"You nearly shot my toes off, you idiot!"

You left just when you were becoming interesting. - Prof. Henry Jones, Sr, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

In March of 1992, almost three years after the premiere of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and 16 years before the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, George Lucas, Amblin Entertainment, and the ABC television network attempted to create a 70-episode television series that would explore the childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood of the globe-trotting archaeologist/adventurer best known for being an "obtainer of rare antiquities" imbued with supernatural properties.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was a collection of one-hour episodes that skipped back and forth in the chronology of Indy's formative years, some featuring a very young "Junior" (Corey Carrier), with most starring Sean Patrick Flanery as Indiana Jones between the ages of 16 and 21.

Part Indy prequel, part history lesson, this was one of the rare television projects personally overseen by Lucas, and it was intended to entertain fans of the archaeologist/adventurer while at the same time introducing many of them to important persons with whom a young Indy might have interacted with as he followed his father, Professor Henry Jones, Sr., and mother Anna on a global lecture tour as a ten-year-old, then later getting into more Indy-like situations during World War I and the post-war Jazz Age.


Lucas assembled a creative team that included top-notch writers (Frank Darabont, who wrote five episodes), directors (Mike Newell, Nicolas Roeg, Simon Wincer), and a crew that would later be better known for its work on the Star Wars trilogy of prequels - designer Gavin Bocquet, cinematographer David Tattersall, editor Ben Burtt, and producer Rick McCallum, plus a small army of actors, extras, and technicians and sent them to various locations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The series earned decent but not spectacular ratings during its first season, but either ABC didn't give it good support or the viewers didn't take a shine to the mix of history lesson and entertainment, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles limped off the air with just 31 aired episodes, not even half of Lucas' hoped-for 70-show-run. (Sadly, not even a rare TV appearance by Harrison Ford as 50-year-old Indy could save the series from cancellation.)

Over the years, Lucasfilm managed to keep the young Indy series in video's equivalent of life support. In the late 1990s, Paramount Home Video re-released the Chronicles in tandem with re-issues of the feature films, going as far giving the Harrison Ford flicks "chapter numbers" on the boxes' spines to make them fit into the series' timeline.

Additionally, Lucas and his team of editors took various episodes (some never aired) and spliced chronologically-close stories to make feature-length direct to video "movies" such as Young Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Hawkmen and Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye.

In late 2007 and early May of 2008, in anticipation of the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Lucasfilm Ltd. and CBS DVD/Paramount Home Entertainment released The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones - Volume One, The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones - Volume Two: The War Years, and the final set of before the movies Indy tales, The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three - The Years of Change.

This 10-disc set contains not only seven Young Indy movies that pick up the narrative from the tail end of "Capt. Henri Defense's" espionage escapades during the final months of World War I to the future archaeologist's entrance into the University of Chicago, but three Special Features DVDs loaded with documentaries, an interactive timeline, a PC game, and a historical lecture ("New Gods From Old").

Additionally, five of the seven "movie" DVDs contain at least three documentaries about the events and historical figures that shaped the life of the fictional Indiana Jones. The documentaries are 20 to 30 minutes in length, and offer varying perspectives and insights about, say, President Woodrow Wilson, Paul Robeson, the Treaty of Versailles, and, surprisingly, Count Vlad Tepes, a.k.a. Dracula.

The seven "features" in The Years of Change are:

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

* This is the 1992 episode which not only features Harrison Ford as 50-year-old Indy, but it's the sole episode of the series which uses John Williams' Raiders' March in the score. Ford's scenes bookend the main story, which is set in Chicago and features famous and infamous persons usually identified with the Windy City during Prohibition.

The nice thing about the whole Adventures of Young Indiana Jones endeavor, beyond the obvious assets of good writing, superb production values, good music, and fine performances, is the fact that there's a sense of realistic continuity that flows naturally. It was there in the original TV series, but since the features are presented in chronological order, it's easier to follow the adventures, misadventures, and heartaches of Henry Jones, Junior's life before he became the hero audiences first saw in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Another thing I enjoy about all the sets is that they keep the spirit of the movies alive while not having to depend on the Saturday matinee serials approach of the Spielberg-directed films. Because different writers and directors worked on the series and direct-to-video movies, each of the seven "features" has a style and thematic content of its own, ranging from comic farce in the first half of Tales of Innocence, horror in Masks of Evil, serious reflections on the nature of geopolitics in Winds of Change, and even anger, sadness and regret as the Joneses estrangement, caused by Indy's involvement in the war, grows.


Fans of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles will tell you that this isn't the series as it originally aired on TV 15 years ago, and in some ways this is a bit of a disappointment, especially for those of us who didn't mind the series' habit of skipping hither-and-yon along the timeline.

Gone, too, are the "bookends" that featured a 93-year-old Indy (George Hall), who bore a striking (and intentional) resemblance to the legendary director John Ford. In most cases, they were just there to introduce the stories then wrap them up nicely, but in some of the more poignant chapters, the "old Indy" bookends were really nice.

Nevertheless, if you're a die-hard Indy fan, a lover of good stories, or a history buff, these DVDs are still worth watching and owning.