Young Indiana Jones is back for more pieced together adventures courtesy of George Lucas and his eye for altering. Although more exciting than the show’s first volume, this second DVD installment of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones still lacks a lot of the qualities that made the films in which it was based so entertaining.
Volume Two focuses entirely on time period of the first World War. Henry “Indiana” Jones (Sean Patrick Flanery) enlisted himself with the Belgian army and is fighting under the disguise of Henri Defense. Soldier, spy, prisoner, lover – Indiana becomes them all over the course of the collection’s nine feature-length “episodes,” each of which are a stitched together and edited pairing of two episodes from the show’s original run. I am confused as to why this is done and the shows aren’t kept in tact. Although one part often ends in a journey into the next, there’s still something very jolting as the transition comes into play. The show would have been stronger if the natural breaks were kept in tact and the episodes kept separate. The content would have still been the same, perhaps not as epic, but that doesn’t seem to be the reason in which this was done.
The show’s greatest strength continues to be its lush production values. This collection alone spans Europe, Asia and Africa, enabling it to have several distinct looks. However, the expenses paid on location shoots is lost in the faux battle scenes that come across as very fake. Although I appreciate the attempts to recreate battle scenes and keep it for family viewing, often the action looks like a cartoon. As grenades explode, soldiers bounce through the air as though the battlefields were littered with exercise trampolines. The look is so contrived that I wish they’d taken a different approach such as simply cutting away from the explosion and letting the audio do the work.
Another plus of this collection is that the teenaged Indiana Jones is much less annoying than the youngster that threaded throughout the majority of the show’s first DVD set. That being said, it is very hard to envision this incarnation of Indiana Jones as the one who would later run from boulders and offer up sarcastic wit at every opportunity. Here Jones is but a guide to history without much life in him.
There seems to be some confusion over whether or not the show’s primary concern is to entertain or to educate. While there’s room for both, one must take a priority over the other in order for there to be a focus in which to hang the show on. Although the show goes to great creative lengths to put the young hero in the midst of all kinds of historical events, it goes to equal lengths to infuse the adventures with blatant teachings that, at time, come across as forced melodrama. The result is a mismatch in focus that isn’t strong on either front. It may be solid, but it’s not strong one way or the other.
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two – The War Years DVD Review
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two shines as another excellent DVD release where the bonus features outdo the main attraction. At nine discs (down from the first volume’s 12), there’s a whole lot of history packed into this set.
The collection includes eight feature-length programs, each of which is made up of two episodes. Overall, the picture looks quite good. It’s not immaculately clean as there is the occasional scratch and spot, but it is still solid. Episodes are shown in their original full screen format. Audio is an average Dolby stereo in English only. There are also English subtitles.
The true highlight of this collection is the supplementary documentaries that accompany each “episode.” Each comes with at least three featurettes that go deeper in the history in which the show covers. In this instance, because they’re all set during World War I, this collection provides a tremendous overview from several different angles. The documentary programs all follow a similar laid-back but informative approach that educates in a manner much better suited for today’s audiences than the old videos I had to watch in Social Studies class.
Also included with this excellent collection is an interactive timeline, a video game and an interactive lecture.
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two – The War Years Gallery
