The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, commonly refered to as Young Indy, is an Emmy Award-winning American television series created by George Lucas, which ran on ABC from 1992 to 1993. Lucas, who had previously served as executive producer and co-writer for the Indiana Jones feature films, conceived the series as a form of "edutainment"; It explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones, who is portrayed as taking part in many significant events of the early 20th century. Lucas served as executive producer, and wrote the stories for many of the episodes.

The series primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery as the title character at ages 17 through 21, and Corey Carrier as Jones at ages 9 through 11. George Hall potrayed an elderly Jones for the framing bookends of most episodes, and Harrison Ford reprised his role for one episode.

Young Indy debuted on ABC on March 4, 1992. Though critically acclaimed, it lasted two seasons before being canceled in 1993 due to low ratings. Four made-for-TV movies based on the series were produced from 1994 to 1996, and were aired on The Family Channel. The series was comprehensively re-edited and re-packaged for home video as The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, which was partially released on VHS in 1999, and released on DVD in 2007 and 2008.

Plot
The series was designed as an educational program for children and teenagers, spotlighting historical figures and important events, using the concept of a prequel to the films as a draw. Most episodes feature a standard formula of an elderly (93 to 94-year-old) Indiana Jones (played by George Hall) in present days (1992 to 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 (9 to 11, played by Corey Carrier) or as a teenager (17 to 21, played by Sean Patrick Flanery). In one episode, a fifty-one-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. The series revealed that the elderly Jones has a daughter, a granddaughter named Lucy, and a grandson named Spike.

Many of the episodes involve Indiana meeting and working with famous historical figures. Historical figures featured on the show include Leo Tolstoy, Pancho Villa, Charles de Gaulle, and John Ford, in such diverse locations as Egypt, Austria-Hungary, India, China, and the whole of Europe. 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, Eliot Ness, Charles de Gaulle, Al Capone, Norman Rockwell (same episode as Picasso), Louis Armstrong, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Lenin 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 Theodore Roosevelt.

The show provided a lot of the back story for the films. His relationship with his father, first introduced in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was further fleshed out with stories about his travels with his father as a young boy. His original hunt for the Eye of the Peacock, a large diamond seen in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was a recurring element in several stories. The show also chronicled his activities during World War I and his first solo adventures.

Primary



 * Corey Carrier as Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (ages 9 to 11).
 * Sean Patrick Flanery as Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (ages 17 to 21) For the role of young Indy, Lucas wanted an actor who could effectively portray Jones as idealistic and naive. Flanery, who had never done a screentest prior to auditioning for Young Indy, played the character for six scenes from what would become "German East Africa, December 1916" in full make-up and wardrobe for hs Young Indy audition. Three weeks later, Flanery was informed that he got the part. Upon receiving the role, Flanery was given a large amount of research material on the histroical characters who would be involved in the series. Vic Armstrong, who had previously served as stunt double for Harrison Ford and stunt coordinator for the Indiana Jones films, assisted Flanery in many physical acts in the show, such as using a lasso, using a whip, and mounting a horse. However, Flanery prefered to do his own stunts whenever possible. Producer Rick McCallum provided Flanery with copies of the feature films, which Flanery used to study Harrison Ford's mannerisms he would later attempt to emulate in the series.
 * Harrison Ford as Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (age 51) 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.
 * George Hall as Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (Ages 93 to 94).
 * Ronny Coutteure as Remy.
 * Lloyd Owen as Professor Henry Jones, Sr..
 * Ruth de Sosa as Anna Jones.
 * Margaret Tyzack as Miss Helen Seymour.

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, because he did not 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 realize 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.

Recurring

 * as T.E. Lawrence
 * as Ernest Hemmingway
 * as Pablo Picasso
 * as Robyn Lively as Nancy Stratemeyer
 * as Howard Carter

Paul Freeman, who played Rene Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark, portrayed an unrelated character named 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.

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 to the idea of creating the series.

Writing
"By the time this is finished, you'll have a good picture of life from the age of five to twenty, and then from thirty-five to fourty, and then ninety to ninety-five. So you'll have these little bits of his life that have been documented."

- George Lucas

According to the series' director of research Deborah Fine, the crew originally developed a timeline extending from 1908 to 1922 of all major events and people of the time period. 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 the the series writers. When the series came to an end about 31 of the 70 stories had been filmed.

After all of the writers were hired, they met at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, where they lived and worked together for. They worked on one story per day, with each writer being assigned specific episodes. According to writer Frank Darabont, the witing staff wrote a total of three seasons worth of scripts before the series was canceled.

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"). Though Lucas intended to produce episodes leading up to a 24-year-old Jones, the series was cancelled with the character at age 21.

Filming
"I think we've given a whole new meaning to location shooting, at least in television."

- Rick McCallum



On May 13, 1991, shooting began on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in Almeria, Spain, the same location used for the tank chase in Last Crusade. 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.

Lucas envisioned each episode as being "like a feature film for television", according to McCallum. As a result, directors were hired who had mostly backgrounds in feature films, and each director was hired to fit the script in question. A wide variety of filmmakers both wrote and directed many episodes of the series, including such high-profile names as Frank Darabont, Nicolas Roeg, Mike Newell, Deepa Mehta, Joe Johnston, Jonathan Hensleigh, Terry Jones, Simon Wincer, Carrie Fisher and Vic Armstrong. George Lucas was given a 'Story By' credit in many episodes, along with his input as a creative consultant. Vic Armstrong, Harrison Ford's stunt double in the Indiana Jones films, directed the first half of Chapter 13: Adventures in the Secret Service. Besides being world's most prolific stuntman, Vic Armstrong is also a respected second unit director. Writer, director and three-time Oscar nominee Frank Darabont wrote the screenplay for 5 episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He was also hired to write the script for Indiana Jones IV in 2004. But unfortunately, his script got turned down by George Lucas a year later. A few chapters of the TV-series were directed by successful directors: Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park 3, Hidalgo and The Rocketeer) directed Chapter 6: Spring Break Adventure, Simon Wincer (Free Willy, The Phantom and Operation Dumbo Drop) directed Chapter 8: Trenches of Hell, Chapter 11: Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life and Chapter 15: Daredevils of the Desert, and Terry Jones (actor/director of the famous British comedy group Monty Python) directed a part of Chapter 14: Espionage Escapades.

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. The show also featured footage from other films spliced into several episodes.

The series was shot in three stages. The first production occurred from 1991 to 1992, and consisted of sixteen episodes; five with younger Indy, ten with older Indy, and one with both&mdash;for a total of seventeen television hours. The second production occurred from 1992 to 1993 and consisted of twelve episodes; one with younger Indy and eleven with older Indy, for a total of fifteen television hours. The third and final production occurred from 1994 to 1995, and consisted of four made-for-television movies, for a total of eight television hours. In 1996, additional filming was done in order to re-edit the entire series into twenty-two feature films.

Effects
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.

Music
The series' main theme was composed by Laurence Rosenthal, who wrote much of the music for the series. Joel McNeely also wrote music for many episodes.

Television


The series was first announced in 1990, and a preview was included on that year's VHS release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. To promote the series, Paramount released each of the original films on VHS through participating McDonalds restaurants. Pizza Hut was one of the marketing partners for the series.

The pilot episode was aired by ABC in the United States in March 1992. For the pilot, the episodes "Egypt, May 1908" and "Mexico, March 1916" 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. The Family Channel 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 from 1994 to 1996.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, US cable companies rebroadcast portions of the series. In 1996, Lucas and editor T.M. Christopher re-edited the series into 22 feature-length episodes known as "chapters", which make up The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. While the original television broadcast versions skipped around chronologically in the character's life&mdash;alternating stories between Indy as a child and Indy as a teenager&mdash;the chapter versions present Indy's life in chronological order. The chapters correspond to two one-hour TV episodes, combined together, with the George Hall bookend segments removed. In order to connect some episodes, Lucas shot a large amount of bridging footage, while he also expanded some episodes with new footage. In 1998 and 1999, the Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family Channel) rebroadcast the four TV movies that it shown earlier as The Family Channel. In 2001, the Sci-Fi Channel aired ten chapters of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, and in 2007 and 2008, The History Channel and History International aired chapters of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. The 2007-2008 airings were accompanied by the Lucasfilm historical documentaries.

Marketing and spin-offs
Four volumes of music from the series were released on CD. The show also spawned a series of adaptations and spin-off novels, a Sega Genesis video game entitled Young Indiana Jones and the Instruments of Chaos, trading cards and other products.

In 2005, a person claiming to be a LucasArts employee started an internet rumor that a Young Indiana Jones film was in the works. However, nothing came of the rumor. It has also been rumored for several years that a new Indiana Jones television series is in the works. The good DVD sales and recent television ratings of Young Indy re-runs has apparently re-sparked interest from Lucasfilm in such a show.

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.

Home video


The series received its first home video release on April 21, 1993, when a Laserdisc box set was released in Japan containing fifteen of the earlier episodes and a short documentary on the making of the series. The discs were formatted in NTSC and presented with English audio in Dolby surround with Japanese subtitles. In 1994, eight NTSC format VHS tapes with a total of fifteen episodes from the first two seasons were released in Japan. In the 1990s, 6 volumes of episodes were released on VHS in PAL format in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

On October 26, 1999, half of the re-edited episodes were released on VHS in the United States, along with a box set of the feature films&mdash;making up "The Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones". They were marketed as such; The series was labeled as Chapters 1-22, while the films were labeled as Chapters 23-25. In an effort to promote the series, Treasure of the Peacock's Eye was included with the purchase of the film trilogy box set. The twelve VHS releases were released worldwide over the course of the year 2000.

Lucasfilm remastered the re-edited episodes for the series' DVD release, and upgraded the picture aquality of the original 16mm prints. The series is being released on DVD release in three volumes as The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones; The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume One, The Early Years was released on October 23, 2007. It contains 12 discs, which include Chapters 1-7, as well thirty-eight in-depth companion documentaries, an interactive game & timeline, and a historical overview. It contains all of the episodes with Corey Carrier as well as some episodes with Sean Patrick Flanery. The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two, The War Years was released on December 18, 2007. It contains 9 discs, which includes Chapters 8-15, as well twenty-six in-depth companion documentaries, interactive game & timeline, and a historical lecture. The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three, The Years of Change is scheduled for release on April 29, 2008. It will contain Chapters 16-22 and about thirty documentaries. 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 20th Century history. Lucas explained that the series' DVD release will be shopped as "films for a modern day high school history class."

As Paramount and Lucasfilm had already reserved IndianaJones.com solely for news and updates related to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, StarWars.com temporarily served as the official site for the series' DVD release&mdash;providing regular updates, insider looks and promotions related to them. However, Lucasfilm and Paramount soon set up an official website proper for the series&mdash;YoungIndy.com. Paramount released a press kit for the media promoting the DVDs, which consists of a .pdf file and several videos with interviews with Lucas and McCallum, and footage from the DVDs. A trailer for the DVDs was also published on YoungIndy.com, with a shorter version being shown on The History Channel and History International.

Reception
From 1992 to 1994, the series was nominated for twenty-three Emmy Awards and won ten. In 1993, Corey Carrier was nominated for the Young Artist Award in the category of "Best Young Actor Starring in a Television Series". In 1994, David Tattersall was nominated for the ASC Award in the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Regular Series". At the 1994 Golden Globes, the series was nominated for "Best TV-Series - Drama".

Though the series won many awards, it also earned its share of criticism. The New York Times called the pilot "clunky". The National Coalition on Television Violence named the series the most violent television series of 1993, with an average of 60 acts of violence per episode.

In the 2000 film Wonderboys, one of the Young Indiana Jones episodes can be seen on a TV while a character is changing channels. The characters of Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference the show in several episodes from the early 1990s.