A further follow-up...

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Posted by ROB T. from 162.10.138.28 on August 18, 1999 at 01:40:34:

In Reply to: A follow-up to your points posted by BMan on August 17, 1999 at 16:45:44:

It looks like you and I will never come to an agreement on the merits, or lack thereof, of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" and that's okay. This would be a boring forum if we all held exactly the same opinions on every aspect of Indiana Jones. But even if I'm just spitting in the wind I'd like to reiterate a few points.
Firstly, I'm not sure that the fact that ten-year old Indy had a tutor is a valid example of the amount of schooling necessary to become an archeology professor. You're right that a show about Indy sitting in a classroom would not make for interesting TV but it would have been a more realistic background for the character. Exciting or not, at some point Indy would have had to spend some eight years trapped in a college classroom. No one wants to watch that on TV. However, my idea of breaking up Indy's youthful adventures into chapters and showing just one long adventure over the course of a season would have solved this problem. Each season's adventure would have taken place during a break in his studies. This would also have helped to build an audience for the show since viewers would have to tune in to the next week's episode to keep track of the story. We've all seen the devotion that viewers show to the daily soap operas because of their continuing storyline.
Second, I still do not believe that "Young Indy" was Lucas' attempt to showcase Indy's early life and not a lame attempt to teach history. I find it hard to swallow that when he was creating Indiana Jones, Lucas had in mind a character who had had contact with every historical figure of the early twentieth century. I'm talking at this point about when the movies were being written. A good writer has a handle on the early life of their characters from before the events of the movie take place. I don't believe that when "Raiders" was being created that Lucas saw Indy as a young boy as someone who just happened to be looking over the shoulder of every person who might one day make history. We certainly don't see evidence in the films of the impact that people like Mata Hari and Mark Twain and Lawrence of Arabia had on the young boy who would one day be Indiana Jones.
Third, I don't think the show failed in the ratings because of the history aspect by itself. There is an audience for showcasing historical events on TV. Witness the success of the History Channel and all the different Biography type shows that dot the cable networks.
Audiences were turned off by "Young Indiana Jones" because it was not the proper venue for these history lessons. People already had a preconcieved notion about Indiana Jones that was presented to them by Lucas and they felt betrayed by him in the way he decided to change the character for the TV show. It's not so different from the way people feel about how he has messed with the "Star Wars" saga and to a smaller respect the way he has changed the title of "Raiders."
It's all just more evidence of George Lucas' inability to leave well enough alone.
In the end, I believe that Lucas lost an opportunity to have a two-pronged success on TV. He should have made "Young Indiana Jones" a straight adventure show and created another show to teach history in an entertaining way to young people. But the two goals should not have been mixed together.




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