Crack that whip
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Lance Quazar said:My memories of the episodes and TV movies comprising the YIJ saga are admittedly quite dim at this point. I did watch "Masks of Evil" recently, as I had never heard of it and was intrigued by its supernatural content, the only such episode in the series.
I don't wish to derail this conversation too much, I'm sure there are plenty of threads where it's discussed, but one of my single biggest problems with the series was with Sean Patrick Flannery's performance.
I don't wish to bash him as an actor, but, to me, he portrayed Indy as a far too tentative, hesitant and almost nervous character at times.
Contrast that with the far superior perf by River Phoenix in "Last Crusade", who completely embodies Indy's brash, often reckless spirit.
For the vast majority of the saga, Flannery just didn't "feel" like Indiana Jones - even a younger version of him.
I don't believe that a shy, tentative person grows into someone like Indy. It isn't psychologically consistent.
There are only sporadic moments in the whole YIJC where he really felt like Indy, where he was daring, enterprising, heroic, etc. Most of the time, he just felt...flat.
See, again, I just have to respectfully disagree (and I say this as someone who's watched the entire series quite recently). There's plenty of brashness in the character's portrayal in the show, and not much I'd say is shy or tentative. If anything, he's kind of reckless a lot of the time. There's also a lot of just... "boldness" in some of his movements and so on - little things here and there that actually really recall the way Harrison plays him.
If I absolutely did have to pick on something about Flanery's portrayal, it would have to be that he simply doesn't physically or vocally resemble Harrison Ford as much as one might like (as much as River Phoenix, say), but that's not a fault of his performance, and not something anyone could really do anything about, short of simply casting somebody else who looked more like Harrison. As it is, I think they made the right choice, clearly going with someone on the strength of his performance over his physical resemblance to the established principal actor for the character.