emtiem said:
I think Indy can be more than artefacts, but it needs to be based in adventure. Wandering around some European cities wasn't adventure or fun.
There's a hell of a lot more to the show than just "wandering around some European cities," though, and it's
full of adventure and fun. It's a very different
sort of adventure, to be sure, but adventure nonetheless - and much of it is still even in keeping with the movies. There are chases aplenty, exotic locales, abundant perils...
There are missions across harsh and unforgiving terrain, quests for treasures (of various kinds), romantic pursuits, life-threatening engagements, you name it.
emtiem said:
And it was a bad risk to take. Indy isn't a real person; it's a brand name.
To some of us it's a bit more than a mere "brand name," and this show is a large part of why, at least for me.
When this show began I was already a huge fan of the character - I'd seen all the movies in theaters in their original releases (the most recent of them sixteen times in theaters alone), and again on video, I'd read the comics, gotten the roleplaying game, bought tons of merchandise, you name it. To me, at that point, "Indy" was pretty much as you've described him - a certain style of adventure cinema, perhaps nothing more at its core than escapist popcorn entertainment, but done so well that it transcended the limits of its genre and aspirations. Fine. That was exactly what I wanted, and in all honesty when I first read about what the tone of the show was going to be like, even though I was still excited about it I was a little disappointed at what I thought would be a missed opportunity.
All that changed once I actually began watching. I found a show that extended and built upon the mythos of the movies in a way I thought perfectly complemented the movie characterization, while adding so much more. It was still every bit as engrossing as the movies were to me, but now it also added many layers of interest above and beyond mere visceral thrills. There were incredible sensations of discovery and passion, and alongside the still abundant thrills were things of more substance. There was history and culture and art and philosophy, all presented in ways that made it live and breathe and come alive for someone far removed from it all. And there was also humor and joy, and excitement and thrills. Far from detracting from the mythos, I found the TV show substantially added to and elevated the character. Getting to explore his background and find out how and why he became the way he was in the movies not only proved, for me, engrossing in and of itself, but it even made the movies that much more enjoyable for me - it added layers of nuance and flavor to the character and his world that allow me to continue to discover new things in these movies even upon the nth viewing.
What I initially viewed as something of a "missed opportunity," as I said above, I eventually realized to be full advantage taken of an even greater opportunity. In all honesty, I think this show is the most artistically risky, daring, ambitious and rewarding creative endeavor Lucas has undertaken in decades, and the best thing he's made in at least the last twenty-five years.
emtiem said:
The one moment in the whole thing where they remembered it's Indy and how he's supposed to act. Other than that he has no sense of humour or fun in the whole thing- no sense of his own shortcomings or slapstick sensibilities. Phoenix's Young Indy was more of an impression, and obviously you can't hold that up over the course of a long series, but it showed more of an understanding of Indy's rapport with the audience. Indy is supposed to be entertainment.
And that pirate attack is a terrible sequence- it's simply badly made. Makes me ache to think how much that cost to shoot. Look at something like Doctor Who- costs much less and yet every sequence has a verve and excitement to it. Young Indy is simply badly made; the direction is turgid and the writing has no wit.
See, I just plain disagree with this entirely. It's
obvious to me just how "Indy" SPF's Indy is. Frankly, some of your specific observations strike me as not just wrong, but even denying the very things I'd cite in the show's favor - for one, I find Sean Patrick Flanery's Indy, if anything, has even
more of a "sense of his own shortcomings or slapstick sensibilities" than Harrison's adult version.
And I also think you're just plain flat-out wrong about it being "badly made." I'd hold this show up as the model of just how technically and artistically proficiently a TV show can be executed. Of course, it doesn't precisely ape the features, for both creative and practical reasons, but instead has its own, well-defined aesthetic style, and for my money it's one of the
best-produced and best-directed shows of its era. It has its own photographic style, very different from the movies but quite beautiful in its own right; it has some exciting action sequences that I think would hold up well even against some of Mr. Spielberg's setpieces from the movies (notably including some better aerial action than that seen in any of the movies IMO, as well as a couple great train-based sequences, both of the all-out action and the more suspenseful varieties, plus numerous other great chases and some good fights); it has some production values that are simply astonishing to see in a TV series (mainly in simply shooting so much location stuff on the actual locations, when even the globetrotting, standard-setting Indy feature films routinely use substitutes that are cheaper or easier to work with); it features some of the most memorable, robust and just plain beautiful and best orchestral scoring I've ever heard in any TV series; and it even features a roster of terrific actors who shine in all roles, be they series regulars or one-shots.
emtiem said:
You've rather missed the point- doesn't matter if he's a postman. Say Harry Potter becomes a policeman and 'Old Harry Chronicles' turns into a police procedural drama. Could be a very good police drama for all we know- sod all to do with Harry Potter, though.
Quite right, but the critical flaw with this argument is that it has nothing to do with the actual discussion - Indy's adventures in the TV series are
very much connected to those in the films. Here is where he acquires the variety of action and survival skills he needs to get through the scrapes he routinely finds himself in in the movies; here is where he masters the myriad of languages and first encounters the variety of cultures with which he interacts in the movies; here is where he first begins to explore relationships with the opposite sex, and where he first develops some of the characteristics he later exhibits in his interactions with them in the movies; here is where he first begins to explore cultures of the past and develop the interest in archaeology and relics and what knowledge can be gleaned from them, which drives him in the movies.
This show presents a young man who travels all over the planet on various heroic adventures, encountering all sorts of villains and natural perils, romancing various women, fighting enemies, etc. - sound familiar?
emtiem said:
I couldn't tell you- I watched a good number of them when they were shown on the BBC on Sunday afternoons ten years ago or so and they all merged into one dull, lifeless mess; despite being set in lots of different places and times, which tells you how badly they handled it.
Actually, it tells me you just don't see it the way I do. Granted, my own personal reaction isn't unimpeachable proof of the show's quality any more than your personal reaction is of its poorness, but if nothing else I think it's likelier that you're overlooking or failing to notice strengths that are there in the series than it is that I'm imagining ones that aren't, and at any rate I have no more reason to accord your opinion more weight than mine, particularly since I probably
have watched more of it than you, and more recently.
Not that it really matters, of course. If you don't like the show, you don't like the show, and I fully know my telling you I think it's great isn't going to change your own opinion, particularly since you've made it clear both that you have indeed watched more than enough of it to form a strong, honest opinion with something substantive to base it on, and that you've since held this opinion for many years. All I can really say in response (speaking as an Indy fan of more than a quarter of a century, who loved the movies already before the show, loved the show even more, and loved the movies all the more because of the show) is that I couldn't disagree more.
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