One of the charges that is frequently leveled at George Lucas by his detractors is that he cares only about expanding his already considerable (i.e., unbelievably immense) fortune. I’ve never believed that one, myself. Whatever his faults, however inscrutable his motivations, greed simply cannot be among them. If it were, he’d be a lot smarter about what he’s trying to sell to his fans.
No, this isn’t another rant about Uncle George’s stubborn refusal to put out a decent DVD release of the pre-Special Edition Star Wars, although that is a good example of what I’m talking about, because you know he’d sell those by the truckload if he’d just relax a little.
I’m actually talking about the upcoming DVD release of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles… or, as the series has been retitled, The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. (I told you he’d change the name, didn’t I?)
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (as I will persist in calling this series; hey, George isn’t the only guy who can be stubborn when he sets his mind to it!) wasn’t a flop, exactly — it lasted three seasons, as I recall — but it certainly isn’t one of the brighter stars in the Lucasfilm galaxy. A lot of people of my acquaintance simply didn’t know what to make of Harrison Ford’s swashbuckling signature character reimagined as a thoughtful teenager, or, in some episodes, a nine-year-old boy. (George would ignore this lesson, of course, when he made fearsome Darth Vader into sweet li’l Ani in The Phantom Menace, another widely unpopular creative decision.) Personally, I think the most notable thing about Young Indy was that it served as a test bed for the digital technology that has since revolutionized film production. Still, the series has its fans, myself among them, and I’ve always hoped that it would one day end up on those shiny silver discs we all love so well.
You would think that a 15-year-old TV series that was a modest success at best, and whose appeal is no doubt limited to a cult following, would be released in a very straightforward (and cautious) way. Bare bones, the original episodes only, and above all, a reasonable price point. I think Voyagers! is probably a good comparison here; it’s a series that obviously has enough of a following to warrant DVDs, but nothing fancy. That’s what a man who cares only about profit would release, something he wouldn’t have to make much of an upfront investment in, but which would return a small, guaranteed profit. Frankly, that’s all this fan really wants in the way of a Young Indy set.
However, we’re dealing with The Great Flanneled One here, and he has a grander (if often impractical or inaccurate) vision of the properties that bear his name. In the case of Young Indy, his vision was to teach kids history by having one of his most popular characters — Indiana Jones — participate in significant historic events and meet historically important people. (I didn’t make this up; this is what George repeatedly said in contemporary interviews about the series.) The details of the first DVD set reveal that he hasn’t given up on this idea. If anything, the actual adventures of Young Indy seem to have become a secondary concern, as most of the digital real estate on those discs is going to be jam-packed with supplemental documentaries about the events and people referenced in the episodes.
I’ll admit, the documentaries are a neat idea; I like historical documentaries just fine, and one of my running complaints is that your average DVD extras are pointless fluff. But here’s the problem: these docs cost money to produce, quite a lot of it judging from the suggested retail price on the first set (a whopping $129.99!). And there are two more sets coming, which will presumably have similar features and pricing. Which means, if you pay MSRP, it will cost just south of 400 bucks to own the entire series.
And that is, in a word, outrageous. And, in another word, ridiculous. DVD is a mature medium at this point, and some observers would say that it’s even nearing the end of its lifecycle. This means that prices for them ought to be going down, and, in general, they are. The cost for the average, bare-bones television series boxed set is usually somewhere between $20 and $40, and that’s for popular shows like Miami Vice, E.R., etc. But here comes G. Lucas with not just one but three boxed sets of a fairly obscure series, and he’s packed them with expensive supplemental material that no one asked for, and he’s going to be asking for over a C-note a piece for them. And, just to add insult to injury for those who care about such things, the discs won’t even feature the episodes as originally aired; they are instead the stitched-together, revisionist feature-length versions that were released on VHS in the late ’90s. Am I the only one who thinks these sets are going to be gathering dust on store shelves?
Granted, online retailers will be offering them at heavily discounted prices — Amazon.com has the first one available for a pre-order price $75 — but even at a reduced price, they’ll be costing more than just about every other TV series currently available on DVD, and I don’t believe the demand for this series is all that strong. I just don’t see how George could possibly make his money back on these, let alone pull a profit. It’s the Star Wars debacle all over again: he’s giving us what he thinks we ought to have instead of what we’re actually asking for, and when these DVDs fail to live up to sales expectations, he’ll probably blame the fans because we didn’t support them. Second verse, same as the first.
I guess it’s a good thing I’ve hung onto all my old VHS recordings of the original Young Indy broadcasts. I’m going to need them for posterity, it seems. Anyone know how complicated it is to transfer VHS to a digital format?
I’ve been watching you’re little debate with George Lucas (sans George Lucas) with mild ammusement for some time now. Where I think you and I disconnect on all of this is that he sees his movies and TV shows as “works of art,” whereas you see them as “finished products.” Especially since he has enough money for the rest of his life, it doesn’t surprise me that he wants to use his “works” to do public good, or enhance them with the latest technology, etc..
Also, while I don’t have numbers to back it up, I’m guessing that the people screaming for original version Star Wars DVDs and Indy episodes make up an extremely vocal minority, and that Mr. Lucas’ accountants probably tell him a very different story about what will happen if he released those versions than does his fan mail. Just guessing here, of course…
Brian, I don’t think it’s a matter of seeing movies as either art or product — I can easily switch off between those two extremes, depending on the point I want to make — so much as where a person stands on the question of revisionism. I am opposed to it, as you may have gathered. 🙂
I believe that at some point an artist or craftsman or whatever should just force themselves to stop tinkering and walk away from a project — especially if that project is 30 years old and immensely beloved in its original form.
I also feel like artworks should be allowed to simply be what they are. Or were. However you want to describe it. Star Wars is a 30-year movie that was shot on the film stock they used at that time, using the best FX tech that was available. It will always be limited by the realities of when it was made. So what’s wrong with that? Why does it need to be updated, simply because we now have the tools to do so? You don’t see Woody Allen recutting and adding intrusive digital gewgaws to Annie Hall; he’s content to let it be what it is, a movie made in 1977.
I apply the same logic to Young Indy. It’s a 15-year old TV show that was originally put together in a certain way, and it was fine as it was. The makers of Northern Exposure, a contemporary of TYIJC, didn’t feel it necessary to tinker with that series when they released it to disc (aside from music changes due to licensing issues, but that’s a different issue), so why does George? I suppose you can rationalize that what’s coming out on DVD really isn’t The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, it’s The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, a related but different product consisting of feature-length stories assembled from the earlier series. But that’s not what fans of TYIJC have been asking for… and that’s what’s so frustrating about George Lucas. He presumes to tell fans what we ought to want instead of what we do want, and he’s one of the very few director-producers who does this, rather than simply packaging whatever it was that we originally fell in love with.
In any event, my post was not so much about the re-editing — although I was obligated to express my views about that — so much as the business logic of creating all those supplements and driving the cost of the package way up beyond what the average consumer is willing to pay for a series that wasn’t terribly popular to begin with. Young Indy isn’t Raiders; I don’t believe there are that many people clamoring to see it again, aside from hardcore fans like myself who, more likely than not, are going to care about the re-editing. The whole project seems like a recipe for failure to me.
As for me being a member of an “extremely vocal minority” when it comes to wanting the original everything, I’ll concede you’re probably right about that. But I suspect that’s largely a matter of education; the average consumer who doesn’t live and breathe this stuff simply doesn’t realize the extent of Lucas’ tinkering. Just the other day I was talking with a co-worker and the subject of SW came up; she was shocked when I started listing how many things had been changed, because she didn’t remember the specifics enough to spot the differences. Her reaction? “Well, that’s dumb…”
And even if she, too, holds the minority view, I still stand by my motivating principle: classic movies and TV shows should be allowed to be what they are. Clean them up, fix damage and scratches, and even remove the strings holding up the ships. I’m fine with all that. But don’t re-edit, and don’t insert anything that wasn’t already there. Because there’s just no need for it.