Young Indiana Jones

[RobertScorpio]

My son is an avid player of LEGOS Indiana Jones...we have all the movies (by the way, are they ever coming out on Bluray)..so I went and ordered YOUNG INDIANA JONES, via Netflix..

Could they have made this TVSHOW more mind numbingly boring if they tried? I have never seen this show, was in the navy when it was on and hardly ever got to watch tv, but boy...this show is about as exciting as Golf...

We barely made it through episodes one and two...is it worth going on? Or is it going to be one long turd after another???

Rob

Young Indiana Jones

 

[Captain Craig]

Hang in there it does get better. Indy as a teen are the eps you really need to get to. Indy as a 10yr old boy...kinda turdish in totality but a few are alright.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Hang in there it does get better. Indy as a teen are the eps you really need to get to. Indy as a 10yr old boy...kinda turdish in totality but a few are alright.

Thanks..we will trek on, and get to those teenage episodes you mentioned...

Rob

 

[Arthur Frelling Dent]

I second the notion that you keep going (or, if you must, skip ahead) until you reach the teen episodes. The whole extended arc set during the WWI years remains some of my favorite television to this day.

 

[23skidoo]

I have to echo others - the teen Indy episodes are the best, with a lot of well-known (or soon to be well known) actors - including onetime Doctor Who Colin Baker.

Unfortunately the episodes on DVD are not complete as they are reportedly lacking the wraparound segments featuring an elderly Indy in the modern day. I don't think the segment Harrison Ford filmed for the show - as a middle-aged Indy (snicker) - was included, either. That's why I chose not to buy the DVDs. With any luck a "special edition" with the complete episodes will be released some day.

They never intended the show to be a chase-a-minute like the movies. Lucas set out the show to be, basically, what Doctor Who was originally conceived to be -- a series of history lessons wrapped around the main characters. If you're expecting every episode to be like Raiders or Lego, you'll be disappointed.

Alex

 

[KB24]

Once they loose the kid Indy, some of the later episodes are actually really good fun. I think Lucas played with the format too much, but some of the late television movies are really nice. I have the original vhs, so I can't speak for the dvd changes Lucasfilm made. I like the Old Indy humor bookends, but I heard they're missing and several episodes have been edited and spliced together.

I'd say if your not sure, rent the first few.

 

[UssGlenn]

The Harrison Ford bookends are included in the "Mystery of the Blues". The old Indy ones were removed because, as I heard it, Lucas never wanted them, they were insisted upon by the network. If you give up on young Indy, skip forward to teen Indy, starting with his capture by Pancho Villa.

 

[Broccoli]

Keep in mind, the show is very different from the movies.

 

[Angel4576]

Agree with the consensus, the younger Indy ones are on the boring side, but the teen Indy ones are largely superb. There are a lot that are unlike the movies, the war years episodes for example, but then there are also those that adequately recapture the fun of the original movies as well, like Treasure of the Peacock's Eye etc.

I wouldn't give up on the show, the 'young' Indy episodes don't last long thankfully, and then it's mostly all good from there on out.

 

[Forbin]

It was better with the Old Indy framing stories.

It bogged down during the WWI stories, although the Verdun episode was chilling, and the flying one was great fun.

After a while it got tiresome that Indy just kept meeting every famous person on Earth.

 

[Mr Light]

I saw all of the Volume 2 War Years DVD and a smattering of the other ones from library VHS tapes. While some of the war episodes were good, on the whole I found the series pretty slow and boring. And there's no supernatural elements, which to me is the defining element of Indiana Jones.

 

[Pingfah]

Like others here, I watched a few of the child indy episodes and found them so boring I never watched the rest.

 

[Captaindemotion]

It always struck me as worthy but incredibly dull. I know its fans say 'It was never meant to be like the movies', but I don't see the point in making a tv series about an iconic movie character and not having it at all like the movies. Different tone, humour, pacing - why did he even call it Indiana Jones? I might have enjoyed it more had it been a brand new series (though I suspect I probably still wouldn't).

Plus, Sean Patrick Flannery never convinced you that he was the younger Harrison Ford in the way that River Phoenix did. So - all in all, just didn't work for me.

 

[RobertScorpio]

It always struck me as worthy but incredibly dull. I know its fans say 'It was never meant to be like the movies', but I don't see the point in making a tv series about an iconic movie character and not having it at all like the movies. Different tone, humour, pacing - why did he even call it Indiana Jones? I might have enjoyed it more had it been a brand new series (though I suspect I probably still wouldn't).

Plus, Sean Patrick Flannery never convinced you that he was the younger Harrison Ford in the way that River Phoenix did. So - all in all, just didn't work for me.

My son and I will give it a try..I am worried with an earlier post when it was said that there is no 'supernatural' element to the show..its like a giant history lesson, which is okay to some degree since my son loves to read about archeology...but everyone of those movies, even SKULL, had some realm of super-natural in them...

Rob

 

[auntiehill]

^ It *IS* really just a history lesson, but some episodes are better than others. I would skip kid-Indy and just focus on the teen-Indy years.

I remember liking "Mystery of the Blues" (Chicago), "Love's Sweet Song" (Ireland) and a couple of the WW1 episodes.

 

[Forbin]

I enjoyed the London Zepplin-blitz/womens' sufferage episode, but mainly because of the presence of a delightfully young and beautiful Elizabeth Hurley playing Indy's intellectual equal and love interest.

And in the now-lost framing story, Jane Wyatt playing her in old age.

 

[Vasquez Rocks]

I'll echo what others have said that the teen Indy episodes are the best of the series. I bought all three volumes and somewhat struggled through the early ones too, but once Sean Patrick Flanery came on it was much better. My absolute favorite of the series is The Phantom Train of Doom, even my brother loved that one and he wasn't really a fan of the show to begin with. He commented that it felt somewhat like a movie. For the ones with the little kid, I'd say the one where he meets Tolstoy is probably my favorite.

If your looking for a supernatural episode there is one with vampires. I didn't really care for it though because it was so different in tone from the rest of the series that it just feels out of place. Overall, I really enjoyed the series and I like it much more than the last movie.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I should say, I didn't really have a problem with the series not featuring the supernatural - IIRC, the Indy of Raiders was somewhat sceptical about such phenomena, so it wouldn't have made any sense for him to be experiencing the paranormal every week.

(Of course, the fact that Temple of Doom is set before Raiders does tend to contradict it too, but never mind)

 

[Mr Light]

^^ They could have at least aped Scooby Doo and have a supernatural enemy who turns out in the end to be the cranky old man in a mask

 

[KB24]

Wasn't part of Lucas' ploy to make it historical and educational before fantastical and adventurous? Sometimes the history works, other times adventure is better. I still watch my vhs. Some episodes are definitely skippers, but others are really good fun.