The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Vol. 1 DVD Credits:

Region: 1

The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Vol. 1 DVD Release Date: 22nd October 2007

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The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Vol. 1 DVD Review:

“The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones Volume 1” is the first of 3 volumes of DVD box sets of the “Young Indiana Jones” series. This 31 episode series, which originally aired from 1992 to 1995 chronicles the exciting globe trekking childhood of Henry “Indiana” Jones. Set in the early 1900s, Indiana, the son of a famous writer and lecturer, Henry Jones, follows his father and mother across the planet. Traveling from Paris to Eastern Africa to Tunisia, Indiana always has his tutor and insatiable curiosity in tow, and mischief always seems to ensue. It is this curiosity that introduces Indiana to some of history’s most notable people of the 20th century.

Throughout his journeys, Young Indiana bumps into and has noteworthy interactions with such historical figures as T.E. Lawrence, (Lawrence of Arabia), Theodore Roosevelt, Pablo Picasso, Pancho Villa and Norman Rockwell, as well as Sigmund Freud and Thomas Edison among others. It is these adventures and mischief that helps to mold Indiana into the caring, conscientious archeologist so beloved of the 1980s films.

George Lucas is said to have originally plotted out the episodes including where and when they would be set, as well as whom Young Indiana Jones would encounter in each episode. These episodes were intended to both chronicle Indy’s life up to the original films, as well as serve as an entertaining educational tool for school children.

Unlike the original airings of the episodes, the DVDs are made up of paired together 45-minute episodes organized in chronological order resulting in one feature length chronicling per disc. Sadly, the charming book ending scenes with the older Indiana Jones recalling his boyhood memories as a lead in and lead out of each episode has been removed. A second obvious effect of these pairings can be seen with varying age of Corey Carrier, who plays the youngest Indiana Jones (age 10). Corey’s age tends to bounce around a bit between episodes. For example, within the first episode, titled “My First Adventure”, Corey appears to go from 10 years old to 13 years old, in the first half of the second disc “Passion for Life” he is 10 years old again.

Despite the mild confusion that this reordering of episodes causes, the overall quality of the box set outweighs it. The box set is comprised of 12 discs, containing 7 feature length episodes. There are also 5 discs of special features including over 36 documentaries about the various people and historical events that Young Indy encounters. These documentaries are all extraordinarily well executed, each running around 30 minutes in length.

The price for the box set may seem daunting at $70, but when broken down, it is an extremely reasonable $10 per feature length episode. Most of these episodes include an entire second DVD of special features including the well-made, high quality documentaries that are fit for educational curriculum. Any true Indiana Jones fan will easily overlook the price, not to mention plopping down the cash for the next two installments, as this is truly a spectacular buy, with hours upon hours of fun that everyone in the family can share, as they watch young Indiana Jones pop in and out of history.

All of the episodes and special features are presented in 1:33.1 full frame and in stereo sound.

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The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones Vol. 1 DVD review written by: Andrew Mattson