Documentaries on Young Indy, Volume 3, Disc 1...

I've gotten through the first disc of documentaries on Volume 3 of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, which hit stores today, and I've got to admit I'm more than impressed with the substance of information and material on these and all of the documentaries on the previous two volumes. This isn't just simply talking head fluff, this is substantial commentaries on the people and places spotlighted in the entire Young Indy TV series that really gives you the most in-depth look this side of a history book.

Disc 1 starts off with a great 30-minute documentary on the life of Ernest Hemingway, the author of classic 20th century novels such as "The Sun Also Rises", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "The Old Man and the Sea". Here was a guy who found his passion through his writing because of the lack of love from his parents. When I read "The Sun Also Rises" in college, I found it extremely dull and boring, because in my college-age eyes it was about people partying, going to one cafe' after another in Paris, and going off to the bullfights in Spain. Not the most thrilling of tales in my book. But now I understand why Hemingway wrote in such sparse, "He said, she said" language. He wanted the accuracy of the description to take hold of the reader's attention. Now I wonder if I should go back and re-read his novels.

There's another interesting 30-minute documentary on the life and career of Edith Wharton, the author of works such as "Ethan Frome", another book I read in college. The reasoning for her frequently depressing works all stemmed back to the fact that Edith Jones started out trapped in that upper class society of the 19th to 20th centuries, and she didn't want to be a part of it. She saw herself as a revolutionary, writing to express her thoughts and feelings of being trapped in society and loveless marriages as a token trophy piece, the way most women of the time were. She was definitely a modern woman living decades before the term "women's liberation" became commonplace in America.

A third documentary on Disc 1 focuses on the life and career of journalist Lowell Thomas, who pioneered the craft of informational entertainment in traveling slideshow presentations, radio, newsreels, and television. He was one of those rare breed of reporters who, according to the legendary newsman Walter Cronkite, loved to get the human side of the story, not taking any sides in the progress, and accurately reporting on lands and peoples and conditions to a hungry American public. And to think this was way back in the day before CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the Internet! With all of the tabloid-like media crap surrounding the current presidential races, every single reporter on the scene today could take a major lesson or 20 from the life and career of Lowell Thomas.

And to be honest, I completely forgot the other documentary on Disc 1. With the emphasis on this disc of writers and reporters, it completely slipped my mind! I'll comment on it soon.

The remainder of this 10-disc set is carved up mostly the same way, though the documentaries for "Winds of Change" and "The Mystery of the Blues" are separated from their respective films and placed on separate discs a la the first Young Indy volume. The final volume, as in the previous two sets, contains an hour-long commentary from Professor H.W. Brands on the progress of the 20th century in the years after World War II and the changes in the world's societies; an interactive timeline on the real-life people, places, and events depicted in this set; and an interactive video game where you can lead young Indy on an adventure through time, sort of like those old-school "choose your own path" books but set to DVD-ROM. That's the down side of this series - the final disc of each set requires DVD-ROM usage to access the interactive timelines and video games.

With the release next month of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", this is an excellent precursor to the film and a wonderful way to round out one of the most enjoyable and underappreciated series of the 1990's. My dad would have loved seeing this on DVD.