production Designer on the Star Wars prequels too. Casting Ronny Coutteure as Remy would prove to be a stroke of excellence for the Sean Patrick Flanery episodes of the Young Indiana Jones series. He really brings a lot to every scene he appears in.

The 12^th disc features a documentary about the promise of progress in the twentieth century (41:27) as well as a complete interactive timeline featuring web links, more documentaries, and book suggestions covering the entire Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones beginning in 1899 to moving forward to 1925. This feature is intended for Windows based PC and Macintosh users alike with a DVD-ROM drive. There’s also an interactive game based on the Spring Break Adventure film.

All of the films and extra value features, including the interactive menus are presented in a (1.33:1) aspect ratio that preserves the manner in which the series originally aired on television and the picture quality for the films is top notch. English Stereo Sound and English Subtitles are encoded onto all 12 discs as options too. The12 discs are packaged in a Digipack gatefold meant to look like young Indiana Jones’ journal from the series and is housed in a glossy cardboard slipcase. Volume Two will be released in December and the final volume will be released early next year. The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Volume One is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline courtesy of CBS Video and Paramount Home Entertainment.

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