The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

Didn't see an existing thread for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Anyone else a fan of this?

 

I liked Sean Patrick Flannery in it. I remember the one in the snow that Harrison appeared in.

 

Yeah, he did a great job. I always liked his teens/20's Indy over the 10 year old Indy.

 

I'm a fan. Still waiting for a Blu-ray release that's never going to happen.

 

I really hope it does, but I doubt it too.

 

The show uses to much SD stock footage for that to be feasible. Maybe if they did a Dragon Ball Kai type remastering where they blur the picture quality of the HD elements to blur together better with the non-HD elements. (Some Star Wars fan restorations have also used this technique)

 

Huh?! The show was shot on 16 mm film (i.e: not SD). There's nothing preventing that show from having a Blu-ray release.

Anime =/= live action. Besides, what non-HD elements? That series was done on cel animation.

 

While the original masters for the stock footage were in fact shot in HD, lots of George's elements used to make the series are not in HD. Kind of like how the original master elements of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were all shot in High Definition, but weren't assembled and edited that way and lots of the reels have been discarded so it's not feasable to produce a HD version of the show.

 

Kind of like how Star Trek TNG shot the live-action scenes on film but used video for compositing special effects. It was cheaper to do it that way back in the 1990s, so lots of shows followed that approach. Shortsighted with 25 years' hindsight, but there you go.

 

If Lucas was still in charge of LucasFilm he would remaster the series in HD for sure regardless of the time and money. I'm guessing Disney won't. Who knows maybe Lucas already created HD masters when he made the DVD sets.

 

They weren't shot in HD, they were shot on film. And while there may be elements that are not in HD, that doesn't (and never has) prevented an HD release.

That's almost a certainty and I would put money on it. They were extensively remastered directly from the film prints.

 

What do you mean by saying it's not HD because it was shot on film? I don't follow you're logic on that at all. As long as there is enough detail to resolve clarity up to at least 720P, then by today's standards it is HD. HD is defined by what the elements resolution resolves to, not if it's on film or digibetas, VHS, ect. Star Wars as seen in theaters back in 1977 was High Definition too. It just wasn't popular lingo to use back then.

 

It's not high definition. It's film. You can transfer film to high definition video (even beyond it). But they are not the same.

 

Most film is HD. When you get down to the 16mm and 8mm sizes and super aged prints it starts to become arguable whether is it high definition or not. However even by today's standards well preserved, quality 35mm film is factually considered HD and even Ultra HD level quality.

 

You can get HD resolution from 16mm film. Moonlight Kingdom is a recent example. American Graffiti is an older one. Film grain will depend on the film stock and on any post production grain removal process they may or may not use when creating a new master. The problem as mentioned already is that like Star Trek: The Next Generation and various other tv shows of that era is that Young Indy was shot on film but was probably editing on video tape. The original film elements can easily be scanned in High Definition but all the editing, special effects, composition, and post production work would need to be redone from scratch.

It's possible Lucas already did this but I don't know. If he didn't I don't see Disney doing it either. While it would be nice to have Young Indy on Blu-ray the DVD's are very nice and look great for SD.

 

You do realize that film can be high def too right? Film isn't the same as digital, but HD can be on film or digital. Definition is based on resolution, not pixilation. 65mm film would be equal to about a 30-40 megapixel digital image.

 

The first volume of the dvd set was released about 6 months before Crystal Skull hit theaters. That means if Disney is going to release this to help commemorate Indy 5 we would be due for an announcement very soon. Probably wont happen. Too bad. Robocop The Series is getting a blu ray release although I dont think it is true HD. Young Indy should get one as well.

 

Could they at least include the Old Indy segments as a supplement? I liked those.

 

Does anyone own the DVD release? I hear that they combined episodes for that release to make longer episodes. I don't know if they did this with the original VHS releases though? I'm after some input on whether its worth buying the dvd sets or tracking down the original VHS cassettes.

 

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Yes, they've been re-edited and combined into "movies" of two chronologically connected episodes apiece. The segments with old Indy have been cut. Some new material was shot to connect them, and especially for the Corey Carrier episodes, the age difference is noticeable. The interstitials are short, so they don't bother me. George Hall's take on the character never felt great to me, so I don't mind their removal. I think the originals are floating around YouTube, so you might watch a few to see if you really want to go through the hassle and expense of VHS. As you would expect, the DVDs look much better, and come with a plethora of custom shot documentaries on the characters and time period of each episode.

 

The official VHS releases already had the re-edited "movie" versions of the series as well, IIRC, since that change was done in the mid-1990s.

 

The original cut doesn't exist on home media for the US. The UK and Japan VHSes had them but they're incomplete runs. I don't believe any home video version is the complete series. Heck, I don't think the US even got the complete series on broadcast. Parts of Europe did..?

 

Yeah, fan copies of complete runs of the original "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" version of the series (as opposed to the later re-edited "Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" TV-movie versions) have some episodes sourced from continental European TV channels, because they never aired in their original form in the US.

I think Japan also got Laserdisc transfers of the Chronicles episodes that were released on home video there.

 

Lucasfilm has posted the Behind the Scenes Historical documentaries on its official youtube channel