Young Indiana Jones
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The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, also known as The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, is an Emmy Award-winning American television series that ran from 1992 to 1996. A form of "edutainment," the series explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones. The series primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Corey Carrier as the title character, and George Hall played an elderly version of the character for the bookends of most episodes, though Harrison Ford bookended one episode. The show was created and executive produced by George Lucas, who also created, co-wrote and executive produced the Indiana Jones feature films. Following the series' cancellation, four TV movies were produced from 1994 to 1996 which were based on the series.
Contents |
Production
DVDS
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume One - The Early Years The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume Two - The War Years The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Volume Three - The Years of Change
Development
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 (Phoenix had previously appeared as Ford's son in The Mosquito Coast). This decision to reveal an adventure of a young Indiana led Lucas and crew to the idea of creating the series.
Writing
George Lucas wrote an extensive time-line detailing the life of Indiana Jones, assembling the elements for about 70 episodes, starting in 1905 and leading all the way up to the feature films. Each outline included the place, date and the historical persons Indy would meet in that episode, and would then be turned over to one of the series writers. When the series came to an end about 31 of the 70 stories had been filmed. Had the series been renewed for a third season, Young Indy would have been introduced to younger versions of characters from Raiders of the Lost Ark: Abner Ravenwood ("Jerusalem, June 1909") and René Belloq ("Honduras, December 1920"). Other episodes would have filled in the blanks between existing ones ("Le Havre, June 1916", "Berlin, Late August, 1916"), and there would even have been some adventures starring a five year old Indy (including "Princeton, May 1905").
During production of the series, Lucas became interested in the crystal skulls. He originally called for an episode which would have been part of the third season involving Jones and his friend Belloq searching for one of the skulls. The episode was never produced, and the idea ultimately evolved into the 2008 feature film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Casting
Ford appeared as a middle-aged Indy (age 50) in the episode "Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues", which aired in March 1993. Paul Freeman, who played Rene Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark, portrayed Frederick Selous in a couple of episodes. Additionally, the late William Hootkins (Major Eaton from Raiders of the Lost Ark) played Russian ballet producer Sergei Diaghilev in "Barcelona, May 1917". In the episode Attack of the Hawkmen, Star Wars veteran Anthony Daniels played Francois, a French Intelligence scientist (in the mode of James Bond's "Q") who gives Indy a special suitcase filled with gadgets for a special mission in Germany.