Wyoming, 1950

Lakota_Wilson

New member
Oh! Wow. LOL I thought that canon meant it was fake for some reason. I'm sorry. I'm still trying to understand all of the terminology. I'm not real big on internet stuff. LOL.
Merry Christmas.;)
Your Friend,
Lakota
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Lakota_Wilson said:
Oh! Wow. LOL I thought that canon meant it was fake for some reason. I'm sorry. I'm still trying to understand all of the terminology. I'm not real big on internet stuff. LOL.
Merry Christmas.;)
Your Friend,
Lakota

I thought there had to be a good explanation! ;)

Canon is a real world term, implying standard, law, tenet. So Young Indy would be regarded as Indy's legitimate history, though it does have some inconsistencies when checked against other media also referred to as 'canon'.

If it was 'Cannon', then it might mean that it was so bad it ought to be shot from a cannon!

:hat:
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
I wish the Wyoming, 1950 adventure had been fleshed out, for a full TV movie or something. It's not a major artifact but somehow Harrison feels more like Indy here than he does in KOTCS, and it feels more like vintage Indy.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
I wish the Wyoming, 1950 adventure had been fleshed out, for a full TV movie or something. It's not a major artifact but somehow Harrison feels more like Indy here than he does in KOTCS, and it feels more like vintage Indy.
Agreed. It would be nice to know how the story began and more about the main villain. The reason this chapter feels like 'vintage Indy' is because it IS! Made only 4 years after "Crusade" and 15 years before "Skull".
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Raiders112390 said:
I wish the Wyoming, 1950 adventure had been fleshed out, for a full TV movie or something. It's not a major artifact but somehow Harrison feels more like Indy here than he does in KOTCS, and it feels more like vintage Indy.

I watched the series in strict order, so Mystery of the Blues was something to really look forward to. It was great to see Harrison reprise the role, and yes it was oh so short an appearance. It would have been fantastic if this entire episode was Harrison's adventure, instead of Flanery's.

Though this is where the TV series tears itself away from the movies: they involve the same character, but it would be comforting to imagine the series as one long tall-story told by a teasing older Indy. One big leg-pull, where he claims to have met the movers and shakers of the day. However, throughout there would be a thread of truth.

One day it would be intriguing to see somebody re-do the series, and make it less educational, and more in-keeping with the movie adventures. It would have the feeling of legitimacy that Wyoming 1950 displayed, and also remain a separate enterprise to Harrison Ford's big screen outings (we might be able to accept a television replacement for Harry more easily).
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
I think the "hokiness" of it was a nice touch, actually. Somehow it fit with what little we see of the adventure.

I really, really wish it'd have been expanded into a telefilm. Indiana (Harrison's Indy) doesn't have to chase down a MAJOR artifact in order to appear on screen. The Macguffin doesn't have to be this perfect, mythical, mysterious, powerful object. I always thought we should see more of Indy's "lesser" adventures. It'd have given us a lot more films and a lot more leeway with the character and turned him into a much more flexible character--a real James Bond-ish character, as originally invisioned: "James Bond, but better." What little we see of the Wyoming, 1950 adventure just seems like a totally hokey early '50s comic book or pulpy yarn, and has a much more natural "50s" atmosphere than KOTCS does; KOTCS slams you over the head with the IT'S THE LATE 1950S references.

The villain is a perfect, snide, schemey little early '50s villain, corny in a way yes, but not cringeworthy--it was just a totally fun yarn, the kind of stuff that fits PERFECTLY into what the whole idea of Indy is. What Indy was based on and inspired by--cheesy serial type adventures. Wyoming, 1950, ironically comes the closest to a real, vintage serial type adventure, like the kind that inspired the creation of Indy in the first place--lovably cheesy, in a good way. Raiders takes the hokey '30s and 40s serial formula and makes it something serious, more legitimate, and so do the sequels to greater and lesser degrees.

Also, the setting of 1950 was perfect. 1957 was a lot different from 1950...1950 is still pre-Space Age, still pre-Rock N' Roll--an area still fits very much at home in. It's a very interesting area that's not really explored in film; most films set in the 50s focus on the Rock era in the '50s, 1954-1959.
 

dr.jones1986

Active member
I agree with your point that the artifact Indy goes after does not always have to be paranormal. It is established in Raiders that he is an expert on the occult but that to me was never his most defining trait. I think the most enduring thing about the character is the the Globe trotting adventure aspect. Also the fact that he has a vast amount of knowledge about other cultures. It does seem though that all of his adult adventures involve the supernatural, not just the movies.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
dr.jones1986 said:
I agree with your point that the artifact Indy goes after does not always have to be paranormal. It is established in Raiders that he is an expert on the occult but that to me was never his most defining trait. I think the most enduring thing about the character is the the Globe trotting adventure aspect. Also the fact that he has a vast amount of knowledge about other cultures. It does seem though that all of his adult adventures involve the supernatural, not just the movies.

Yeah, and it's limited the character, because delays come from having to decide upon the "right" MacGuffin--one that's "epic" enough. But if they didn't take that into consideration and just picked lesser, not so much supernatural, artifacts, we'd have a lot more movies, and the Indy series could've become like Bond, with a new movie every 2-3 years.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
I just thought too--
Indy using the saxophone to cause the snow to fall in the ending may seem hokey to some, but it's really using his father's line of thought--"Let my armies be the rocks, the trees, and the birds in the sky." It's no more hokey than Henry, Sr using his umbrella to lure a flock of seagulls into a Nazi plane.

Also, Indy's line, 'Things can't always be the way you want them to be...But sometimes they are", somehow reminds me of Fedora's line to him years earlier, "You lost today, kid, but that doesn't mean you have to like it."
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
I really, really wish it'd have been expanded into a telefilm.
So do I but if it was expanded, it woud have probably been only a 1 hour episode. After his success with "Star Wars", Harrison stopped doing TV shows so we were LUCKY to get his 4 minutes in "Mystery of the Blues".
Raiders112390 said:
The villain is a perfect, snide, schemey little early '50s villain, corny in a way yes, but not cringeworthy--it was just a totally fun yarn, the kind of stuff that fits PERFECTLY into what the whole idea of Indy is. What Indy was based on and inspired by--cheesy serial type adventures. Wyoming, 1950, ironically comes the closest to a real, vintage serial type adventure, like the kind that inspired the creation of Indy in the first place--lovably cheesy, in a good way. Raiders takes the hokey '30s and 40s serial formula and makes it something serious, more legitimate, and so do the sequels to greater and lesser degrees.
The "Blues" villain is certainly interesting but the Wyoming 1950 segment DOES NOT come closest to the "cheesy serial type adventures"...(Whatever your definition of 'cheese' is supposed to mean).:rolleyes: Perhaps your idea of 'cheese' is something different? I can't think of any serial where a cliffhanger is resolved by something as goofy as blowing on a saxophone!

This really begs the questions: What serials have you seen? What are you comparing it to?:confused:
Raiders112390 said:
Yeah, and it's limited the character, because delays come from having to decide upon the "right" MacGuffin--one that's "epic" enough. But if they didn't take that into consideration and just picked lesser, not so much supernatural, artifacts, we'd have a lot more movies, and the Indy series could've become like Bond, with a new movie every 2-3 years.
Um...No. This is very naive thinking, Raiders112390.
Raiders112390 said:
Indy using the saxophone to cause the snow to fall in the ending may seem hokey to some, but it's really using his father's line of thought--"Let my armies be the rocks, the trees, and the birds in the sky." It's no more hokey than Henry, Sr using his umbrella to lure a flock of seagulls into a Nazi plane.
The difference is that the person who used the umbrella in "Crusade" was NOT Indy. The saxophone gag was hokey with a capital "H"! It's ridiculous and you will be hard pressed to find an example in the vintage serials of a HERO doing a similar thing!:gun:
 

Stoo

Well-known member
An e-mail notification said that Raiders112390 replied to this thread earlier today...

[Mod's Note: Here's Stoo's reply to the post Raiders112390 asked to have deleted. -Attila]

"Entertainment Tonight" had a preview & interview with Ford about his Young Indy appearance (which I recorded & uploaded to YouTube) so I was totally stoked for "Mystery of the Blues". At the time, I found it to be a bit of a letdown, especially the closing bookend. Even though I despise beards, I liked seeing Indy with a beard immensely and the car chase was fun except for the sped-up footage. Having a snow setting was right up my alley, too. The ending, however, was embarassing and it took many, many years for me to warm up to it but I was still very pleased that Ford participated in the show. It was a major bonus to something I was already enamored by.

Everyone I knew who watched it that snow-blizzard night in March '93 found the saxophone gag at the end to be groan-inducing & silly (which I heartily agreed with). One friend of mine ripped apart the entire movie and he never watched the series again after that.:(

The 1950 setting was a bit of a surprise but it immediately brought a smile to my face because it was a sign of something new & different before Indy was even shown. (Because of the date, I always figured that a new movie would definitely be set in the '50s and that notion proved correct.)
 
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Crack that whip

New member
I, too, watched the original broadcast back in the day (as I did with I believe every episode that ran here), and I actually did enjoy the sax / ice gag. Yeah, it's silly, but it's also creative and a little clever, and (to me) perfectly in keeping with the generally outlandish nature of a lot of Indy's adventures (jumping out of a plane in an inflatable rubber raft? You get the idea...). And of course I was immensely pleased to see Harrison Ford reprising the role of Indy, especially since as Stoo notes he'd really stopped doing TV by that time; I think it helped solidify the status of the series as "real" Indiana Jones (not that it ever wasn't that for me, but of course many other people at the time didn't accept it as such, and alas many still don't). I also liked the re-arrangement of Williams material from the movies (specifically Raiders of the Lost Ark) for the scoring of these segments, the in media res, "adventure in progress" story of the bookends, plus the addition to the canon of Greycloud, who instantly becomes a likeable, classic Indy companion in his all-too-brief screen time. I wish we'd gotten to see more of him (and hope that we will someday, even if only in a novel or comic or something)...
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
I kind of consider it "Indy 3.5."
Same here, Raiders112390. It's a special treat and I like the expanded VHS/DVD version even more because, well, it's longer!:)
Dr. Gonzo said:
Impossible but, wouldn't it have been great to have Harrison bookends every episode of that series.?
Supposedly, that was the plan but Ford didn't want to sit through the makeup sessions for the old-aged look.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Stoo said:
Same here, Raiders112390. It's a special treat...

Exactly. It was the episode I was most looking forward to seeing.

And with the real Indiana Jones on show it's the only undeniably legitimate part of the series.

Stoo said:
Supposedly, that was the plan but Ford didn't want to sit through the makeup sessions for the old-aged look.

He could do it now without the makeup and we could get a new special edition release of the series with brand new 'real Indy' bookends!
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
There's some behind the scenes Wyoming footage at 29:17 and 56:32 of this great but cropped PBS documentary. (Curiously frames aren't cropped in the scroll bar, does that mean there's a way to view it properly?)

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/D2_COd-nKs0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

Stoo

Well-known member
I recorded that documentary from PBS in 1993 and you're right, it's great! One of the behind-the-scenes Wyoming shots in the programme is what I used to create this image 5 years ago.

Silly that the person cropped it to letterbox proportions. Maybe I should upload my fullscreen version to YouTube one of these days.
 
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