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Indiana Jones (franchise)

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This article is about the overall franchise. You may be looking for the character himself Indiana Jones.
The logo found on most Indiana Jones products.
The logo found on most Indiana Jones products.

Indiana Jones is an action / adventure series created by George Lucas. It is named after its title character, the archaeologist/adventurer Indiana Jones.

Contents

[edit] Overview

The Indiana Jones franchise has been going since the first film, back in 1981. It covers all of the films as well as all of the Indiana Jones merchandise. The stories concern mainly the (quite adventurous) life and discoveries of archaeologist and professor Dr. Henry Walton Jones, better known as Indiana 'Indy' Jones. According to the so-far released canon, the Jones character met and interacted with many historical personalities of the 20th century during his youth, while later he made discoveries concerning religious relics, legendary artifacts, places and topics, often having to do with the supernatural.

Indiana therefore not only met (and sometimes befriended) T.E. Lawrence, Pancho Villa, Albert Schweitzer, Nikos Kazantzakis, Pablo Picasso, Sigmund Freud and others[1], but also discovered the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Spear of Destiny, Avalon, Atlantis, El Dorado and even participated in the recovery of the Alien remains after the crash of Roswell. Despite however the importance and fame of his discoveries, because of some kind of counterbalancing fate, no trace remains of them thereafter, keeping thus their dangerous power forever hidden and lost.[2]

The nature of his discoveries often have to do with the prevention of the 'villains' obtaining the power. The villains traditionally have been Nazi agents, a concept largely inspired from the legendary Nazi mysticism. In the later timeframe, the Nazis are sort of 'replaced' by Soviet characters.

[edit] Corpus

[edit] Setting

The Indiana Jones adventures are mainly during the early 20th century, surrounding World War I and World War II. In the earlier adventures, real-life events and personalities are heavily featured.

In the later adult Indiana Jones adventures, the setting becomes a sort of crossover fiction, since all myths, legends, legendary and holy objects, turn out to be true and actual, along with the related supernatural powers, in the Indiana Jones world.

[edit] Films

"...the secret of the Indiana Jones movies’ success has always been their free-spirited inventiveness, a what-the-hell quality that can’t (or shouldn’t) be faked, even on a gigantic budget."
―nytimes.com[src]

So far, there have been four Indiana Jones films, starting with the first and original, Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, its prequel, Temple of Doom, in 1984, and its sequel, The Last Crusade, in 1989, with the newest Indiana Jones movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in 2008.

Since the release of the fourth installment of the IJ series, rumors for a fifth IJ movie have ran wild among fan sites, and all over the internet, and ideas for a fifth have been mentioned by several actors and crew members from the fourth, most notably George Lucas, but an official announcement has not yet been released.

[edit] Main characters

Character Film
Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Indiana Jones Harrison Ford Harrison Ford
River Phoenix
Sean Patrick Flanery
Corey Carrier
George Hall
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Henry Jones, Sr. Sean Connery
Alex Hyde-White
Lloyd Owen
Anna Jones Ruth de Sosa
Marion Ravenwood Karen Allen Karen Allen
Mutt Williams Shia LaBeouf
Helen Seymour Margaret Tyzack
T. E. Lawrence Joseph Bennet
Douglas Henshall
Remy Baudouin Ronny Couterre
Marcus Brody Denholm Elliott Denholm Elliot
Sallah John Rhys-Davies John Rhys-Davies
Short Round Jonathan Ke Quan
Willie Scott Kate Capshaw
Harold Oxley John Hurt
Mac Ray Winstone
René Belloq Paul Freeman
Mola Ram Amrish Puri
Walter Donovan Julian Glover
Irina Spalko Cate Blanchett

[edit] Spin-offs

The Expanded Adventures encompasses all officially licensed material beyond the four theatrical movies.

[edit] Comics

The Indiana Jones franchise includes many comics told in book and strip formats.

In the United States, Marvel Comics published Indiana Jones comic books in the 1980s: the adaptations of the first three films and ongoing monthly series entitled "The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones" that ran for 34 issues from 1983 to 1986. From the 1990s to the present, Dark Horse Comics was the American publisher of Indiana Jones comic material, and published Indiana Jones titles from 1991 to 1995 (including The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles series), and resumed publishing new material and reprints of old material in 2008.

Outside the United States, original Indiana Jones comic stories were published in the United Kingdom and France, in the early 1990s. In 2008, Titan Publishing released the Indiana Jones Comic magazine in the UK, which re-prints different Dark Horse stories, along with feature articles and puzzles.

[edit] External links

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