Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume One - The Early Years

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

The Young Indiana Jones adventures come to DVD. Agreed I wish it was cheaper but then consider you are dealing with Paramount that charges over $100 per season for any of the Star Trek series. Considering that each episode is an hour and a half movie in itself and this does not seem quite so unreasonable. Furthermore it includes alot of extras whether you want them or not. I grant you I would like to see a 7 disk edition of just the episodes for a substancial savings. Personally I'm just thrilled to finally see them come to DVD. I am sure if you're patient you can probably get a package deal once all the volumes are released. The first 12-disc set includes seven feature-length episodes as well as 38 in-depth companion documentaries, an historical overview, an interactive game and an interactive timeline. The series was shot in 35 countries and showed key figures in the coming of age of the modern world. The interviews include celebrities like Gen. Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Gloria Steinem, Martin Scorsese, Barbara Boxer, James Earl Jones, Hal David, and Deepak Chopra.

This volume includes the episodes (I have described the first story on each disc, they each include a second story):

My First Adventure - Indy and T.E. Lawrence solve a murder mystery in Egypt.

Passion For Life - Indy goes on safari in Kenya with Teddy Roosevelt.

The Perils of Cupid - Indy falls in love with the daughter of Duke Franz Ferdinand in Vienna, Austria.

Travels with Father - Indy joins up with Leo Tolstoy after an argument with his father while visiting Russia.

Journey of Radiance - Indy visits the Holy City Benares in the Far East and meets Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Spring Break Adventure - Indy meets Thomas Edison and tries to avoid German spies.

Love's Sweet Song - Indy ends up in Ireland right before the Easter Rebellion mixed up with the resistance and he meets Winston Churchill.

The second volume is to be released December 2007 and the third volume in the Spring of 2008. If you shop around I think you will find Amazon has the best Pre-order price so far. The suggested retail being advertised several places is over $100. So I'm ordering mine here and now. This set is great family entertainment. It may not always have as much excitement and comedy as the Jone's movies, but it makes up for it in other ways including good drama, history, and locations. I highly recomend this set.

Addendum:

Pro: This set is like seven feature length movies revolving around two stories on each disc. The documentaries created by George Lucas are quite good so please don't rate it based on the price. The whole family will enjoy this set and the movies alone are easily worth $11.50 each. I received my set and viewed the first disc. The first disc was sharp and clear and the first episode and the four documentaries on it were all quite entertaining. I'm looking forward to watching the other 11 discs.

Con: Does not include the scenes of old Indiana Jones. In fact the overall editing is poor. You will notice episodes ending abruptly or jumping to an older Jones, then a younger Jones. The other con is the box is the standard Paramount cheap folding carboard with plastic disc inserts stuck in a flimsy cover like all the Star Trek sets. I would have preferred seven slim plastic DVD cases for the discs put in a firm cardboard cover. Sometimes the greed of Paramount really shows. I don't mind paying the high price for quality. The series is worth the price, I just don't think Paramount should have packaged such a great series in such a cheap box.

If you don't already have this series on some format you may want this set as it may be years before they become available with the cut scenes put back it. If on the other hand you have the original televised series, forget this set and figure a way to get yours transferred to DVD.

Sadly the versions of the original episodes on this set have been badly edited, removing both the original opening titles and the present day introductions by an older eyepatched Indy (as Played by George Hall) . Basicly Lucasfilm has released the TV Movie edits in a roughly chronological order to show how Indiana Jones grew up , which on this volume creates major continuity blunders as the Age of Lead actor Corey Carrier will jump by two or three years in the space of one movie. then he magicly de-ages for the start of the next Movie in the set.
What is particularly insulting is the way in which the original pilot episode YOUNG INDIANA JONES AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKAL has lost its original second half which creates a discordant jump in the edited version on this set which is now called MY FIRST ADVENTURE

in the original version the story revolves around the theft of an Jackal headpiece from an egyptian tomb which is first investigated by young Indiana as played by Corey Carrier and then resolved by Sean Patrick Flannerys 16 year old version of Indy. the original version was well balanced , gripping and was resolved in the space of one episode. in the botched up version on this set all the Sean Patrick Flannerry material is gone, replaced with a story about Child slavery (episode 41)which renders MY FIRST ADVENTURE as a hatchet job.

Im selling my set and keeping my Original , UNCUT , off air copies from the original transmissions, as they are what I and a huge number of fans wish to own instead of this travesty

I have been looking forward to this release since it was announced, and have all the episodes on vhs. I purchased the set, got home and realized that Mr. Lucas has done it again. These are not the episodes as originally broadcast, but rather edited together into "movies" with the Old Indy bookends completely excised. They are not even present as extras. The episode "London 1916" suffers tremendously from its treatment on this dvd; Old Indy meeting his lost first love years later (played by Jane Wyatt - gone from this release) always brought a tear to my eye. It's also edited behind another episode of Indy having a romance in Ireland, thereby completely diminishing the impact of Indy's first romance. "Travels with Father" has also had its bookend removed, replaced with a deleted scene which provides us a perfect example of why some scenes are better left deleted.
Instead of purchasing the next two sets, I think I'll save my money and purchase a vhs/dvd recorder. That way, at least I can have the original episodes on dvd. If you don't care about this aspect of the release, knock yourself out. As for me, I feel completely ripped off.

There has been no DVD that I have anticipated more than The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. I have very fond memories of this series from my days in college. Even today, in many of my music history lectures, I make references to the series. Especially memorable episodes for me were the following: an episode in which the elementary school-aged Indy meets Degas and Picasso and another episode in which the twenty-something Indy got (bad) love advice from George and Ira Gershwin. Obviously, when the set was recently released, I was more than enthusiastic (a common reaction as can be judged by the other reviews).

I received volume 1 as a Christmas gift, and since that time, I have become more and more frustrated as I watch the new edits. In fact, I am disappointed.

There are many things to laud in this release: the actors, the music (what a GREAT original score for the small screen), and the historical novel settings. HOWEVER . . .

Why does George Lucas need to rework everything he makes? A creator needs to let go of his final product and let his audience enjoy it as is with its imperfections and all. I read the background information about the new edits, and the rationale is to make the series more chronological and educational. So, instead of the original one-hour-long episodes, he has expanded them into two-hour long movies. Quite frankly, that is too long to watch for many kids (especially without the historical information, which, yes, is supplied in the form of extras). What was great about the original series is that Lucas supplied the bookends in the form of a modern maverick 93-year-old Indiana Jones. Yet, all of these scenes have been eliminated in the release of this DVD set. It was fun to watch the old Indiana Jones (played by George Hall), a retired eccentric who still had vitality! Imagine Indiana Jones sitting at an art auction as an old man in 1990s, watching a forgery of a painting by Picasso being sold as a work of Degas. It also made the plots more plausible: you knew that you were watching the historical moments according to the (faulty?) memory an old man. As many people do, he may have elaborated some of the historical moments in his mind's eye. Thus, having all of these great historical figures does not seem so impossible.

The way the series has been re-edited, the stories seem pretentious and long. I do not think it is so important that Indiana Jones actually met Theodore Roosevelt, had a relationship with Mata Hari, and befriended young Vladimir Lenin. What is important is that through the eyes of an old man, we could have a modern-day connection with history, and maybe, just maybe, there could be truths in these stories that he is telling.

NOTE to George Lucas. Dear Mr. Lucas: please reissue these box sets with the original episodes as they appeared on television in the 1990s. Your first attempt at making this series was perfect and ingenuous.

I was ecstatic to hear that Young Indiana Jones was coming out on DVD and I love the stories. Having received the first volume and watched the first couple of discs I'm still happy it's here but there are a few basic problems that I hope get corrected in future releases.

No chapter selection option - how basic can you get? Just about every professionally cut DVD I know includes a chapter selection.

Why 12 discs? Another reviewer mentioned they'd like to see a collection of just the episodes on 7 discs. All the episodes and all the extra documentaries could fit on 7 discs with room to spare.

Why 'feature film' format? The way the plot, characters, theme, and locations change in the middle of the 'films' make it obvious these were TV episodes, not films. Sticking episodes together and calling them 'films' do not improve things (and the lack of a chapter selection option makes it awkward to watch half of a film at a time, if that's what you want to do).

On the plus side I do like having documentaries about the time era accompanying the shows and the shows are great. It just seems the DVD release needed a bit more thought put into it (which is strange considering how long they had to think about it).

I LOVED this TV show when it aired... I was so excited to hear that it was finally being released on DVD. Unfortunately I am SO disappointed in this set (like other people). Yes the packaging is cheap - but the editing is horrible! I was so confused by the first episode! It was cut so confusing - I thought I had some kind of damaged DVD. The stories do not remotely go together (Egypt and the pharohs then slaves and the sultan?) - and the episodes are not as they aired on TV - many details and the logical story lines are completely lost or ignored. Be warned!

I think what we have here is VHS versions. Not the TV episodes.

Heres a copy from wikipedia of what I found.

[edit] Home video re-edits
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, for the 1999 VHS release. New footage was shot in 1996 to be incorporated with the newly re-edited and re-titled "chapters" to better help it chronologically and provide smooth transitions. The newly shot Tangiers, 1908 was joined with Egypt, 1908 from the Curse of the Jackal to form My First Adventure, and Morocco, 1917 was joined with Northern Italy, 1918 (now re-dated as 1917) to form Tales of Innocence. Also included in the home video release were four unaired episodes made for the ABC network, Florence, May 1908, Prague, 1917, Transylvania, 1918, and Palestine, 1917.

The 93-year-old Indy bookends for the original series were removed, as well as Sean Patrick Flanery's bookend for Travels With Father. However, the Harrison Ford bookend, set in '50s, from The Mystery of The Blues was not cut.[5]

However George Lucas needs to start putting version numbers on his films so we can tell them apart.

I feel that this is a inferior version of this series. I will not buy any more of the volumes until they release the TV versions.

On top of that I hate Paramount DVD cases. I have to remove a disk to get to another. That really bites, and causes accidental scratches. Some of the Star Trek movies have theses cases.
Paramount when will you ever learn.

Also:
I would not mind paying the high prices if this set contained the TV versions.

Brother can you spare a week or two? That's about how long it's going to take you to get through this massive 12 disc boxed set, the first of three volumes showcasing the adventures of Young Indiana Jones. This show, originally broadcast on ABC from 1992 - 1993, and then later on the USA network, was one of the most ambitious television shows in history. Indiana Jones creator, George Lucas served as the series' Executive Producer and also wrote the bulk of the episodes. This was also one of the most expensive shows to produce as it was shot on location all around the world. The series is also one of the more complicated in terms of its chronology and production.

First, episodes featured two different Young Indy's...there was Corey Carrier who played the character at approximately nine or ten years old, and then Sean Patrick Flanery who played Indy in his older teens and early 20's. Complicating matters was that the show was not presented chronologically. One week may be the younger Indy and the next, the older Indy. Now here's where it really gets interesting...a number of hour long episodes were pieced together to make a feature length film such as Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal in which the first half of the film feature Corey Carrier and the second half continues the story (Chronologically 8 years later) with the older Indy. HOWEVER, the DVD set is not piecing them together in the same way. The DVD set is presenting seven feature-length episode (two TV episodes) but doing it in more of a timeline/geographic order. (I told you it was complicated). They also renamed these episodes. Thus, the first Episode titled "My First Adventure" finds 9 year old Indy on the trail of a stolen Egyptian artifact but in the second half, he is now in Morocco being kidnapped by slavers and noticeably a bit older by a year or so.

Indy's father is played by George Hall who sounds remarkably like Sean Connery. Henry Sr. has been asked to speak all over the world and takes his wife and young son with him on his journeys. Thus begins a life of adventure and archaeology! Throughout the series, Young Indy would frequently meet famous historical figures. In the opening episode, he meets British officer T.E. Lawrence (Of Lawrence of Arabia fame) as well as archaeologist Howard Carter, still several years away from finding King Tut's tomb. The Second episode, "Passion for Life" pairs original episodes "British East Africa" and "Paris" into the full length feature as Indy first meets President Teddy Roosevelt for a safari in Africa, and then a youthful Norman Rockwell in Paris.

Once the emphasis shifts to the older, Sean Patrick Flanery Indy, the adventures and danger truly begin to ramp up as we can see the young man that will become the character of the feature Hollywood films and I was very impressed with Flanery's performance throughout the series. "Spring Break Adventure" features the teenaged Indy contending with German spies out to steal an invention of Thomas Edison, while the second half concludes the Curse of the Jackal storyline from the very first Young Indy episode in Egypt.

The DVD set features a whopping 38 historical documentaries that are pertinent to the episodes they are paired with. For example, the My First Adventure episode features a 30 minute documentary on Howard Carter and the discovery of King Tut's tomb. The "Spring Break adventure presents documentaries on Thomas Edison, Pancho Villa, General John Pershing, and more. What's truly wonderful about this set is that these documentaries would be a great addition to a middle school or even high school history class making this boxed set entertaining and educational. The subjects on the documentaries run the gamut from history to culture to social issues and philosophy. In fact, The History Channel acquired television rights to all 94 (from all three volumes of the DVD historical documentaries. The airing of the documentaries is meant to bring in ratings for the history channel and serve as marketing for the DVD release and the theatrical release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The History Channel and History International began airing the series every Saturday morning at 7AM/8C on The History Channel, and every Sunday morning at 8AM ET/PT on History International. Following each episode, two documentaries related to the respective episode are aired.

This was a great series, and I've long hoped for its dvd release. Though overpriced at the moment, at least it's available, so I'll keep an eye out for the eventual (inevitable) complete series box set. In the meantime, there's always the local rental place.

Young Indie was my favorite show when it originally aired, and I've retained very fond memories of it ever since. It's nice to see that, though the amount of documentaries included here borders on the absurd, it is getting a full treatment and is not just some rush-job release-it-and-forget-it package that often happens with long-discontinued series.

Young Indiana Jones episodes are filled with all the action, humor, and intelligence you could hope for, and, best of all, (cheezy and clichéd as this is to say) it really is fun for all ages.

Alas, like so many, I yearned for this release from the days of chasing it all over ABC's peek-a-boo scheduling, and too sighed in frustration at the massively bloated sets we have been presented with. However, one has to have some perspective with Lucas' original goal for this series - to present something which can be used as a teaching aide.
From the beginning, back in the early 90's being interviewed on Entertainment Tonight, et al, the educational aspect was important. He hoped young people would look at these famous people, usually shown in this series before they're actually famous, and not only learn about their worldviews, but to also realise these people weren't far different from themselves. Lucas remained true to his vision.
In fact, I know a teacher whom has used this series, on VHS, in just this way with his classes. Now, however, Lucas goes one further and gives documentaries on the discs to accompany the stories - now, if a kid's interest is piqued by an episode, he can immediately find out more, wonderfully fulfilling Lucas' goal for the series even better.
Yes, it is a bit annoying to have to subsidize, essentially, Lucas creating a new documentary unit at Lucasfilm, using this series as a springboard. Yet, the goals are noble.
Meanwhile, one cannot complain too much of this set, regardless - seven films, essentially, for these were indeed filmed, on location, around the world. A little over $11 a film, yet these have been remastered - they never looked this good on VHS, and certainly not on broadcast television. The price is more in-line with what one would pay for a BBC series (Doctor Who sets are five or six discs and cost $60-70.)
The only disappointment, to me, are the shoe-horned way they tried to connect the episodes without Old Indy. Unfortunately, they got the idea at the time the originals aired that Old Indy wasn't favored by the audience. Hopefully they'll include his segments on the third set somewhere as extras, but I doubt it. The problem is, the newer scenes attempt to force a now taller, older Corey Carrier to play his former self - it doesn't work. At all. Particularly watch for how he has to awkwardly place his legs, knees wildly askew, to sit lower with respect to Mr. and Mrs. Jones - quite comically bad, actually, and makes one feel the loss of Old Indy even more.
One reviewer complained of linking Ireland and London, ruining Indy's "first romance" - however, London was NEVER Indy's "first romance" - first adult love, but hardly his first romance. The show ALWAYS had that timeline. Besides, he was happy dating Nancy Stratemeyer in Princton, 1916; And never forget Sophie, his first boyhood crush. His scene with Freud, Jung and Adler is one of the classic moments of the Corey Carrier episodes.
The documentaries are top-notch - I've watched them all already, and they're exceptional, kept simple enough for kids but never watered down to the point of being patronizing, and retaining interest for adults as well. They're filled with interesting tidbits beyond what one would find in a normal documentary on a person, and include input from some very interesting people (Dean Kamen was particularly enjoyable.) They're kept short enough for classroom presentation (usually 20-30 minutes, perfect for a 45 minute class with time for discussion), and make it easier to digest the sheer volume of these things included on the set. Anyone who loves Young Indy, and loves history, should have absolutely NO complaints about this set. For the rest, your mileage may vary.
In the end, the episodes are the best part of this - the remastering they've done is stellar, helped, no doubt, by the fact this series was filmed, rather than shot on video (making it easier to remaster to a higher resolution format.) The images are particularly pristine, and the color saturation excellent.
Yes, an investment. I believe it is worth it. If you don't, as someone said, buy a used copy. People are already selling them used for under $60.