In case you can't get enough Indy this year on the big screen, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Paramount Home Entertainment have just released the third and final box set of the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, based on the Emmy Award-winning series that first aired on TV in the early 1990s.

"Young Indy" was a series ahead of its time and was devised by George Lucas to provide some backstory to his legendary action hero. Combining his own love of history and anthropology with some good old-fashioned adventure, romance and drama, Lucas inserted Indy (played by a very dashing young Sean Patrick Flanery) into some of the most significant historical events of the period, throwing him into encounters with major political and cultural figures, often before they'd realized their own potential. 

With Lucas at the creative helm and a healthy budget at its back, the series managed to attract a distinguished collection of guest writers, directors and actors. It was also shot in a variety of exotic locations, to add that extra air of authenticity, all over Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States.

This collection, as the subtitle suggests, covers "The Years of Change" -- Indy's exploits between the years 1917 and 1920, when he was in his late teens/early twenties and the world was recovering from the effects of World War I. In short, we get to see how the world shaped Indiana Jones and indeed how Indy shaped the world in his own little way.

The DVD box set covers just seven feature-length episodes of about 90 minutes a piece (each consisting of re-edited versions of two of the TV episodes), but it spans a mighty ten discs. The rest of the space is taken up with extras, including an extremely impressive set of documentary featurettes, created specially for the DVD release, about the events, situations and characters that inspired the stories, such as Louis Armstrong, Count Dracula and the French Foreign Legion.

One of the discs is entirely given over to interactive DVD-ROM features for your PC or Mac, including an extensive interactive timeline that links to Indiana's journal, a world map and a series of 94 historical mini-features that cover the period of the entire box set collection; a historical lecture "New Gods for Old" and a game, "Hunting for Treasure", which you can install on your computer.

Special Features:

• 7 full-length episodes
• 31 historical documentaries
• Interactive Timeline
• Historical Lecture: New Gods for Old
• Hunting for Treasure Interactive Game

With his well-crafted scripts, gung-ho storytelling and attention to detail, Lucas has obviously gone to great lengths to create a collection that's both entertaining and educational. Who would have guessed that history could actually be fun?

Website: www.youngindy.com

This Reviewer's Rating: 5 / 5

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