Television. One DVD at a Time.

“There are all kinds of ways of life in this world. One is not right, one is not wrong. Understanding others, we can accept them, and through acceptance comes a peaceful world.” – Bronislaw Malinowski (Tom Courtenay) to Indiana Jones as they discuss Indy’s past and future

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change DVD Review

By Jonathan Boudreaux

The third time is not the charm for The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change, the final collection of episodes following a teenaged Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) as he finds his way in the world after fighting in the first world war. A few of the “feature-length episodes” (see previous reviews if you require an explanation) are almost as exciting as those of the Indiana Jones we’ve watched on the silver screen over the past twenty-seven years. Others, unfortunately, are banal and boring.

The volume starts with “Tales of Innocence,” which finds Indy infiltrating the Austrian forces as a one-armed, one-eyed soldier trying to convince them to surrender. Simultaneously, he is courting a local girl, not realizing that he is competing for her attention with his new best friend, Ernest Hemingway (Jay Underwood, The Boy Who Could Fly). If you can stay awake through the sleepy, predictable first half of “Masks of Evil,” you will be treated to a gleefully gruesome storyline about a count who fancies himself an heir to Vlad Dracula. It is creepy, senseless fun.

“Mystery of the Blues” is told in flashback by middle-aged Indy (Harrison Ford). It takes viewers to 1920s Chicago, where Indy works in a speakeasy to pay for college. While this episode is somewhat entertaining, it has Indy hobnobbing with so many soon-to-be famous people that the mind reels. He takes lessons in jazz and blues from Sidney Bechet (Jeffrey Wright). He helps to solve a gangland murder with his college roommate Eliot Ness (Frederick Weller) and cub reporter Ernest Hemingway. The trio is like The Three Stooges crossed with The Hardy Boys. Ness is portrayed as a bumbling idiot who probably couldn’t solve a jaywalking case, much less help bring down Al Capone (who, yes, does appear in the episode). There is fun to be had here, but the shift from learning about racism to mob murders is a little jarring.

“Scandal of 1920” and “Hollywood Follies” are mildly amusing looks at Broadway and Hollywood, respectively. Both are bogged down by subplots in which Indy finds his One True Love. Three volumes, twenty-three episodes, and countless One True Loves. How did busy Indy ever find the time to raid the lost ark, explore the temple of doom, and perform his other adventures? The man is like a walking Harlequin Romance, only with more kissing. It turns out that the extra features about Broadway and Hollywood are much more interesting than the actual episodes, a case that, frankly, could be made for many of the episodes included in this volume.

The real jewel here is “Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye.” On the last day of the war’s trench warfare, a dying traitor mumbles “the eye of the peacock” to Indy. When Remy (Ronny Coutteure) finds a map among the dead man’s belongings, he and Indy decide to set out in search of a famed diamond once owned by Alexander the Great. Along the way, they encounter an evil, one-eyed German, a group of high-seas pirates, headhunters, and warring natives in the South Pacific. This episode is action-packed pulp and helps to solidify Indy’s changing beliefs about war, responsibility, and family.

The seven "feature-length episodes" that make up The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change are divided onto ten discs. Several discs are devoted entirely to supplemental materials. The discs are housed in a foldout case which is designed to look like Indy's journal. The ten discs attach to six panels, each of which holds two discs apiece (one on top of the other in a figure eight pattern). This makes it slightly inconvenient for viewers, causing them to remove one DVD in order to get to another. Indy's "journal" also features episode titles and listings of the extras included on each disc. There are no plot synopses, so you're on your own trying to guess what's what. The case slides into a cardboard sleeve which features a sepia-toned Indiana Jones theme.

The menus are easy to use. There are no scene selection menus, but the episodes include chapter stops.

Video and Audio

The full screen video is okay. There is an often noticeable sense of softness to the images. At times, the color also seems to change slightly from shot to shot.

English subtitles are included.

Extras

The supplemental features are plentiful and informative. They include newly-produced documentaries and featurettes providing background information on the historical figures spotlighted in each episode. Prepare yourself for an exhaustive refresher on world history.

The extras for “Tales of Innocence” on disc one include “Unhealed Wounds: The Life of Ernest Hemingway” (34:56), “The French Foreign Legion: The World’s Most Legendary Fighting Force” (28:22), “The Secret Life of Edith Wharton” (30:35), and “Lowell Thomas: American Storyteller” (29:18).

“Masks of Evil” on disc two includes four extras: “For the People, Despite the People: The Ataturk Revolution” (30:25), “The Greedy Heart of Halide Edib” (28:23), “The Ottoman Empire: A World of Difference” (33:05), and “Dracula: Fact and Fiction” (24:53).

Next up is disc three’s “Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye” with “Bronislaw Malinowski: God Professor” (29:34), “Anthropology: Looking at the Human Condition” (23:49), and “New Guinea: Paradise in Peril” (25:05).

There are so many extras for “The Winds of Change” (disc four) that they are housed on a separate disc (disc five). They include “The Best Intentions: The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles” (33:15), “Woodrow Wilson: American Idealist” (28:41), “Gertrude Bell: Iraq’s Uncrowned Queen” (33:07), “Ho Chi Minh: The Price of Freedom” (31:01), “Paul Robeson: Scandalize My Name” (32:32), and “Robert Goddard: Mr. Rocket Science” (31:34).

Disc six’s “Mystery of the Blues” is also supplemented by a second disc of extras. Disc seven includes “Jazz: Rhythms of Freedom” (31:55), “Al ‘Scarface’ Capone: The Original Gangster” (32:45), “Prohibition: America on the Rocks” (32:45), “On the Trail of Eliot Ness” (29:21), “Louis Armstrong: Ambassador of Jazz” (31:55), “Ben Hecht: The Shakespeare of Hollywood” (31:15), and “Hellfighters: Harlem’s Heroes of World War I” (29:15).

“Scandal of 1920” on disc eight is supplemented by “Tin Pan Alley: Soundtrack of America” (31:15), “Wonderful Nonsense: The Algonquin Round Table” (26:00), and “Broadway: America Center Stage” (29:58).

“Hollywood Follies” on disc nine includes four extras: “Erich von Stroheim: The Profligate Genius” (32:53), “The Rise of he Moguls: The Men Who Built Hollywood” (25:40), “Irving Thalberg: Hollywood’s Boy Wonder” (32:30), and “The World of John Ford” (33:19).

Next up is disc ten, an "Interactive Bonus Disc" which includes an "Interactive Timeline" and "Hunting for Treasure: Interactive Game," both of which require a computer CD-ROM. Unfortunately, I was unable to run these interactive programs on my new computer (thanks, Vista!). The computer has no problem with the previous volumes, however, so I assume this is just some sort of glitch with my hardware/software combo.

The single non-interactive feature on disc nine is "Historical Lecture: New Gods for Old" (1:04:05) with history professor H.W. Brands.

Volume Three has a staggering number of extra features, and many are more interesting than the actual episodes.

Summary

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change consists of mostly humdrum episodes, but, as with the earlier releases, the supplemental material dazzles.

5/2/08