Content And More Content
For those unfamiliar with theseries, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ran for about three seasons in theearly 90s, from 1992 to 1996. Sean Patrick Flannery starred as the young Indyduring most of the show’s duration. Each episode was an hour on TV, and thestories were almost always, if not always, split across two episodes. In theDVD sets released by Paramount, the episodes are spliced together to provide asingle one and a half hour episode. What’s interesting about the show though isthat it’s as much about Indy as it is history. Realistically, it’s impossiblethat anyone lived anything similar to the youth of the fabled Indiana Jones asin the show he runs across many of history’s famous people and partakes in manyof historical events. Still, that’s not something to be concerned with, andwhat results are entertaining shows that manage to cover a lot of historywhilst still providing a good foundation for the character of Indiana Jones.
Volume 1, The Early Years, depictedJones in childhood as he traveled with his wealthy parents around the world,meeting historical figures like Tolstoy, Picasso, and T.E. Lawrence. The finaltwo episodes of the volume introduced Sean Patrick Flannery, and Flannery ranwith the series from their. In Volume 2, The War Years, we found Jonespartaking in many of the great battles of World War I as a soldier in theBelgian army. In time his knowledge of languages and culture and heroics help himrise in the ranks and he ultimately undertakes many adventures as a secretagent.
Volume 3 begins with Chapter 16 -Tales of Innocence. A light-hearted tale, Jones is once again in secret agentduty, carefully misleading a group of German soldiers while working with theFrench Foreign Legion. While on leave in Italy, he falls in love with abeautiful woman, but has a difficult time winning her heart. It’s no help thata medic by the name of Ernest Hemingway becomes his competition. The resultingepisode is a fairly comical tale. Extras on this disc include: “UnhealedWounds – The Life of Ernest Hemingway,” “The Secret Life of EdithWharton,” “Lowell Thomas – American Storyteller,” and “TheFrench Foreign Legion – The World’s Most Legendary Fighting Force.” Aswith the previous DVD sets, the extra features found in volume 3 are historicaldocumentaries. Having not seen the previous two DVD volumes, this surprised me,but given the show’s focus on history, it’s not terribly surprising. Still,some people may like this, others may not. As far as the quality of the extras,they are done well, but if you aren’t a fan of history, you probably won’t careabout them. Most extras in this box set ran between twenty and thirty minutes.
The second disc of this set featuresIndy battling the supernatural. While working for the French Intelligence, Indyfinds himself in Transylvania and runs into Vlad the Impaler — quite animposing name. Vlad and his minions of the living dead threaten mankind, andit’s up to Indy to stop them. I thought this adventure was a little too bizarreand goofy for Indy to be tackling vampires and the like, but it had itsmoments. There are plenty of extras on this feature too: “For the PeopleDespite the People – The Ataturk Revolution,” “The Greedy Heart ofHalide Edib,” “Dracula – Fact and Fiction,” and “TheOttoman Empire – A World of Difference.”
Moving to disc three, we come to theonly Young Indy adventure I had ever seen before, Treasure of the Peacock’sEye. In this adventure, Indiana Jones and companion Reme are on the hunt forthe diamond of Alexander the Great. Together they’ll travel all over, fromAfrica to Singapore, encountering a one-eyed pain in the ass treasure hunter,acrobatic pirates, and local natives. I thought this episode started outstrongly, and I liked Reme’s character, too. Extras on this disc:”Bronisaw Malinowski – God Professor,” “Anthropology – LookingAt the Human Condition,” and “New Guinea – Paradise In Peril.”As with the other extras, each feature runs either twenty or thirty minutes,and the topic is as the name describes.
Disc four starts to push ouradventurer in a new direction, as he has decided to become an archeologist now.In “The Winds of Change,” Indy strives to attend the University ofChicago. At the time same, then President Woodrow Wilson is pushing for TheLeague of Nations, and Germany is facing plenty of world pressure, which ofcourse would eventually erupt into the Second World War. Indiana also visitshome, and the difficult relationship between he and his father is portrayed.There are no extras on this disc, but disc five has extras for this episode.
Disc five is an extras disc for discfour, and it contains: “The Best Intentions – The Paris Peace Conferenceand the Treaty of Versailles,” “Woodrow Wilson – AmericanIdealist,” “Gertrude Bell – Iraq’s Uncrowned Queen,” “HoChi Minh – The Price of Freedom,” “Paul Robeson – Scandalize MyName,” and “Robert Goddard – Mr. Rocket Science.” Once again, noexplanation needed as the features are again just documentaries.
The adventure on disc six isentitled “The Mystery of the Blues.” This adventure finds Indy at theUniversity of Chicago working as a speakeasy. His roommate turns out to be noneother than Eliot Ness, who you may remember from The Untouchables, as he waspart of them. Ness worked ardently to enforce Prohibition. With that tidbit,you might have guessed that this adventure has Indy crossing paths withinfamous gangster Al Capone. Along the way Jones learns to play the saxophone fromSidney Bechet. As with the previous adventure, this disc does not contain anyextra features, but disc seven does.
Disc seven has the extras for”The Mystery of the Blues” and they are: “Al”Scarface” Capone – The Original Gangster,” “Ben Hecht -Shakespeare of Hollywood,” “On the Trail of Eliot Ness,””Louis Armstrong – Ambassador of Jazz,” “Jazz – Rhythms ofFreedom,” “Prohibition – America On the Rocks,” and”Hellfighters – Harlem’s Heroes of World War One.”
Disc eight returns us to a much morelight-hearted adventure in “The Scandal of 1920.” This adventurefinds Indiana Jones on Broadway, managing a presentation, dating three women,and meeting with George Gershwin. Extras? Indeed: “Tin Pan Alley -Soundtrack of America,” “Broadway – America Center Stage,” and”Wonderful Nonsense – The Algonquin Roundtable.”
Disc 9, the final adventureincluded, is entitled “Hollywood Follies.” This too is one of theless exciting adventures, as we find Indy battling early Hollywood execsinstead of baddies. I did enjoy this more than “The Scandal of 1920,”however, largely because of the inclusion of John Ford and Wyatt Earp in thisadventure. Extras: “Erich von Stroheim – The Profligate Genius,””The World of John Ford,” “Irving Thalberg – Hollywood’s BoyWonder,” and “The Rise of the Moguls – The Men Who BuiltHollywood.”
Lastly, to close out the set, disc10 is an “interactive bonus disc.” There are three features on thisdisc; two of them require a computer. The other feature that does not is anhour long lecture, basically, by a professor from a Texas university. I zippedthrough most of this, but he basically covers a lot of the fallout from WorldWar I in America and around the world, discussing primarily cultural andpolitical changes and effects. The two interactive elements that require acomputer are actually pretty neat. One is an interactive timeline, where youcan ‘view Indy’s journal.’ It’s a colorfully animated program that is intendedfor learning about the various locales and events and people that Indiana Jonesencountered in his youth, including childhood. You can also interact with a mapof the world and learn about different events during the early twentieth century.The other program is a game that installs on your computer; it looks like acartoon and has a cool comic book style presentation for cutscenes. The firstgame you come across is a simple duck and cover game where you use the mouse toduck and the left button to shoot; it’s very basic, but good for the youngeraudiences.
Closing Thoughts
There are several good commonthreads throughout this box set. For one thing, the presentation is consistent:the look of the discs, the menus, the menu music, the quality of the video andaudio for each episode and actually for the extra features, too, are all good.This was just a TV show in the early to mid 90s, so don’t expect a visual oraural quality to write home about, but they certainly suffice. Also, as I’vementioned earlier, each adventure is heavily dependent on history — events,locations, people — no episode comes near the action and intensity of thefilms. That said, these are some good quality shows. The acting, script,locations, directing, and so forth are all very respectable and well done.Nevertheless, it’s never a bad idea to rent first before purchasing.