The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is a TV series that ran from 1992 to 1996. The series, which ran for 44 episodes, explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones. The series primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery as Indy aged 16-20, but also includes several episodes with Corey Carrier as Indy aged 8-10. George Hall also played Indy at age 93 for the bookends of each episode. The show was created and executive produced by George Lucas, who was also behind the Indiana Jones feature films.

Production

During the production of the Indiana Jones feature films, the cast and crew frequently questioned creator George Lucas about the Indiana Jones character's life growing up. During the concept stages of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lucas and director Steven Spielberg decided to reveal some of this backstory in the film's opening scenes. For these scenes, Lucas chose River Phoenix to portray the character, as Harrison Ford believed that Phoenix most resembled Ford as a young man. This decision to reveal an adventure of a young Indiana led Lucas and crew to the idea of creating the series.

Harrison Ford was originally offered the role of the older Indiana Jones (which eventually went to George Hall), but he turned it down, it is said, because he thought television had nothing to offer his career. However, Ford appeared as a middle-aged Indy (age 50) in the episode "The Mystery of the Blues," which aired in March 1993. For the brief appearance as the middle-aged Indiana, Harrison sported a beard. This is because he was filming The Fugitive (1993) at the time his scenes were shot, and he didn't have time to shave it off.

River Phoenix, who played young Indy (aged 13) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was originally offered the title role in the series, but turned it down, since he didn't want to return to television. It was originally planned that after The Last Crusade, a second trilogy would be made with Phoenix as the young Indiana Jones and Ford as Henry Jones Sr. (effectively playing his own father). It became increasingly difficult for all parties to fully realise a second trilogy and so a TV series was thought of as the next best thing and a way to test if a prequel set of films could work. However, Phoenix's untimely death in 1993 changed all that.

The series was unusual in that it was shot on location around the world. Partly to offset the cost of this, the series was shot on 16mm film, rather than 35. The series was designed so that each pair of episodes could either be broadcast separately, or as a 2-hour film-length episode. Each episode cost about $1.5 million and the filming with Young Indy usually took around 3 weeks. The first production filming alternated between "Sean" and "Corey" episodes. The segments with old Indy were referred to as "bookends." Filming a pair of them typically took a day and most were shot at Carolco Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina and on location in Wilmington. A majority of them were directed by Carl Schultz.

Paul Freeman, who played Rene Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark, portrayed an unrelated character named Frederick Selous in a couple of episodes. The black horse Sean rode in the Pilot episode was called "Hurricane" and was the same black horse Harrison Ford rode in the Indiana Jones movies. In some of the new additional scenes that were shot in 1996 with Corey Carrier, digital techniques were used to shrink Corey to make him appear younger.

Story

Most episodes feature an elderly Indiana Jones (played by George Hall) in present day (1993) New York City encountering people who spur him to reminisce and tell stories about his past adventures. These stories would either involve him as a young boy or as a teenager. In one episode, a fifty-year-old Indy (played by Harrison Ford) is seen reminiscing. Initially, the plan was for the series to alternate between the adventures of Indy as a child (Corey Carrier) and as a teenager (Sean Patrick Flanery), but eventually the episodes featuring Flanery's version of the character dominated the series.

Many of the episodes involve Indiana meeting and working with famous historical figures. For example, Curse of the Jackal prominently involves Indy in the adventures of T. E. Lawrence and Pancho Villa. Indy also encounters (in no particular order) Pablo Picasso, Louis Armstrong, Winston Churchill, and Sigmund Freud; At one point, he competes against a young Ernest Hemingway for the affections of a girl, is nursed back to health by Albert Schweitzer, and goes on a safari with Teddy Roosevelt.

Cast

Main characters

• Sean Patrick Flanery .... Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (age 16)
• Corey Carrier .... Henry 'Indiana' Jones, Jr. (Age 10)
• George Hall .... Dr. Henry 'Indiana' Jones, Jr. (Age 93)
• Ronny Coutteure .... Remy
• Lloyd Owen .... Professor Henry Jones, Sr.
• Ruth de Sosa .... Anna Jones
• Margaret Tyzack .... Miss Seymour

Historical Figures

Episodes

The pilot episode was aired by ABC in the United States in March 1992. For the pilot, the episodes "Egypt, May 1908" and "Tangiers 1908" were edited together to form the television movie Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal. Eleven further hour-long episodes were aired in 1992 (seven in the first season, four were part of the second season). Only 16 of the remaining 20 episodes were aired in 1993 when ABC cancelled the show. USA Network later broadcast the unaired episodes and also produced eight more episodes (each part of two-part television movies, making four TV movies) that were broadcast in 1994-1996.

Listed below are all 44 episodes of the series, organized by story chronology:

The revised and updated edition of the book George Lucas The Creative Impulse, by Charles Champlin, explains how The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles series would be re-edited into the new structure of twenty-two Chapter TV films. New footage was shot in 1996 to be incorporated with the newly re-edited and re-titled "chapters" to better help it chronologically and filmicly. Two Indy segments shot, which were Tangiers, 1908 and Morocco, 1917 is explained that, Morocco, 1917 is joined with Northern Italy, 1918 (now re-dated as 1917) to form Tales of Innocence. As Rick McCallum indicated, the new Corey Carrier, segment, Tangiers, goes with the Egypt segment of the original Curse of The Jackal, but the title is now My First Adventure.

The original pilot, Young Indiana Jones and The Curse of The Jackal is no more. As stated Egypt is now apart of My First Adventure, and Mexico has been hooked up with Princeton, 1916 to form Spring Break Adventure. The 93-year-old Indy bookends for the original series are gone. Also gone is Sean Patrick Flanery's bookend for Travels With Father. It would seem that bookend was dropped, so that it could be expanded into the second half of Winds Of Change. Even with all these bookends cut, Harrison Ford is still in The Mystery of The Blues.

The new collection also includes the four episodes that were made for the ABC network that never aired. Including Florence, May 1908, Prague, Aug. 1917, Transylvania, Jan. 1918, and Palestine, 1917 (note that the dates of these episodes have changed to be a part of the collection). Palestine may end up as the most interesting as it has been made into a film of its own, versus the one-hour version that aired in Europe. As stated above Tangiers, 1908 and Morocco, 1917 were filmed just for this collection. Finally, the little bit of Princeton, 1919 that was shown in the Family Channel's airing of Young Indiana Jones Travels With Father, was actually a part of its own one-hour story now combined with Paris, May 1919.

Reaction

DVD release

Lucasfilm has confirmed that a DVD release of the complete series is scheduled. At a press conference, series producer Rick McCallum explained that he expects there to be 22 DVDs in all, which, in addition to the series, will include around 100 documentaries which explore the real-life historical aspects that are fictionalized in the show. Lucas and McCallum hope that the DVDs will be helpful to schools, as they believe the series is a good way to aid in teaching history. If all goes well, the plan is to tie the DVD release to the theatrical release of Indiana Jones 4, which is currently set for release in 2007.^**

References

External links

• Official site
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles at TV.com
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles at the Indiana Jones wiki
• Young Indy That Could Have Been - List of episodes never produced
• Chronological episode guide
• Fan site
• Young Indy at TheRaider.net

1990s TV shows in the United States | ABC network shows | CBS Paramount Television shows | Educational television | Period piece TV series | Television programs based on films | The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

Die Abenteuer des jungen Indiana Jones | Les Aventures du jeune Indiana Jones | Хроники молодого Индианы Джонса (фильм)