Indiana Jones and the Third Dimension!

Crack that whip

New member
From time to time the subject of Indiana Jones presentations in 3D comes up (this older discussion, for example). While the movies and shows themselves aren't in 3D, I know there have been a handful of licensed products with 3D Indy imagery (not counting the fact that all the physical items like action figures, prop replicas, etc. are three-dimensional - I'm just talking about photos and the like, obviously :p ).

Many years ago, there was a set of Viewmaster reels based on the three movies that then existed, with just a single reel per movie; unfortunately, these were those lame conversions of 2D photos, done in a very "cutout"-like style (not even as good as most recent 3D conversions of 2D movies, from what I gather). There was also, however, a set of reels based upon The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles - a whole 3-reel set just for a single episode, "British East Africa, September 1909," and these were done with true 3D photography, by a Viewmaster photographer sent along on the production, and they're excellent. A perfunctory Googling turned up this page on various Viewmaster projects over the decades, which includes this marvelous little nugget:

1990 titles included TV shows like Full House, Family Matters and the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (which involved a 30-day on location shoot with the crew in Africa).

The only other stereo imagery Indy product I know of is Pro Set's set of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles trading cards, from back in the day, which includes ten 3D photo cards from various episodes; unfortunately, these are more basic "cutout"-style "conversions" of 2D photos, and they also use the anaglyph method for 3D presentation (with a viewer with red and blue lenses - small cardboard viewers were included in each pack of the cards), so they're pretty crummy.

Aside from the Viewmaster reels for the "trilogy" ("The Legend of Indiana Jones" was the title of the reel set) and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the Young Indy trading cards, have there ever been any 3D Indy items? Part of me would half-expect that with the big general Indy merchandising push surrounding Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that there'd be another set of VM reels for that movie (ideally done as true 3D photos at the time of the production, just like the Young Indy ones), but I don't know of anything like that. Are there any other such items like books or other cards I don't know about?
 

emtiem

Well-known member
I've never come across any, but there is a nice thread on here somewhere where a few of us made some Indy anaglyphs!

Do they put the viewmaster photos online anywhere?
 

fenris

New member
Are you talking about the viewmaster toys?

----- edit -----

You are! Hahaha!

Didn't read everything... I just scanned it.

Disney has lots of these... Even up till now. I still see them in toy stores.

I haven't seen any KOTCS viewmaster reels, though.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
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