This box set is an absolute monster...
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After nearly two decades of retirement, Henry Jones, Jr. is once again donning the trademark fedora cap and arming himself with whip and wit and in just a few days audiences will once again discover Indiana Jones when "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" opens up on May 22nd. The last theatrical release starring Harrison Ford was the 1989 film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." However, this wasn´t the last time that the story of everybody´s favorite adventuring archeologist had stories told of his adventures. The television show "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" aired between 1992 and 1993 and a number of made-for-television films were produced between 1994 and 1996. The third and final collection of these television tales, which is now known as "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" is now available on DVD.
"Volume 3: The Years of Change" contains the final seven episodes featuring Sean Patrick Flanery as young Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. After the cancelation of the television series, George Lucas went to work and combined episodes to make feature-length films of his creation. The forty-four aired and unaired episodes were weaved into twenty-two full-length productions and Lucas inserted new footage that was shot in 1996. The episodes had aired over the course of an hour during their original television run, but on DVD the shows are combined into ninety-minute uninterrupted episodes. Bookends that were part of the initial broadcast were removed from the episodes to provide a fluent experience for the viewer. Of course, purists will simply remind themselves of Lucas´ penchant for tinkering with anything he has made.
The box set is spread out over ten discs; with the first nine platters contain the episodes and educational and informative supplements for each and every episode. The packaging supplied by Paramount lists the full running length of the box set at eleven hours and states that there are over fifteen hours of supplemental materials. Their official numbers undershoot the actual running lengths and it will easily take thirty to forty hours to sit back and enjoy every moment of every supplement and delve into the interactive tenth disc that features DVD-ROM supplements that can only be played through a Windows 2000 or newer PC installation or a Macintosh system running OS X. The first two collections were just as expansive as this third and final volume.
The intention of Lucas was to create an educational experience with his "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones." Lucas and his long-time producing partner Rick McCallum intended the three expansive box sets to serve as educational aids to schools where the individual long episodes of Indiana Jones could entertain students and then history could be taught by subjecting the students to the related documentaries that are provided for each episode. With the third and final box set released, ninety-four total documentaries were produced. They are not exclusive to these three volumes of Indy´s young adventures; the History Channel (now just History) has aired these educational episodes in partnership with Paramount and they are more than simple extras, they are part of the intended experience.
I am not going to dig into the plot lines of the individual episodes. It would literally take me weeks to enjoy every episode and then review the story and plot of each hour and a half film. It would be a verbose and droll short novel covering the ´Years of Change´ for Indiana Jones. These box sets are massive. I sat through four of the individual films in their entirety to get a good feeling for this third volume and while the made-for-television films cannot hold a candle to the three cinematic experiences, they are nicely written, informative and entertaining.
The stories of Indiana that are told in Volume Three pertain to Indiana when he was a young man who struggled with lessons of love, manhood and adventure. As Indiana Jones, Sean Patrick Flanery finds himself competing with friends for the love of a young lady on more than one occasion. He finds himself discovering feelings for an older woman during another adventure. Each of the four films that I sat down and watched found a new love interest for Indy and he ultimately leaves for the better good and never truly gets the girl. After watching some of the early romances for the daring tomb raider, it became very easy to understand Marion Ravenwood´s frustration with Indy.
Another aspect of the series is that Indiana Jones rubs elbows with many famous persons throughout history. Whether it be Doug Fairbanks, Picasso, Wyatt Earp or Ernest Hemingway, Indiana Jones has a knack of befriending many famous persons and this lends well to the notion that "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" is expected to be as educational as it is to be entertaining. Many events that took place during the timelines of the individual films are shown through the perspective of young Indiana and a little backstory is infused into the film to help educate the viewer on the historical aspects of the adventures of Indiana. As a boy and a young man, Indiana Jones had far more brushes with history than he did with death.
What is lacking in these episodes is the adventures and discovery that has become synonymous with the name Indiana Jones. The trademark whip can be seen very rarely, but Flanery commonly dons the well-loved and eventually well-worn hat that is perhaps the most famous hat in history. There is on rare occasion a little gun fire or high adventure, but "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" is far more focused on politics, interpersonal relationships and social interaction. In these films, Indiana Jones is a well dressed and charismatic young man who has an excellent reputation and spends an incredible amount of time sitting around and discussing the events of what is going on. I was always surprised at how well know Indiana was for being a young man between the years of sixteen and twenty one, but with how many famous people he has met and the worldwide travels of the young man, one can become quite well known.
The fourteen combined episodes that are contained within the seven short films of this box set are as follows:
• Tales of Innocence
• Masks of Evil
• Treasure of the Peacock´s Eye
• The Winds of Change
• Mystery of the Blues
• Scandal of 1920
• Hollywood Follies
With such a large number of supplements contained in the box set, it is only fair to quickly wrap up my discussion of the episodic content and general makeup of the volume and move on to the full range of content contained in the set. Flanery is quite striking as the young Indiana Jones and his efforts did become the trademark of the series and the young actor´s face is what became synonymous with the face of a young Indiana Jones. The films are entertaining, but I question Lucas´ decision to meld two of the television episodes into one film. Each ninety minute episode feels disjointed as if two separate stories were jammed together; which they were. I would rather have the episodes in their original form with the bookends intact, but this latest finagling by Lucas is not as intrusive as what was done to the three "Star Wars" films and generally everything is intact.
You have probably noticed I switched casually between calling these "Adventures" as both episodes and films. Truth be told, they are both and the word ´episode´ should be taken as ´episodic content´ and not as a weekly television episode. "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" is a large cohesive work broken down into episodes during the course of the young man´s travel through history. With George Lucas combining his work into these mid-length films, they are not something you can sit down and watch with the schedule of a television show. They truly are films with a decent production value that serve as wonderful period pieces. Granted, "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" are not nearly as grandiose as the feature films, but they are meant to be more educational than blockbuster.
I found myself enjoying the episodes of this box set a great deal and look forward to watching the final three ninety-minute films when I have a little spare time and won´t have the requirement of writing up a lengthy review about the episode. My time with the box set has become tiresome, but the normal viewer won´t spend the huge chunks of contiguous time that I did on enjoying the box set. This is a wonderful set to sit back and enjoy one or two of the tales in a week and spread the viewing over the course of the month as it takes more than one night to sit back and watch each of the seven films and then the related historical documentaries. It is not an easy task to mix education with entertainment, but Lucas needs to be given credit for successfully doing so with this third volume of "Adventures" and fans of the series should be overjoyed with the contents of this set, even after considering the tinkering performed by Lucas.
With the large focus on bonus materials of this box set, the Audio and Video section will follow the ´Extras´ section. If George Lucas can mess around with his bodies of work on a continual basis, I don´t see any reason why I cannot change the usual order of a review on DVDTown.com to facilitate this review in the most effective manner.
Extras:
Disc 1: Tales of Innocence & Special Features
The very first disc of "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume 3" opens up with the film "Tales of Innocence" and contains four features that depict his meeting of writers Ernest Hemingway and Edith Wharton. Hemingway is a well known American writer who was known to have an adventurous life himself and Unhealed Wounds: The Life of Ernest Hemingway (34:55) looks at his incredible life. Hemingway survived death more than once and was believed to be dead at one time. It wouldn´t be hard for Hollywood to create a series of films on his stories and adventures and this documentary spends quality time discussing the legendary author. The French Foreign Legion: The World´ Most Legendary Fighting Force (28:22) discusses the band of fighting men that Indiana spent time serving under during the first half of "Tales of Innocence" and this documentary sheds a little light on the French Foreign Legion and the fascinating history of the men that served and the legion itself.
The second two features on the first disc feature additional documentaries on American writers. The Secret Life of Edith Wharton (30:35), whom young Indiana had romantic feelings towards this older writer. In reality, Wharton was known for being part of high society and married an older man during her younger years. This documentary will be very worthwhile to those that have read "The House of Mirth." Compared to the first two documentaries of this disc, this felt longwinded. The final supplement of this introductory disc is called Lowell Thomas: American Storyteller (29:18) and features the third look at an American writer. Thomas´ voice should be familiar to many as he was an early and famous broadcaster and his best known work for this media pioneer was to make the world aware of a man called "Lawrence of Arabia." This was another quality documentary that looked at the early days of broadcasting and the wide range of talent of this storyteller.
Disc 2: Masks of Evil & Special Features
"The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" doesn´t relent during the second disc as another four fine documentaries are included relating to the stories of Indiana Jones. For the People, Despite the People: The Ataturk Revolution (30:25) looks at Mustafa Kemal Ataturk´s raising of an Army and creating the nation of Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Much of the history of the Turks and their revolution is displayed in this very detailed half hour documentary. The Greedy Heart of Halide Edib (28:23) is a biographical documentary that focuses on female novelist Halide Edib and how her writings and works helped change the life of Turkish woman and how her political dealings helped the feminist play a pivotal point in the formation of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire: A World of Difference (33:05) is a historical look at the Ottoman Empire and its six hundred year rule over the Eastern Mediterranean. It may be beneficial to watch this feature before the first two documentaries contained on the DVD as it gives a good background on the Ottoman Empire before talking about two people who helped shape a nation that rose from its ashes.
The only feature contained on the second DVD platter that does not pertain to the Ottoman Empire is Dracula: Fact and Fiction (24:53). With a little footage from "Nosferatu" and other popular films featuring the legendary vampire, this feature offers a very nice overview of the history of the fictional character and then discusses the true backstory of Vlad the Impaler and argues as to whether or not elements of the fictional Dracula written by Bram Stoker were in some part based upon the factual existence of Vlad Dracul of the mid fourteen hundreds. The documentary spends a good amount of time discussing both Vlad and Dracula and I found this quite informative and entertaining as the legends of Romania are detailed.
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[release]23048[/release]