The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 4, 1992, to July 24, 1993. Filming took place in various locations around the world, with "Old Indy" bookend segments filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, and on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The series was a Lucasfilm Television production in association with Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television.
The series explores the childhood, adolescence and early adulthood of the fictional character Indiana Jones and primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Corey Carrier as the title character, with George Hall playing an elderly version of Jones 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.
Due to its large budget and low viewership ratings, the series was canceled in 1993. However, following the series' cancellation, four made-for-television films were produced from 1994 to 1996 in an attempt to continue the series. In 1999, the series was re-edited into 22 television films under the title The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.
Overview
The series was designed as an educational program for children and teenagers, spotlighting historical figures and important events set during the Progressive Era of the 1900s, the 1910s, and the 1920s. Most episodes feature a standard formula of an elderly Indiana Jones in present-day 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 or as a teenager and young adult. The younger Indy would travel to different parts of the world with his parents and tutor. The older, teenage Indy rebels against his father by joining the Belgian army. Using a fake name, he fights both at Verdun and in Africa. He later becomes a spy. In one episode, a 50-year-old Indy is seen reminiscing. Initially, the plan was for the series to alternate between the adventures of Indy as a child and as a teenager/young adult, but eventually the episodes featuring Flanery's version of the character dominated the series. The series' bookends revealed that the elderly Jones has a daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The 2008 film Kingdom of the Crystal Skull introduces Mutt Williams as his son with Marion Ravenwood, but the series makes no mention of a son; this is explained by the film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which establishes Mutt Williams to have been killed in the Vietnam War.Many of the episodes involve Indiana meeting and working with famous historical figures. Historical figures featured on the show include Leo Tolstoy, Howard Carter, 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 Edgar Degas, Giacomo Puccini, George Patton, Pablo Picasso, Eliot Ness, Charles Nungesser, Al Capone, Manfred von Richthofen, Anthony Fokker, Annie Besant, Charles Webster Leadbeater, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Norman Rockwell, Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Seán O'Casey, Siegfried Sassoon, Patrick Pearse, Winston Churchill, a young Ho Chi Minh, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Laemmle; at one point, he competes against a young Ernest Hemingway for the affections of a girl but they end up becoming friends, is nursed back to health by Albert Schweitzer, has a passionate tryst with Mata Hari, discusses philosophy with Nikos Kazantzakis, and goes on a safari with Theodore Roosevelt.
The show provided back story for the films. His relationship with his father, first introduced in Last Crusade, was depicted in episodes showing his travels with his father as a young boy and brief times as a young adult. His original hunt for the "Eye of the Peacock", a large diamond seen in 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. Later, in the 2008 film Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy describes his adventures with Pancho Villa to Mutt Williams. He also mentions his mother Anna to Mutt.
Cast
Guest appearances
Most episodes of the series depicted famous and not-so-famous historical figures, including but not limited to Theodore Roosevelt, T. E. Lawrence, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Norman Rockwell, Charles de Gaulle, Leo Tolstoy, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Manfred von Richthofen, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, George Patton, Al Capone, Pablo Picasso, Giacomo Puccini, Frederick Selous, Franz Ferdinand, Princess Sophie of Hohenberg, Edith Wharton, and Mata Hari.Notable guest stars include: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Daniel Craig, Christopher Lee, Clark Gregg, Tom Courtenay, Peter Firth, Vanessa Redgrave, Beata Pozniak, Jennifer Ehle, Elizabeth Hurley, Timothy Spall, Anne Heche, Paul Freeman, Jean-Pierre Castaldi, Jeffrey Wright, Jeroen Krabbé, Jason Flemyng, Michael Kitchen, Kevin McNally, Francisco Quinn, Ian McDiarmid, Max von Sydow, Douglas Henshall, Jon Pertwee, Sean Pertwee, Vincenzo Nicoli, Terry Jones, Keith David, Lukas Haas, Frank Vincent, Jay Underwood, Michael Gough, Maria Charles, Elsa Zylberstein, Isaach de Bankolé, Emil Abossolo-Mbo, Haluk Bilginer and Saginaw Grant.
Production
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 appeared as the son of Ford's character in The Mosquito Coast. This decision to reveal an adventure of a young Indiana led Lucas to the idea of creating the series. The total budget for the series was $27 million while each episode cost $1.7 million.Writing
Lucas wrote an extensive timeline 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 and René Belloq. Other episodes would have filled in the blanks between existing ones, and there would even have been some adventures starring a five-year-old Indy.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 then 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
Phoenix and Ford were respectively approached by Lucas to reprise their roles as the younger and elder Indiana Jones respectively, but both turned the offer down as they had no desire to do television, the former not wishing to return to it after struggling hard to move on from sitcoms to film and the latter feeling back then that it didn't have anything to offer to his career. Ultimately, Corey Carrier was cast as a 10-year-old Indy while Sean Patrick Flanery was cast as a young adult Indy, with George Hall portraying a 90-year-old Indy in the bookend segments of most episodes.A number of actors connected to the Indiana Jones films and/or George Lucas's Star Wars franchise made guest appearances. Harrison Ford appeared as a middle-aged Indy 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, while Roshan Seth, who played Chattar Lal in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, played a North African sheikh in "Morocco, 1917". The late William Hootkins played Russian ballet producer Sergei Diaghilev and Wolf Kahler played a German diplomat in "Barcelona, May 1917". In the episode Attack of the Hawkmen, ''Star Wars'' veteran Anthony Daniels played François, a French Intelligence scientist who gives Indy a special suitcase filled with gadgets for a special mission in Germany. Clint Eastwood was approached to play the elder brother of Indiana Jones, but he turned it down despite a $10 million offer.
Filming
A variety of filmmakers wrote or directed episodes of the series, including Frank Darabont, Nicolas Roeg, Mike Newell, Deepa Mehta, Joe Johnston, Jonathan Hensleigh, Terry Jones, Simon Wincer, Carrie Fisher, Dick Maas and Vic Armstrong. Lucas was given a "Story By" credit in many episodes as he was the creative overhead on the series pitching most of the storylines the writers would then flesh out under his supervision.The series was unusual for its time 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 35mm. The series was designed so that each pair of episodes could either be broadcast separately, or as a 2-hour film-length episode. The filming with Young Indy usually took around three 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. Additionally the series had an audio format of Dolby Stereo.
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. The second production occurred from 1992 to 1993 and consisted of twelve episodes; one with younger Indy and eleven with older Indy. The third and final production occurred from 1994 to 1995, and consisted of four made-for-television movies. In 1996, additional filming was done in order to re-edit the entire series into twenty-two feature films.