What to expect from Young Indiana Jones…

As we head into the fall season, one of the most eagerly anticipated sets I, like many others, am looking forward to is the first of the three volumes of Young Indiana Jones on DVD. With these three releases, alongside the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones feature film, it looks like we’re in for a real revival of the man with the hat!

Of course, I’m still bothered that George Lucas isn’t giving us the original broadcast versions of the episodes from the early 1990’s, and apparently there’s nothing that can be done to change that. However, let’s take a more positive approach and look at the good stuff that we can expect from this first volume…

First of all, Paramount has released the cover artwork for Volume 1, which to me looks pretty awesome right then and there! Based on this artwork, we can therefore make the following conclusions about what will be included in Volume 1:

- From the artwork alone, we’re getting all of the Corey Carrier segments in the set, and that accounts for the first five of the segments.
- If you notice very carefully, on the left side of the artwork, you’ll see Elizabeth Hurley’s picture included in the artwork. Based on this assumption, we can therefore conclude that we’re getting at least seven chapters.
- With 22 two-hour movies to account for, and given the amount of generous supplements included in the three volumes, we can assume that this first volume will be comprised of at least the first seven movies. It’s simple math when you think about it, so I’m thinking that the first two sets could have seven segments apiece and the third set will have eight segments. Also, when you divide the running time of the main content, which is 649 minutes, by the approximate amount of run time per segment (93 minutes), you get pretty close to seven, which would justify having seven segments in this debut volume.

With that established, what’s left to explore? How about all of those generous supplements that Lucas and Rick McCallum have promised? First of all, there are a number of historical documentaries which look at the real-life events and people referenced in the series. Reportedly there are going to be 100 such documentaries in the three sets, so that’s a huge chunk of meat right there for you! In addition, there’s something called “Revolutions Interactive Game”, whatever that is, followed by an “Interactive Timeline” and “Professor Video” (which may or may not be the historical documentaries).

And all this on 12 discs? That’s a lotta meat and potatoes right there for you! I hope that the final package is worthy of the years of development that have gone into this set. I also hope that somewhere in one of these volumes, Sean Patrick Flanery’s original screen test is also included, since it was featured on one of the VHS releases during the late 1990’s.

October 23rd cannot come soon enough! Stay tuned for my extensive review of the first volume of Young Indiana Jones when it happens! See you next time!