Well, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is officially canon....

Indy mentions the pilot episode adventure while talking to Shia....

 

Of course, Harrison Ford's appearance in "Mystery of the Blues" pretty much sealed the deal over a decade ago...

 

Very true.

 

But yes, I enjoyed the Pancho Villa reference.

 

For me, I never really considered the Young Indy series "Canon," because its really not concieved as part of the Indy series, its just a historical series that used the character of Indiana Jones as a device to introduce history and educate on it. I mean, its totally ridiculous that Young Indy meets all these people and is present for every significant event of the 20th century--its like Forest Gump, except Forest Gump is part satire. I always considered it just this Lucasfilm education-entertainment piece (edu-tainment!) that used a popular character to introduce its fans to history. The Indy IV reference I sort of take as unrelated to the Young Indy episode, it just coincidentally lines up with it, because Young Indy really was a sort of "Alternate Universe"/ "Fantasy Universe" type thing with the Indiana Jones character.

At least that was the way I always looked at it.

 

I loved it as well.

 

Which is valid. I mean, you could look at the Hayden insert on the RotJ DVDs as just something that makes no sense as opposed to a confirmation that the Anakin/Vader from the PT is the same as the Anakin/Vader from the OT (though still making no sense within the film).

Whoa...

Actually, even though it looks stupid, I think the Hayden insertion is somehow LESS appalling if I think of it as just RotJ's version of young Anakin rather than the Anakin from the prequels... This bears further pondering in a different thread.

I would imagine that the official story on the Pancho Villa reference is that he's talking about what happened in the TV show, though.

 

I watched the whole series in the weeks leading up to Crystal Skull's release, enjoyed it thoroughly (including the documentaries) and of course it adds up to the Indy legend. The man speaks 26 languages!!! He met Freud, Lawrence of Arabia, Pancho Villa, Mata Hari and worked with John Ford!!!

Although the reference to Pancho Villa and Victoriano Huerta is cool, obviously it makes no sense whatsoever that somebody could have learned Quechua in northern Mexico. That's really going to get a huge laugh in Latin America, for sure

 

I consider anything you might have a problem with regarding Indiana Jones meeting all those people as simply the Hand of God/Destiny.

Which, in Indiana Jones, is entirely possible.

 

I don't like it as canon either due to the forrest gump issue as well. It's a big fat eyeroll.

 

I confess, I love Young Indiana Jones but I often feel that only a few of the stories feel like Indiana Jones.

* Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye.
* Indiana Jones and the Masks of Evil
* Indiana Jones and Attack of the Hawkmen
* Indiana Jones and Daredevils of the Desert.
* Indiana Jones and The Phantom Train of Doom

And the Pancho Villa adventure.

They're what I'm able to actually consider part of the Indiana Jones canon. They're not travelogues. They're adventures.

 

I have to admit I've never seen a single episode of the series. But I'm willing to accept that at least some of the adventures -- those listed by Charlemagne19, above seem like a good start -- "actually"/canonically happened to the character in the formative years of his youth.

 

Besides, isn't it almost NECESSARY that Indiana Jones at some point fought Dracula?

 

The answer to that question, my good Charlemagne19, is NO.

 

I'm a HUGE Young Indy fan but I have to admit that the Dracula episode "Masks of Evil" is the worst Indy episode. It's a disappointment as had it been done better it could have been great.

 

I preferred the episode where Young Indy fought the wolf-man and beat him by hitting him in the nards.

No, wait, that was Monster Squad.

 

I haven't seen any of these since they originally aired, but I really want to. It was a big deal in my family to watch every episode when they were on when I was a kid But yeah, I don't remember them almost at all...

And yet, my first viewing of Skull, I immediately realized the Pancho Villa thing was a Young Indy reference Anyway, I would like to watch them again. I just wish they weren't so freaking expensive on DVD...

I think I would consider them B-canon, pseud-canon. Sort of a 'if you like an episode, consider it canon' philosophy... how I feel about the SW EU


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

I thought the pilot episode was the 9 year old Indy exploring ancient Egypt?

 

Do you have Netflix? I'm pretty sure you can rent them from Netflix.

Correct. The episode they referred to in KotCS is called "Spring Break" in the DVD set (vol. 1). It starts with an adventure in Indy's hometown of Princeton, and the second episode takes him to northern Mexico with Pancho Villa.

 

Just a backstory? Unfortunately the same could be said of the SW prequels. Though I agree with you. Young Indy is not part of the proper series, these aren't films, they are pseudo-canon. Besides catching part of the Lawrence of Arabia episode--I've seen none of these. As a result, they don't fit into my personal conception of Indy.

-Seldon

 

Actually, Pancho Villa was part of the pilot episode. Remember, the episodes were not aired in the chronological order that the DVDs are presented in.

The first episode was "Curse of the Jackal", which included both 9 year old Indy and the 16 year old Indy "spring break/Mexico" episode.

Young Indy was good when it wanted to be...but it seems like too many of the episodes were cheesy history lessons. I'm sorry, but I don't care about how Indiana Jones learned about the blues. I want to see him go to war and have adventures! Some of the war episodes were amazing.

Still, the reference in the movie was great. Especially Mutt's reaction--it perfectly echoed the reaction of a lot of fans after watching Young Indy. "Indy was kidnapped by Pancho Villa? Bull****!"

 

Well, since the DVDs are now about the only way to watch Young Indy, I guess it's easier to start referring to the episodes as they appear on DVD.

I thought the series did a fantastic job, precisely because it used a very popular fictional character to try to explain key historic figures and events. I've always assumed it was mostly aimed at younger kids, and it's a great way for them to watch something educational that's also kind of entertaining. They definitely didn't try to make some clichéd adventure just for the sake of it.

The only bad thing, for me, is that they never got to finish all the episodes they'd planned.

 

On the one hand, it seems like an educational show geared to kids...but then they have stuff like Indy losing his virginity to Mata Hari, and it's like "WTF?".

And again, some of the war episodes were pretty dark as I recall.

And then they have episodes that play like hokey comedies, revolving around George Gershwin or John Ford...and I can't imagine kids liking that either, or even adults for that matter. It seems like something aimed at 90 year olds.

So yeah...that sums up my problems with Young Indy. It was all over the map! I dig the concept of playing around with different genres in different episodes, but it just seems like they took it too far. I can't diss the show too much, though. It did have some good episodes. Actually, most of the "story written by George Lucas" episodes seemed to have a dramatic weight to them that the other episodes didn't quite capture. It's been years since I've watched the show, though. Am I wrong?

I kind of wish they sold the DVDs individually--I might pick up a few here and there. I don't want to drop $90 for a set, though.

 

I don't know. I was having too much fun to notice which shows said "story by George Lucas". Didn't he just come up with a very rough idea of all the episodes and all the historic figures that could appear, and just let others work out all the details? I'm not sure about that.

Too bad you didn't buy them when Best Buy had them on sale recently for $50 each.

 

What?! If only I'd known for my birthday I do have Netflix, but it sucks that each episode is one disc and so it would take up like... tons of months/money of my Netflix just for Young Indy. I would rather have the DVDs... such a part of my childhood, I bet it would take me back


-sj loves kevin spacey