The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two - The War Years DVD box set review
Posted by William Bumgarner on 01.05.2008
Indiana Jones, spies, explosions, combat, evil Germans, and hot babes. What more could you ask for? Not much, but this set manages to deliver all that and a lot more.
Welcome, one and all, to my review of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two
- The War Years from LucasFilm, Ltd. and CBS DVD. I'm William Bumgarner, columnist for
411Wrestling and occasional movie reviewer for 411Movies. This is a collection of made-for-TV
movies (originally split up to air as two 'episodes' but pieced back together here on DVD) about a
young Henry Jones, Jr., a.k.a. "Indiana" or "Indy", in the Belgian Army during World War I. As can
be expected, there are guns and explosions and Indy sleeping with hot women, but there's more to
this than that.
The main thing behind this was that George Lucas wanted to make an educational program for
the young adult/teen audience. He could have produced a documentary series cheaper, but he also
knew that his target audience probably wouldn't watch documentaries. Thus, he decided to create The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, hoping to catch an audience's eye with the Indy
franchise, hook them with the action, and maybe teach them something in the process. For
whatever reason, it didn't work, and the show was cancelled. However, the show is quite
entertaining and informative, with its only major flaw being that you almost have to be a total
bookworm to get any of the references.
First off, Indy meets many historical figures in these movies, ranging from French Army Captain
Charles de Gaulle and the infamous double-agent Mata Hari to novelist Franz Kafka and British
Army Major T. E. Lawrence, famous painter Pablo Picasso, and the often despised-yet-admired
German fighter pilot Baron Manfred von Richtofen. Some of the lesser-known, but no less important,
figures are German physician Dr. Albert Schweitzer and British poet/military officer Siegfried Loraine
Sassoon. There are also fictional characters that play major roles in some episodes. The ones that
stick in the mind the most are Indy's rather overweight Belgian friend known as Remy and, in the
second half of one movie, a bumbling, idiotic French intelligence operative named Clouseau, a
character obviously inspired by and named for Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the Pink
Panther film franchise. Also obviously, hilarity ensues.
Most of the events that take place here actually happened, albeit the series takes certain
liberties to put Indy in the fray. From trench warfare with the Germans and courier duty to infantry
action in Africa, then to intelligence operations in Germany, Russia, Spain, Arabia, Prague, and
Austria, Indy is at the heart of many of the most important events of the war. It paints a rather
balanced view of things, showing both the good and the bad that can happen in war, while still
managing to entertain.
The action in this series was reminiscent of the Indiana Jones movies, which is an
extremely good thing because it's the same franchise. But some of the large-scale battles are done
in the style of the Star Wars movies, which stands to reason given who put the show
together. The choreography doesn't lack in any way, nor do the spectacular-but-not-overemphasised
special effects (which are also a staple of Lucas) making for fast-paced, seamless action and
realistic combat scenes. Combine that with the excellent actors and you've got war movies that are,
in my estimation, on par with any of the World War II epics that John Wayne starred in.
As far as weapons, uniforms, vehicles, and situations, the series is dead-on with realism and
accuracy. The preferred sidearm of the German soldiers at this time was the C96 "Broomhandle"
Mauser pistol, and this is reflected in many of the combat scenes. (Bit of trivia - the Broomhandle
Mauser was also what they used for Han Solo's BlasTech DL-44 pistol in the Star Wars
trilogy.) The German and French planes in the episode Attack of the Hawkmen were also
historically-accurate replicas, from the Sopwith Pup that carried Indy to the Red Baron's Albatross
and famous Fokker triplane. Lucas obviously spent any money he had to to ensure that this was a
well-produced series, and I have to give the man props for that.
Speaking of money spent on the series, Lucas ran into something a a problem. He wanted to
do a lot of on-location shooting for the episodes, but doing so would have been quite expensive. To
offset this cost, he used 16mm film rather than the more expensive 35mm. He refused to use a
video format because he wanted the look and feel of actual film. Cost issues aside, the use of
16mm was a wise one, as these were made for television. Both television and 16mm formats use
the 1.33:1 aspect ration, which means that the images did not have to be "stretched", "squashed",
or altered in any way to fit into a television screen, meaning that the images are not distorted,
whereas 35mm would have required "letterboxing" to get the entire frameon the screen or use of the
"pan and scan" method to fill the screen, which would have cropped off the outer edges of said
frame and reduced the resolution somewhat.
I touched on the casting earlier, but it deserves its own paragraph. Sean Patrick Flanery has the
look, the voice, and the skill to portray a young Indy, and Lucas did well in choosing him for the
role. Despite being twenty-seven years old at the time filming began, Flanery manages to convince
you that he is a sixteen-year-old Indy, full of the youthful energy and optimism that comes with that
age, but also manages to show the war aging Indy somewhat, in some cases showing that his
optimism is misplaced as well as introducing him to death, both of friend and of enemy. One of the
most notable cases of this is in Africa, when Indy meets Albert Schweitzer. During the mission
itself, Indy learns that being a ranking officer isn't what he imagined it to be and that just because
someone is German doesn't mean that they have to be an enemy. Despite the fact that the
episodes were produced and originally aired in a different order than they appear on this DVD set,
the writers and actors did anexcellent job of maintaining continuity with Indy's maturation throughout
his adventures. Indy's friend Remy was also an intriguing character. He was, as I mentioned before,
somewhat obese, which sets him apart from the rest of his and Indy's infantry unit. He is also
something of a whiner, as seen during their Africa adventures when he complains about the trouble
that Indy gets him into. Despite this, Remy is not short on courage at all and is often the second to
charge into the fray (with Indy being the first, of course) and never afraid to do what needs to be
done. Indy and Remy are the only two 'regular' characters, though Remy is only in the first few
episodes, but the guest stars were well-chosen and fit their roles perfectly. Those portraying the
historical figures were obviously chosen not just for their acting ability, but also for as close a
resemblance to the actual person as possible. As usual, Lucas' casting department did a fantastic
job in hiring actors. One notable guest is Ian McDiarmid, who plays not a famous person but an
elderly professor and friend of Indy's father. McDiarmid is known to Star Wars fans as
Emperor Palpatine (it is somewhat interesting to note that the portion of the episode in which he
appears was written by Carrie Fisher, best known for her role as Princess Leia Organa in the
original Star Wars trilogy).
The disc setup itself is rather unique. There are nine DVDs to this box, with the first eight each
containing one hour-and-a-half movie pieced together from two episodes. On the movie discs, there
are three to four documentaries (all put together by LucasFilm) giving more detail on the historical
figures and/or situations young Indy finds himself in in each movie. There can't really be much said
about documentaries, as they are what they are, but it was a very nice touch by Lucas to include
them here. The ninth disc has four bonus features including an interactive timeline and a game, but I
was unable to examine the disc because the disc requires a DVD-ROM drive and mine hasn't
worked in months. Regardless, the meat-and-potatoes of the set are the movies, which by
themselves are enough reason to own this set.
There really isn't much else to say about this. It was a real joy to watch this DVD set, and not
only do I reccomend it to everyone, but I hope that 411 gives me the opportunity to review the next
one when it's released.
The 411: Bottom line: if you're an Indy fan or a history buff, buy this. If you're one or both, you're guaranteed to love it. To put it simply, there isn't a thing wrong with any of this. Another shining example of the sheer excellence that is LucasFilm and a reminder of why George is such a success in the film industry.
