Indycron continuity database

The Indycron continuity database is an internal database used by Lucasfilm which covers all forms of licensed Indiana Jones media. It is maintained by Leland Chee, keeper of the Star Wars Holocron, the continuity database of Star Wars.

Says Chee, "We try to make things as consistent as possible so Indy doesn't get his hat twice or be introduced to Wu Han or Marcus Brody twice. We track things like when Indy was born, where and when he went to high school, when and where he got his college degrees, where he teaches and when, what kind of pistols does Indy use, what languages does Indy speak, and other things like that."

In an interview with TheRaider.net in April 2010, Chee stated that the currently only areas off-limits to writers are Marion Ravenwood's life between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the unseen character Colin Williams.

Canon System

According to Leland Chee, the Indiana Jones canon hierarchy is organized as follows, relative to the Star Wars canon hierarchy:

• Feature films = G canon
• Television = T canon
• Licensing = C and S canon

Each entry to the Indycron is categorized into one of the following:

• Movie
• TV
• Licensing
• Non-Continuity
• Non-Fiction

With the release The Diaries of Indiana Jones, which dated the events of the four theatrical movies down to the day, Chee revealed on his Facebook page on August 6, 2012 that the dates had become the official ones used. This information sets the movies on:

• Aug. 5, 1912: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade prologue
• Jun. 13, 1935 — Jun. 22, 1935: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Sep. 7, 1936 — Oct. 7, 1936: Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Jun. 2, 1938 — Jun. 26, 1938: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Aug. 30, 1957 — Oct. 19, 1957: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

On April 25, 2014 StarWars.com announced that — in light of production of new Star Wars films — the Expanded Universe was to cease telling new stories and be replaced with a new approach to spin-off material which brought about the end of that franchise's continuity heirarchy system. Whether a similar restructuring would occur for the Indiana Jones' Expanded Adventures has yet to be revealed.

Canon Issues

Despite categories of canon in the Indycron, there have been instances where information in a higher-tier source has been superceded by that from a lower source along other instances in which some information appears to not be canonical while it is stated that is canon but in some degree and other instances in which is completely unknown if there are canon or not. For example:

• The death of Anna Mary Jones: The illness that took the life of Indiana Jones's mother Anna was stated to be scarlet fever in 1994's The World of Indiana Jones, a "Licensing" source. However, footage shot in 1999 for the "TV" canon Spring Break Adventure sees Jones state that his mother died from influenza. Chee has said that Anna died from scarlet fever nevertheless.
• The Bookends of "Old Indy": In The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series, episodes ended with a segment in which George Hall played an 90 year old Indiana Jones, although Sean Patrick Flanery and Harrison Ford also made two bookends. When the series was re-edited in DVD, all the bookends of Hall including Flanery's bookend were removed, but Ford's bookend was mantained for unknown reasons. According to Chee in a Star Wars forum, the Bookends of "Old Indy" are still canonical in some degree, but how this degree fits in the canon is still unknown, questioning the existence of characters like Old Indy's daughter, Mike, Dr. Jeffers, etc; along with some events, like Indy's and Vicky Prentiss' reunion at New York City.
• The Unproduced Young Indy Episodes: During the original run of The Young Indiana Jones Chroniclesi TV series, George Lucas and his room of writers wrote more episodes of the planned third season of Young Indy, like the episodes "Honduras, December 1920" or "Jerusalem, June 1909". These two mentioned episodes would have depicted the first encounter of Indy with René Emile Belloq and Abner Ravenwood, but the series was cancelled before these planned episodes could be made, although them are sometimes referenced in the canon (i.e., in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Chattar Lal and Indy mention the events of that episodes). On the other hand, according to Chee, the other unproduced episodes didn't have any chance to be represented in the canon at the current moment.
• The Literary Adaptations: The novelizations, comic book adaptations and storybooks based on the Indiana Jones films technically represent the same stories, but there are differences between them and the films that apparently didn't fit in the canon (i.e., in the most literature adaptations of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Arnold Ernst Toht gets killed along Major Gobler when the troop car flies off a cliff while in the film Toht is killed by the Ark of the Covenant's Ghosts during the opening of the Ark). These things happen because the these adpatations are mostly based on the films' original scripts and deleted scenes (i.e., the scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which the Gestapo, the World War One Ace and the Zeppelin Crewman chase the Joneses aboard the D-138). Which events of the literary adaptations fit into the canon and which not have yet to be determined.

Trivia

• Despite that Marion Ravenwood's life between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is currently off-limits to writers, some of her life following the events Raiders was explored in Marvel Comics' The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones comic book series. However, she was written off in the issue 25 and after that she didn't reappear until Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Considering that novelist Rob MacGregor was not allowed by George Lucas to use Marion in any of his novels, it could be possible that Lucas himself ordered the character to be written out of the comic book series in order to follow his new canon rules.

External links

• Introducing... Leland Chee at The Official Star Wars Blog
• "What is the Indycron?" from Leland Chee's blog (web archive)
• Indycron continuity database questions - thread at the StarWars.com message boards (web archive)
• Leland Chee interview at TheRaider.net