Small Screen Surfin'
Created | Updated Oct 4, 2003
Well, Surfers, Pepe the Chimp failed in his attempt, as mentioned last week, to change history. Instead of travelling two years into the past, Pepe sent himself many a few years into the future and came back as Roddy McDowell. He was quick to point out that even if he'd successfully reached 2001, I would have needed to build a space machine so that he wasn't stranded in North-East England...
Anyhoo...
I need to add a retraction for a cruel thing I said last week: it wasn't Steve Oderkirk who was a writer on Futurama, but Bill Odenkirk. I apologise to anyone who took offence... Now onto this week, as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles get washed up...
Now there's the news of a fourth Indy movie coming out, and with all Lucas-isms intact, it will be Chapter 26 in The Complete Adventures Of Indiana Jones - where, when you expect whip-crackin' like at the start of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, instead you get... History!! Lots and lots of history which Indy happens to be around to witness, like the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (only this time they slant all the scenes to make the US look better!) Now anyone knowledgable about history knows that Woodrow Wilson (US president in January 1919) didn't agree with the Treaty but signed it because of Congress, but I'm pretty sure the man didn't have a blazing row at the actual treaty signing where he pointed out that the British and French had no morals, as well as making a long-winded speech of how this would be a bad omen for the future. He might as well have said 'ADOLF HITLER WILL COME AND RULE GERMANY!!!'. Even after the signing he tells young Indiana that Germany will want revenge.
The first few installments in this 22-chapter series are about a Jake Lloyd-lookalike (you know, the kid in The Phantom Menace who cries 'Yippee' a lot) Indiana Jones and his family. It's all nice and soap-style with Indy's mother wondering if she should stay with Indy's dad because he is traipsing around the world (looking for the Holy Grail presumably). It was all very soap-like, therefore all very dull-like!
Now the rest of the chapters before Indy becomes Harrison Ford and therefore good, are about teenage Indy - like the prologue to Last Crusade where River Phoenix gets the hat and whip and scar. Difference being, they're set before the movie so there are none of the 'THAT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!' lines. Very bad indeed. This part of the series deals with Indy falling in love for the first time... blah blah blah... Now when they say ADVENTURES of Indiana Jones you expect excitement, danger, big balls that drop and chase indy down corridors... NOT Indiana fighting an Italian for the love of his life... This is not to say the acting's bad or anything. But it's just not Indiana Jones!!
This was designed as a tester for The Phantom Menace to see how computer backgrounds could be used, etc. Now this suggests to me that if Lucas wants to test his FX then he should do it with a Star Wars TV series!! None of this third trilogy rubbish - have stories about different Jedi, bounty hunters, etc, put into different situations. THAT would be a good spin-off series and in my opinion would be successful.
So, in closing, if you want to see action and adventure watch the movies. If you want history watch a Simon Schama programme. If you want decent drama watch this. But if you want a Star Wars TV series harass George Lucas for revenge about this wrongful advertising rubbish!
