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Young Indiana Jones

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Did the TV show have highlights I should go back and watch?  The wife and I started to get the DVDs from volume 1 from netflix, but they were so slow and dry we couldn't watch them.  I watched the first few originally on TV and liked how they mixed the Jake Lloyd Indy with Sean Patrick Flanery Indy, but I noticed they undid that on the DVDs.  (Where's www.originalyoungindianajones.com when you need it?)  We skipped to volume 2 (all SPF Indy, all the time!), if I recall and thought those were more decent, but still not quite worth my time.  Vol3 promises to be more exciting, but I'm sure I believe it.

I hated KotCS, if that's any indication of the kind of Indy fan I am.  (Or of my continuuing good taste)  I really liked IJ:Fate of Atlantis and some of the stuff in the Dark Horse comics.  I acutally really liked the Young Indy books that predated the show by a couple of years.  Did anyone else read those?  I was in grade school when I last read them, but I and my friends all really liked them.

The William McKay ones from this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_(franchise)#Young_Indiana_Jones

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Inferior as Crystal Skull was, it was vastly superior to Young Indy, which was an insult to what Harrison Ford had done in the films. SFP's bland ineffectual Indy was about as much the same character as Ford's as Hayden's Anakin was Sebastian Shaw's character. And the stories were moronic. Indy hangs out with just about every historical figure in the period. Real insult to the audience's intelligence. And the it-was-meant-to-be-educational excuse doesn't save it. Why does Indiana Jones have to be "educational"? Though it suppose it is educational to thus demonstrate to kids that adults are too stupid to put together a show with any intelligence. I can't understand people acting like Indy was ruined by Crystal Skull, considering it had already been soundly ruined by Young Indy. It's like moaning that The Clone Wars show ruins Star Wars, as if the PT and the SE were perfectly ok. At least Skull had Harrison Ford, the real Indy. Ford is the main exceptional thing the Indy franchise had to offer. Without him it'd have just been a bland meaningless adventure franchise. He's the one who gave it humanity through his portrayal of Indy. He was the one that made things on the screen feel like they mattered, because he got you emotionally connected to the character in a way few actors could. Indy without Ford is useless. Indeed, you can't have Indy without Ford. Though I guess maybe you could have Mutt Williams without Ford, which would at least be better than the Young Indy travesty.

And the final insult is those dvds. They cost a fortune and I hear they even edited out Harrison Ford's guest appearance, the only worthwhile thing in the whole bleeding show. And they padded them out with a whole load of historical documentaries. Jeez, if somebody wants historical documentaries they can buy historical documentaries. If they're buying Young Indy they probably just want Young Indy. Cut the documentaries and lower the price and include the only appearance of the real Indy that the show ever had.

 

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I know they cut out "old geezer Indy" from the DVD's, but I read here that they kept the Ford cameo.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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It seems you're right. Good. But they shouldn't have cut the old geezer. It's the same old George Lucas, changing and cutting things. Wtf is so bad about giving people what they saw on the screen? Even the Clone Wars dvds are "directors cuts" of the episodes.

I mark the Young Indy show as the start of the prequel spirit. Create a prequel in which you recast a crucial character with a young actor who gives a weak performance and totally doesn't fit the character, and introduce startling stupidity. Same thing as the prequels.

I can't for the life of me understand people who are ok with SPF as Indy but have a problem with Shia Labeouf. Shia doesn't have qualify as Indy himself and he's still a lot closer to what Ford does than SPF is.

Oh and Lucas thinks Young Indy is good for teaching history to high school students? lol I would think the whole thing would be too infantile for high school students to sit through it.

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Any other opinions on Young Indy?  I'm about to start reading the pre-TV Young Indy books to my son.  Here's hoping they're as good as I remember them!

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I deserved that.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time

But what about the show?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time
 (Edited)

Despite the ham-fisted linking material the DVD sets are worth the price for the documentaries alone (the best thing Lucas has attached his name to for decades).

I personally consider the series as the extra and the documentaries as the main feature and I preferred much of the series to every Indiana Jones film after Raiders.

I got mine quite cheaply and they are very good value for money at the full price (if you are the sort of person who would watch the show naturally).

 

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I rather enjoyed the show for what they were... a coming of age story set in historical settings aimed at a young audience.

I rather liked the geezer. I think that's exactly how Dr. Jones would turn out... one eyed and grizzled, probably having had all sorts of crazy adventures until he was in that wheel chair huffing on oxygen tanks.