Young Indiana Jones on DVD… Finally

Posted by Mister Hand (misterhand@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 14, 2007

According to IGN, those of us who have been waiting for a very long friggin’ time to own Young Indy’s adventures on DVD are about to be all sorts of happy.

In case you are unaware, George Lucas produced the relatively short-lived Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for network television back in 1992. At the time, it was pretty groundbreaking television–with each episode shot on location in various exotic settings all around the world. It was an early attempt to make the T.V. experience something more cinematic.

The results were mixed. At first, the plan was to follow Indy as a teenager, alternating with episodes following his travels as a ten-year-old boy. The teenager episodes were pretty well-done right from the beginning, and Sean Patrick Flanery was quite good in the role. When running, jumping, or swinging a whip, he seems to be channeling Harrison Ford, his movements are so eerily similar. But the ten-year-old Indy episodes were mostly awful and were dropped altogether before long.

The conceit of the show is that every week Indy meets up with a historical figure and has an adventure. It goes without saying that sometimes this stretched credibility, especially in the early going, but it did make for some interesting episodes. Eventually, Indy runs off and joins up with the Belgian army to fight in the trenches in World War I. And this is where The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles goes from mild curiosity to seriously compelling drama. After finishing his service as a Belgian Army regular, Indy finds himself present at Versailles, and gets to witness first hand how the treaty that ended World War I was shaped by short-sighted political jockeying, leading to an agreement that would be directly responsible for (among other things) Hitler’s rise to power, problems in Vietnam, and conflicts in the Middle East that we are still dealing with today. These episodes comprise some of the most informative and fascinating television you’ll ever watch.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is a show that starts off rocky, but by the time it’s done, you know you’ve seen something special.

The bad news is, the series is being released in three volumes. Volume One is set for release on October 23 (my birthday!). You’ll get some decent episodes in this set, but you won’t really get to the meat of it until Volume Two, which releases in December. Volume Three is set to be released sometime in the spring of 2008.

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