GEORGE'S MASTERPIECE: Young Indiana Jones w/ Peter Holmstrom & Daniel Noa

[00:00:00] JOSH: Hello and welcome to Trash Compactor. I'm Josh, and today we have two very special guests And I'm very pleased to welcome the hosts of The Young Indy Chroniclers Peter Holmstrom and Daniel Noa to Trash Compactor. Welcome.

[00:00:25] DANIEL: Great to be here.

[00:00:27] PETER: Hello.

[00:00:28] JOSH: So, Young Indiana Jones. Firstly, I just, I'm curious how your podcast came to be. What inspired you to do a podcast devoted to Young Indy?

[00:00:36] DANIEL: Well, I actually met Peter for the first time at Star Wars Celebration. So that's perfectly appropriate for this podcast. , back in 2022 in Anaheim. And I was an admirer of his work as a podcaster. And I think just as part of a casual conversation. , it came up that, you know, I said there's actually no podcast about young Indiana Jones. It's like the one sort of franchise thing that, there's just nothing, you know, there's so many.

[00:01:03] I mean, this is a Star Wars podcast, there are many, there are several Indiana, even Indiana Jones podcasts. There's quite, there's a handful of those, right, and that's a smaller amount. I thought this was just an interesting, niche, and that there was room there for someone to do something interesting.

[00:01:18] And then I give credit for Peter to inviting me to do it with him. He, you know, he was like, I think this is an interesting idea. Would you do it with me? And I was like, yeah, I'll do it with you. And I'd never done a podcast before. I tell people I did three episodes of the Temple of Geek podcast last spring about Star Trek Picard.

[00:01:36] That's it. That's my experience. Peter is the podcast master.

[00:01:40] PETER: I don't know about Master. I do remember, though, we were actually, , out to dinner before a screening of Revenge of the Sith. Like, there was a repertory screening of it here in LA. And, uh, we just met up and went out to dinner and we were just, chatting about Star Wars, chatting about Lucas and this being kind of a whole, not just in terms of , fan appreciation, but also in terms of critical and academic analysis.

[00:02:01] There just isn't a lot out there about television series and the franchise, and there's a lot of it, like there's 22 feature length episodes, that anyone can watch at any time and we both were like, this show is underappreciated. The show has so much going for it in ways that, have been largely forgotten.

[00:02:20] So we were like, Hey, you know what? Shining a bit of a light on it,

[00:02:24] DANIEL: It feels like the sort of show that if it was certainly happening today, it would get a lot of attention. You know, frankly, if it happened in the era of the internet, right, which it sort of missed by a handful of years, you know, there would just be more stuff about it.

[00:02:37] People would, there'd be more things preserved, articles, you know, people like us would have had podcasts about it right then. And it missed all that. So I think it just felt like, There's a lot here. There's actors, directors, artists, people who worked on the show who are significant historically and is for as part of the industry.

[00:02:56] Certainly George Lucas himself as the creator of the show. You know, if you if you look at time spent hours on screen and his live action work, it's It's a huge percentage and largely unexamined. You know, how many people examine all the Star Wars movies in detail? The Clone Wars has had watch through podcasts, right?

[00:03:16] So it just felt like all the pieces are there and there's really no downside to talking about it. And then the last piece, I think, that and the reason they pushed it was last summer in preparation for the release of Dial of Destiny, all the episodes went on Disney Plus and actually all the episodes are streaming for the first time.

[00:03:35] That's never been the case on streaming. They've been available on DVD, but the episode with Harrison Ford up until the Disney Plus release had never been available. So there was that moment of, okay, now we're talking about something people can watch. You know, pretty easily, right? It's a low lift and so it changes it from being perhaps a little more archaic to a little more accessible of a conversation.

[00:03:56] JOSH: No, absolutely. when it showed up on Disney I was like, Oh, that's right. I never actually sat down and watched this show. and then I came across your podcast. I was saying off air, it's a really Well done, fantastic, very informative show where, I'm hearing a lot of stories that, I had certainly never heard, I heartily recommend that if anyone enjoys listening to this podcast that they do check out The Young Indy Chroniclers, Peter, I think you use the word hole, and I think for some Star Wars fans, you know, the period from 1983 to 1999 is sort of a big empty hole.

[00:04:31] But, you know, George Lucas was sort of furiously building his companies and pioneering new Production techniques and technologies to move the art of filmmaking forward. what role did Young Indy play in that regard?

[00:04:44] PETER: Well, I think Young Indy in some ways, the thesis for our whole podcast is like Young Indy is kind of his masterpiece. Like it is the moment where all of his creative energy is kind of congealed together into this, wondrous thing. You know, and he's talked on the record a few times, but I like he kind of felt like he was getting dragged back into Star Wars.

[00:05:05] but Young Indy is, is purely just his own, like, I want to see this happen. It fulfills his own love of education and history of action adventure. , and, you know, very much is kind of an anthology kind of show as well. In terms of the technological stuff, it's like, what he was doing with the series is kind of similar to what Alfred Hitchcock did with Psycho is that he was trying to devise ways to tell a cinematic level story, in a television format on a television budget.

[00:05:36] It's a fairly I'm good sized budgeted show for the era, but it's not out of the norm I believe we've determined the budget was about 1. 5 million per episode which was basically like what you know, your good, prestige show would have cost back then But he's working on ways to bring in even grander scope than what you would have seen in other dramas at the time So when you do watch the show It looks like a movie and it's hindered a bit because it's a 1. 33 aspect ratio and you know it's DVD quality so it still has kind that VHS, hue to it. But there's just some some wondrous scopes to the whole thing. And then in terms of lining it up with the Star Wars prequels it's like He's hiring a lot of young talent at the time. A lot of, you know, fresh faced people who were also just incredibly talented.

[00:06:20] so you're seeing Rick McCallum come on board as producer who then, becomes the, prequel trilogy, , producer and just kind of producer, you know, on call for every Lucasfilm project for until he retired. Um, you also have Trisha Biggar as the costume designer. You have Gavin Bacoy, who's

[00:06:37] DANIEL: think it's

[00:06:38] PETER: Bacet, Bacet, there we go.

[00:06:39] Um, who's there as the production designer, , and, , David Tattersall as the cinematographer, , all of whom would then go on to work in the Star Wars prequels. , so, you know, you're seeing this technology. This was his first television show to be shot. Digitally, you know, he's utilizing the, um, edit droid, which would later become Avid, which is today the industry standard.

[00:06:58] Well, this was the first television show to, to ever utilize that technology. It's just wondrous in that way. It's a true fusion point of both old world Hollywood sensibilities and then kind of the new burgeoning technological changes that Lucas would be pioneering, with the show and then subsequently with the prequels.

[00:07:14] DANIEL: And just to correct for the film nerds, it was it was post produced digitally. The series was shot on film, on 16mm film, which, um, and David Tattersall talks about that in a featurette I found on the Attack of the Clones DVD, where he talks about shooting Young Indy on 16mm, which was considered sort of an inferior film stock at the time.

[00:07:36] They did it for cost and lightness of footprint. You know, that they could take a small crew, two to three operators, into a jungle or, you know, a remote location and, and fully be able to use the camera, which you couldn't do with a 35mm camera. And I think he was comparing that to what they did go on to do with digital cameras in, in 2000 and how this was sort of the next step of that.

[00:07:56] but it's, it is a technological achievement and, and on question of budget. There was a book we found called George Lucas The Creative Impulse, which a lot of people know, but apparently we didn't know this until very recently. It was republished in 1997. And when it was republished, the Young Indys section was completely revised.

[00:08:18] So you have two completely different sort of. chapters on Young Indy in the two versions of this book. And in the new version, it addresses the re edits to, to a degree, uh, and the framing of the series as 22 movies. And it uses a budgetary figure of four million per film, which accounts for the 1. 5 million, uh, that, that he spoke of times two, and then a little extra to sort of, This extra post, new post production and all the things that were done to them, right?

[00:08:49] And it makes the point in the book that at 22 films, you're only talking of around 100 million for the entire set. Which was the price of a big, very big, you know, a large scale film, right, at that time. And they were saying, we can make 22 films for the price of one. Right? And they were quite proud of that.

[00:09:09] And I think it challenges the idea of like, what does a film need to be? What does it need to have to entertain? Right? To amuse, to inform, to educate. And they were really trying to do that at a price.

[00:09:22] PETER: you know, it occurs to me, maybe I should give a quick, brief rundown of the show itself, just for any, if any of your listeners out there are like, what the hell are these people talking about? So just very quickly, Young Indiana Jones was a television series that aired in 1992, through 1990, technically, I guess 1993 on ABC, , an hour long program focused on young Indiana Jones, both as a kind of toddler, you know, um, 8 to 10 year old Indy.

[00:09:48] And then also as a teenage Indy, , 8 to 10, he'd be traveling over Europe and, and the world, well, the whole world, uh, with his father and mother, , kind of experiencing , the grandeur and, seeing the world open up for him in new ways. And then the teenage Indy would be involved with him, , entering into World War I, um, and kind of.

[00:10:06] Having that loss of innocence as he finds the world, uh, is not as rosy and wonderful as he found it when he was a child, and kind of gradually becoming the jaded hero that we meet in the movies. But the show didn't quite click, it got cancelled, but then it was later revived on, , the Family Channel.

[00:10:22] , as a TV movie of the week. So there was four television movies produced for the Family Channel. And then Lucas didn't quite want to let the series go, so he tried to repackage the series into VHS movie releases. So he'd edit together, , single episodes into movie length content, and even record some new, two new episodes in addition to that, , just for the VHS market.

[00:10:42] and when we talked about Harrison Ford earlier, Harrison Ford did come in, , to do, , a cameo for one of the episodes that aired on. ABC, to do these kind of a bookend, you know, introducing the episode.

[00:10:52] DANIEL: Well, and it production wise, and we're talking about Star Wars, it kind of butts into the prequels a little bit. He mentioned Gavin Bocquet, who's the production designer on the series and on the prequels. There's actually a point, if you look at the credits and production order, he kind of leaves to go work on the prequels, right?

[00:11:08] Like several key people sort of end up. Going to work on the prequels and they are replaced. So Ricky, I think, I don't know if it's pronounced Ayers or Ayres, but he kind of comes in as production designer in some of the later ones. Um, as you see that handoff, right? Uh, and I think that's just fascinating that, you know, there's so much going on and, and Gavin has to go work on something else now.

[00:11:28] And there was even filming, as part of the re editing of the 22 films. And we're still working on Identifying kind of all the editing changes, but some of them involve new sequences that were shot and put into these episodes, often bringing back key actors, like guest actors from the episodes, right, who they film new material with.

[00:11:49] And the last piece of this, according to, I think, a book called The Cinema of George Lucas. It's a scene in what is now called My First Adventure, where the narrative has been altered so that Lawrence of Arabia catches up to Demetrius in the middle of the film. And he captures him, but the artifact is still lost, which sets up the cliffhanger for later.

[00:12:08] And according to that book, that scene was shot during the production of The Phantom Menace in Tunisia. And it's the last piece of photography in 1997, which is when Phantom Menace was shot in Tunisia. Uh, so it's all sort of one. Big soup, right? And it's a wonderful mystery box for us.

[00:12:27] PETER: And to your point earlier, you talked about, like, a lot of fans don't quite even register that George Lucas was busy between 83 and 99. It's, it's wondrous as you really get into it. It's like, no, he was So busy, like just incredibly busy guy on so many different projects. I know. I mean, even I used to talk, you know, I used to say how like George was incapable of doing more than one project at a time.

[00:12:49] I mean, that's why, you know, we didn't get Indie 4 for so many years and, you know, digging into it now, I'm just like, my God, this guy was just insanely busy. Just not only with Young Indy, but then you also look at like, Willow, you know, Tucker, Man and His Dream, Radio Land Murders, you know, even Return to Oz he was involved with, and you know, Howard the Duck, if any Howard the Duck fans are out there.

[00:13:10] But it's like he, he wasn't just like signing checks and then, you know, going to his yacht or whatever, like some, you know. Executives would today. He was actively involved with every one of these productions in a creative and also a advisory kind of role. It was really remarkable.

[00:13:26] DANIEL: I feel like Lucas gets a lot, you know, he perhaps gets criticism as being only focused on the technology and often when, when the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is referenced, if it's referenced at all, it's, it's sort of like saying, um, George used the show to build digital technology, that he'd go on to use Star Wars, and almost treats the show as if it was like a digital afterthought.

[00:13:47] It was just about the technology for him. And I'll tell you, every interview we've had, we've spoken with three writers, spoken to a director, we've spoken to people who worked in post production, George was so invested in this show, on a story and a narrative and a thematic level, you know, everyone we've talked to said that he was passionate about the history, about the theme, you know, one of the directors we spoke to said that, you know, the theme of every episode was so important, and I just, the more we learn The more it just shows the heart of an artist, you know, and the eye of an artist, and the mind of an artist at work.

[00:14:25] There was an interview I read today, I don't know when this will come out, but the Empire Magazine Star Wars issue is out now. And there was an interview with Hayden Christensen that I read today where he shared this moment of filming the scene where his mother dies in the movie.

[00:14:40] And how Lucas came to him in his dressing room and worked through the scene with him. And doesn't that just run contrary to all the stories we've heard? Oh, he just says faster, more intense, he doesn't direct, he just points the camera. Like, no, he's a director. And, you know, if it was just one story, but everyone we've talked to has shown how involved he was.

[00:15:00] What a clear vision he had for what he was trying to accomplish. You know, for tone. I mentioned Camille Paglia to Peter recently. She has a great piece on Revenge of the Sith that she does and how good the ending is. But one of the things she said was, it shows a complete mastery of tone. And I think that's something that Lucas, in the series, has so many different tones, right?

[00:15:22] It shifts tone. Each episode has its own sort of angle. But he's able to do that. He's able to do madcap comedy, action movie, drama, romantic drama, you know, kids pie jinx get in trouble movie, right? All those things are in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and it just, it's a, it's an artist's masterwork and I think it needs to be treated that

[00:15:45] PETER: it's an anthology show in a lot of ways, but in many ways it's the most anthology show I've ever seen in my life. Like, you know, Tales from the Crypt or The Twilight Zone or whatever it might be. It is a new cast, new story every week, but it's all essentially the same.

[00:15:58] You know, it's like you got a vibe, you got a sensibility and you're you're fitting a show into a framework. Young Indy, though, it's like there's a different framework every week. Sometimes you want to do a comedy. Sometimes you want to do an action flick. Sometimes you want to do war is hell.

[00:16:12] Sometimes you want to do romance during war can be really cool. You know, it's like there's all of these different tones it's remarkable. I mean, we're hoping to talk to some of the, the key actors here soon. just to try to ask like, how the hell did you wrap your head around this? You know, as an actor, it must've been just some of the biggest challenges.

[00:16:30] JOSH: yeah, I mean,

[00:16:32] I recall, it must have been 1993, I was a kid and I, I caught an episode of American Masters on PBS about George Lucas, and there's behind the scenes footage, now I can place it, they were shooting the Harrison Ford, sequences for that one episode that you referring to, and it's in the snow, I think they shot it on, his property in Wyoming,

[00:16:55] correct?

[00:16:56] PETER: Harrison Ford's own ranch. Um, he agreed to do the episode, but he didn't want to, didn't want to leave home for it. So they went to him

[00:17:03] JOSH: and this was toward the end of the hour in American Masters, and it's, it's really this snapshot in time because they were demonstrating, the capability of the digital technology at the moment, and they were using the example of crowd duplication from a scene in Young Indy, I remember seeing that as a kid sort of being like, wow, it's amazing that they can do that. but how do you think experimenting with techniques like that? Allowed Young Indy to have the, scope and the, and the breadth and the, the ambition that it had for, you know, as, as you say, they made, 22 feature films for the price of one.

[00:17:42] DANIEL: I think with Luke, with George, he thinks in shots, right? So, if you're going to tell a story about Indiana Jones in Paris in, you know, 1916, you never want to be, as a director, right, you never want to be in a position where you can't turn the camera a certain way. And I think that's what he uses the technology for, on a very basic level, you know, in Indy and Star Wars and anything.

[00:18:06] He wants to be able to turn the camera a certain way. And have whatever the camera sees be right. So when you're talking about crowd replication or matte paintings, right, you know, converting a modern city perhaps into something from 100 years ago. That's how he uses the technology. I think it's easier, of course, to do that in the real world.

[00:18:27] And when creating environments that are based in reality, where perhaps there's photographic reference or costume referencing and so forth. But in terms of it being a test bed for Star Wars, I think that's what you see, which is, can I create this immaculate reality, of the early 20th century, 1992. And if I can do that Maybe I can create the alien planet that's in my head and equally make that convincing, right? But it's all about being able to put the camera there.

[00:18:53] PETER: Yeah, I think George never thinks in small ways, like even when he is thinking like, okay, I have X amount of dollars. He's wanting to stretch those dollars as far as he can. whether it's THX 1138 or you look at American Graffiti. they took the time to make it a flushed out world.

[00:19:10] Even when it would have cost a lot of money, you know, wrangling extras. You know, there's undoubtedly there were people there being like, why do you need this? Like, why do you need a diner full of people? Uh, why do you need a street full of cars? You know, like, why can't we just do this with a couple of cars?

[00:19:25] You know, just, fake it. But it's like, no, he wants the world to feel lived in. He wants the world to feel populated. I think the prequels are such a great example of this, where you look at, you know, you freeze frame any crowdshot. It's not just like a bunch of humans running around or a bunch of like uniformed, you know individuals It's like the diversity of alien life speaks to a very lived in Galaxy, and I think when you look at Young Indy what he's what the the mission there was we need to recreate the early part of the 20th century, and do it in an authentic way.

[00:20:01] You know, he grew up watching movies and television shows where it wasn't authentic, where it was clear that, like, it is just a soundstage. You had 20 extras, you know, or whatever you had. You never lose the sense that you're watching a television show.

[00:20:15] And I think he, he really wanted for the viewer to be like, no, I'm actually, I'm there to have a similar experience that a lot of us do have in the movie theater, where you can lose yourself in the film. I think he wanted to achieve that on television. And the only way to really do that was to push the technology to, to be able to recreate certain things, either through digital, techniques or through other, other techniques, but to make you believe that it is 1917, uh, or 1910 or whatever.

[00:20:41] And, um, I think he's really successful at that.

[00:20:45] DANIEL: I think he deserves full credit. Not until the movie 1917 did I think anyone came close to his depiction of World War I and the reality of it and the visceralness of it. So, good for him.

[00:20:57] JOSH: we were speaking off air about one of the potential barriers to someone coming at the show fresh and enjoying it is sort of the, um, you know, you really have to place yourself in the context of the TV landscape in the 1990s, um, You know, and it isn't helped by the fact that it's only available in DVD quality.

[00:21:17] And from what I understand from what some people on your podcast have said, like there are certain reasons why it will probably remain that way. but what's so interesting to me is, if you can set all that stuff aside, it's amazing the degree to which Young Indy fits right in the TV landscape of, now, in the sense that it really is cinematic in its look and its scope, I think in interview with Dan Madsen, he made the point that, you know, nobody really knew what to make of this show, because it, it was sort of an anthology, and it was sort of a different tone every week, and it, like, had a, look that kind of made it look like a film, you know, meanwhile, you have that, right up against, like, Melrose Place, and it's like, what is this, in so many ways, it was ahead of its time, and I think treating the medium of television not as, like, lesser cousin of, film was one of its innovations, that I don't think it gets a lot of credit for. I'm not really sure I had a question in there.

[00:22:12] PETER: no, I mean, I think you hit it right on the head there, which is like at that time in television, TV was thought of as lesser than movies. And, you know, there was plenty of actors out there. I mean, this was the old cliche. But like, there was the feeling of just like, if you go to television as an actor or as a creative, even, your career is over or your career is less than, than it would have been had you been in television. There's plenty of instances of TV shows. You could look at Cheers. You could look at, I don't know, uh,

[00:22:43] you know. Let's stick to Cheers, I guess, since I haven't met MASH. You know, shows where your stars leave because they're like, this is holding me back. I need to go pursue movies, because movies are where it's at, and movies are where, you know, I can find creative fulfillment and more money, obviously, and whatever, and you know, I'll get respect, whereas TV was not that.

[00:23:06] And I think now it's different, you know? Just what was it, two days ago, Shogun, the remake of Shogun or the new version of Shogun premiered on FX. And back then though, Shogun was considered a miniseries and miniseries were kind of where prestige television could exist in. Where, shows could have a bit of a bigger budget, a bit of a bigger scope, but it was always a very contained story and you kind of knew that, you know, I was just today re watching the Dune miniseries that came out in 2000 it's three episodes, three hour and a half episodes and then that's it.

[00:23:38] It's a contained story and you know that, you know, and they treat it like that. Indy though is a little different in that, like, it's an ongoing series. But you're not, you know, television in 1992 was like reusing your normal sets. You have your regular set of characters. You have basically a format for what the episode is going to be.

[00:23:57] And there's a comfort in that. And I think people at the time were looking for comfort in their television, even from dramas, even from dark dramas. but like kind of the familiar, you know, and indie was never familiar. Every episode was different. So today it would absolutely, I think,

[00:24:12] work a lot better.

[00:24:13] DANIEL: think there's something that people don't think about now because the show, you know, maybe didn't work at that mass level. But George Lucas revolutionized cinema in 1977. I think there's a, there's an alternate reality where he revolutionized television in 1992, right? We just don't live in that reality.

[00:24:31] But his attitude towards television in that era was sort of as, I want nothing to do with the current status quo, as it was when he, when he did that in film, right? He did see something, you

[00:24:48] It's almost insulting to the medium, like he almost insulted all of television by saying, you're not good enough, you know, I have something grander in mind and television looked back at him and said, no, you know, like, like, because television and cinema work differently, you know, today we talk about direct to consumer streaming, right?

[00:25:10] You could argue that this, the theater, the cinema. is more of a direct to consumer relationship. You have advertisers, you have networks, you have affiliates, you have all these other business interests at play that are not about the audience, are not about the audience taste, are not about what the audience wants to watch, how they want to watch it, right?

[00:25:31] And that's the world that he sort of slammed into, clearly his focus on the quality of the show. Clearly always being like, I'm making the best show, I'm gonna deliver, I'm gonna give it to you, but like, I'm not taking notes from you on, on dumbing my show down, I'm not compromising the quality of my show, I mean, uh, Matthew, I think, talked about the ritual burning of the, of the network notes, you know, like, that was what he was trying to do, and I think that, that maverickness in television in the early 90s, It's just not a formula that worked.

[00:26:05] But yes, I think today, a great producer like that, you know, who came in and got a show, a streaming series, and had carte blanche, I think he could do something incredible, right? I think we've seen a little bit of that. I think, frankly, a lot of Big movie producers just stay out of it because they don't, they don't, it's a lot of work, you know, they don't need to do it.

[00:26:25] Denis Villeneuve doesn't need to make a series, right? He gets to make Dune in the theater. So he's just going to do that, you know, and that's, you know, the interesting thing about this too, in that George Lucas frankly could have gone to Paramount and said, I want to make a young Indiana Jones film. And they probably would have said, Great!

[00:26:44] Yes! We'll put it on the schedule. Let's go! Right? Like, like, no one was telling him, we don't want an Indiana Jones movie. He came up with this idea that I, if I do it on TV, I can do, I can talk about history. I can feature all these different stories. I can make it for families. I can make it accessible for families.

[00:27:04] Like, that was all in his mind. And we don't have an answer to this yet, but I hope to get one. From all that I can tell, this was just his idea. I don't think somebody came to him and was like, would you ever consider doing a Young Indiana Jones television series?

[00:27:21] PETER: Yeah, it is wild. I'd never even considered it before, but you're right, Daniel, in that, like, he could have just gone to Paramount and been like, I want to make a Young Indy movie. Because even that was around the time where Paramount themselves was working on a young, like, Star Trek Academy movie. and, you know, he could have gone, he could have been like, we already got River Phoenix, we did the backdoor pilot in Last Crusade, and, you know, here we go.

[00:27:41] and they would have ate it up. The difference, though, is that that movie would have, You know, Ben, another Indiana Jones movie, and George didn't want to do that. He wanted to do a thoughtful kind of television series that kind of grounded the show a little bit, which I think also in the long run maybe hurt it a bit because fans went into it expecting Indiana Jones the movie.

[00:28:01] And while there is elements of movie franchise. present in the series, it's not the same. Like there's, you know, there's no, I mean, there is one episode that's a bit, has a bit of a supernatural element

[00:28:12] to it, but which we both love very much. But like, for the most part,

[00:28:15] DANIEL: favorites.

[00:28:16] PETER: for the most part, every episode is incredibly grounded.

[00:28:18] It's based on history and there's no, you know, Staff of Ra, you know, there's no, uh, know, God in a box ready to kill some Nazis or whatever. all pretty much just like, Indiana Jones, as a fly on the wall or an active participant in, in major historical events of, the 20th century.

[00:28:36] And, that's a bold swing, you know, and I think George saw television as a, avenue, as a, format to really, succeed in this sort of undertaking. And I think he was right.

[00:28:46] JOSH: No, I think you're right. I think it definitely was a bold swing. It's a, it's a brilliant concept. and I think one of you said earlier that Young Indy was kind of a melding of all of his, um, personal preoccupations of, you know, history, action, adventure, and, um, I'm gonna ask you to go into speculation mode a little bit.

[00:29:04] I hadn't thought of as sort of George Lucas's masterpiece, but, the more I hear you talk about it and make the case, the more I listen to your show, the more I'm, I'm coming around, to accepting that idea, and you mentioned a lot of the, uh, key production, personnel that he hired for Young Indy who went on, to play those same roles for The Phantom Menace and the rest of the prequels.

[00:29:28] And I'm wondering if, in your estimation, His experience with Young Indy was so positive, sort of the first time he felt like he, had everything the way he wanted it in order to make films that, that was what allowed him to say, okay, I think I'm ready to step behind the camera again and direct a new Star Wars film.

[00:29:49] PETER: I think there's, I think there's maybe two answers to that. I think the, the official version is yes, that is what, that is what happens. That's the version he would say himself. There is the, the story that, George directed the Harrison Ford bookend for Mystery of the Blues and him getting behind the director's Seat again, kind of like revitalized his engines and that's what got him, you know, thinking like maybe now's a good time.

[00:30:11] And then of course you also get the story about him being the post production supervisor on, , Jurassic Park, , because Steven Spielberg was off shooting, , Schindler's List so George is basically the, the guy overseeing all of the special effects shots for Jurassic Park, and doing that kind of got him thinking like, Oh, actually, technology is kind of there.

[00:30:28] Now I can do some pretty remarkable things with the Star Wars prequels So let's, let's start thinking about it. That's the official answer. I actually, as I'm learning more, I kind of err more on the side of he started doing the prequels because Young Indy got canceled. You look at the timeline and Young Indy, he begins writing episode one in 1994.

[00:30:50] Young Indy basically is done in 1994. There's, you know, some

[00:30:54] vestiges of

[00:30:56] it that carry on, but like,

[00:30:57] DANIEL: They're still working

[00:30:58] PETER: they're still

[00:30:59] DANIEL: clearly didn't work on ABC, and it clearly wasn't going to have a future as this big production with lots of stuff

[00:31:06] PETER: And I think we also learned from , the book that Daniel mentioned earlier, that production on Even the TV movies was more or less done in 1994.

[00:31:14] DANIEL: I think, actually 95, but, but I think your point is still correct. I think that he, you know, when you talk about production, you're talking about resources being committed, people out in the field, but you know, you know, actually one of my pet mysteries is, I think there was a fifth TV movie, and I think that the, that the episodes that ended up as the only on VHS episodes and DVD, were actually originally intended to be two parts of a fifth movie that just never made sense.

[00:31:42] Like, I could see why they thought we could put them together, but I think at some point they were like, we can't put these together. You know, like, it doesn't work. So I haven't proven that. I'm gonna find, I'm looking for it. But, but I think Peter's right. That, absolutely right. That in 1994, when Lucas is in that video that you can watch on the DVD, getting to write the script on the yellow pages, that the Young Indy Project , had not been successful.

[00:32:05] I won't say failed. But it had not been successful. It was not the franchise that was gonna be George Lucas during the 90s, you know, making the show and doing all this stuff.

[00:32:15] PETER: And to be clear, I'm sure that George would have gotten to the prequels. I don't think it was a, uh, uh, something that was never going to happen. I think it does interest him. I think he, he was very excited about the prequels. , but from everything we've heard about from everyone who was there, it was like George was really excited about this show in a way that I don't think he ever really was about the prequels.

[00:32:34] Like the prequels, he got himself excited, it was a bit of an intellectual problem, to how to make them work. And you know, I mean, again, I'm sure he loved them and I know we love them, at least Daniel and I. but I think with Young Indy, it was like, he was happy doing that. And everyone we've talked to also says like, he would have been happy to keep doing them forever. so I think that. You know, the show wraps up, or at least for his point of view, it needs to be put on the shelf for a little while. Maybe he did intend to go back to it one day. We still hope to figure that out, uh, to find an answer to that question. but, so he thinks like, okay, now's the time to really dig into the Star Wars prequels.

[00:33:13] JOSH: It does make a lot of sense that, okay, Young Indy, the writing is on the wall, this is not how I'm gonna spend the next decade of my life or so, I guess I'll do Star Wars.

[00:33:23] DANIEL: No, no, there's stuff happening in the early 90s for Star Wars, right? Like the Zahn books in 91. But realize the Zahn books are coming out the same year they're shooting Young Indy, right? They shot in 91. You know, the Dark Empire comics come out that year. 94. Right? Is the year he starts fighting the Phantom Menace.

[00:33:42] So we can, we can safely assume he makes that decision, he pulls the trigger, right? I'm sure there, we could probably find studio documents and memos and stuff if people really looked. But he clearly pulls the trigger in 1994, right? That's the same year you see the merchandising for Star Wars kick into overdrive, right?

[00:34:00] The original, like, the Power of

[00:34:02] PETER: the

[00:34:02] JOSH: Power of the Force Yeah.

[00:34:04] DANIEL: Clearly, that's the moment, that's the go no go moment where it's like, If we're going to do this, we have to bring Star Wars back in a big way. Here are all the things that we're going to do to do that. And it's a matter of record that the original plan was to have Phantom Menace out, out in 97.

[00:34:19] Right? That, that was the original plan. It didn't end up happening. That's why the Special Editions came out in 97, Shadows of the Empire in 96. All this stuff was going to happen faster, and for one reason or another, took longer. But if that had happened, you would have seen a very quick pivot. From Young Indy to The Phantom Menace, right?

[00:34:38] Three years, essentially. That's part of the story that isn't really talked about. There is something to the George Lucas myth that I think we all love, but we also all know is a myth, which is that he's all knowing and he has this sort of master plan that is etched in stone from time's beginning, right?

[00:34:56] No, he's an opportunist, he's an improviser, he thinks well on his feet, he takes a defeat and turns it into a victory. He's done that so many times throughout his career, right? And I think when you look at the 90s and the creation of the prequels, there's a lot of that going on. There's a lot of him reading the room and being like, now's the time.

[00:35:15] We gotta do it. We're gonna do it this way. I'm gonna, you know, he made deals, and that's something we learned, too, about, he was so good at making these deals with studios, even then, you know, with the prequels, he made deals with Fox, where they basically made nothing off those movies. Like, he made almost everything off those movies, right?

[00:35:32] We learned that he got Paramount to pay for the young Indiana Jones DVDs in exchange for allowing them to release the Indiana Jones films on DVD. Like, what kind of great con is that? Like, oh, you want to release my super successful movies? You can do that, but you gotta pay me probably a decent amount of money.

[00:35:54] I actually want to find out, like, what a DVD budget was in the early 2000s. Like, you know, with EPK, with The Doctor. Like, what was the standard price, right? Because he got 22 of those.

[00:36:04] PETER: it's wild, and it's, it's, it's wild, and then there's the flip side of it too, though, which is that, like, all of these projects, for the most part, he's putting up the money first, you know, and then he gets, he, he, he manages to work it out to where the studios will then pay him for it, you know, but every moment, though, he, he's putting a lot of himself on the line.

[00:36:25] Yeah, For his own projects, the Star Wars prequels are probably the best example of that, which were more or less entirely self funded, partly through the success of, of the Special Edition films, which were wildly successful when they came out. And then after episode one, you know, made a billion dollars worth of merchandising, which he got a healthy fucking percentage of, , then he turns around and use that to fund episode two and episode three.

[00:36:46] But, you know, as Daniel says, though, too, it's like he also manages to work it out. with studios and other people because I think in a lot of ways he was burned very early on in his career by, by people, you know, I mean, he talks about like he nearly went bankrupt with Empire Strikes Back because the initial bank he went to for a loan, didn't trust that he would finish the movie.

[00:37:06] And so they were like, well, we're calling up the loan now. And he was like, well, the movie's not done yet. I can't pay you. And so, you know, he had to like go beg and borrow some more money from people. Cause Irvin Kirshner was like seven weeks behind schedule. So he, he knows, he knows what it was to be, to be hungry.

[00:37:23] I mean, in a way that most Hollywood. You know, executives don't know, like he actually knew what it was to be hungry. He didn't grow up rich. He didn't, you know, grow up in the industry. So he knew that, like, he, you got to put your money where your mouth is. You got to take that leap of faith, but then you also have to make sure that you have the ability to make money on it after the fact.

[00:37:39] and it's just a remarkable business savvy and being able to balance that with the creative pursuits like that, that's, you know, superhuman as far as I'm concerned.

[00:37:49] DANIEL: Well, every, I think every filmmaker, I can speak for myself, but every filmmaker just sort of wishes they could just go out and make the film or the project or whatever they're passionate about, right? That interests them, that they have something to say about. George Lucas does that every time.

[00:38:05] And if necessary, he will take the thing you want and, and bend it. So whatever he wants to do, right, he'll take an Indiana Jones television show that you want, you know, someone just kind of riding on a horse every week shooting people, and he'll make it this meditation on the loss of innocence and the development of the 20th century and the collapse of empire, right?

[00:38:26] And he'll take your Star Wars prequel, you know, that you've been, yes, you've been imagining since you were five, and he'll make it a movie or series of movies about how, you know, it's all kind of fixed. Like the fix is in, you know, and, and you have to decide what choices you're going to make in a world where good and evil are sort of their, their facades because the bad guys run everything, you know, like that's, that's pretty, it's pretty real.

[00:38:51] It's pretty hardcore. That's pretty serious message to tell children, right? That no, you can't trust your leaders. you can't look to them to make everything right and, and right, and right all the wrongs. Like, you have to make these choices. and this is a man. Nobody gives this enough credit.

[00:39:10] After the success of the original Star Wars, he's given access to powerful people. To, to, you know, private spaces with some of the most famous and powerful people in the world. And after all that. This is what he chooses to tell us. I was

[00:39:25] PETER: and he makes Star Wars, he makes a bundle of money. Any other filmmaker, you know, Denis Villeneuve, right? He makes a successful Dune. Um, what does he do after that? Well, he takes the next job to make the next Dune. That's fine. That's just the Hollywood way. George gets the success of Star Wars and it's like.

[00:39:40] No, I want control over it. I want to be able to make the next one because I don't trust the executives to to know what's best for my movie. And he's right. You know, I mean, that's that's exactly true. But he You know, kind of like lone, you know, cowboy vibe that you get from, from George Lucas is just remarkable.

[00:40:00] I mean, he, we always talk about how he is kind of all of his characters, but in many ways he is, he is that Indiana Jones. He is that Han Solo kind of guy who's just like, he's wanting to be an artist. He's wanting to create. And he knows that in Hollywood, most of the time, I mean, Daniel and I are both in the industry and know this firsthand.

[00:40:16] It's like most of the time, it's, it's just filled up with BS. It's just like, you know, art is, so often corrupted down here by capitalism, by the pursuit of money. And, This kind of the studio machinations and all that. And like, George was just like, you know, I just, I just want to create like, that's, that's what I, that's what I'm working towards.

[00:40:35] and the only way I can do that is if I'm the one who holds all the cards and he was right to know that he was right to say that. And I think the The fulfillment of that, of that dream is really coming., in Young Indy, but also I think in the prequels.

[00:40:46] It's like, these are the moments. That's the peak George Lucas time.

[00:40:51] JOSH: before you started doing the podcast, did both of you just happen to be huge Young Indy fans, or was it Something that, you sort of wanted to explore because it was underexplored and then you dove into it and then were sort of like, whoa, this is much more than I bargained for.

[00:41:08] DANIEL: anyone who knows me would say that. Um, I will say though, being a big fan of Young Indy is sort of like being a fan of a very obscure band. You know, like, like, there's not much, there's not a lot of ways to express being a fan of it. You can own them. You can watch them. That's about it, right? So, you?

[00:41:32] know,

[00:41:34] PETER: in a way, it's like even a more specific analogy. It's like being a fan of an obscure band that no one else knows about. Like, it's not like being a fan of like the Velvet Underground or something where it's like, oh yeah, you know, there's like 500 hipsters all over the place, whatever.

[00:41:46] But it's like, it's a show that like, It's so rare to find anyone who's even heard of it, and then if you do, you can talk to about it. But I was a fan as well. Um, but the thing that's been remarkable with the podcast is just, , because so much of this is fresh territory, because it's all like stuff that no one's really talked about before.

[00:42:04] it feels just so exciting to dig into it because it's like, you don't really, you know, you can watch the show, you can enjoy the show. But you can't really access the wealth of knowledge about the behind the scenes of it, , with one or two exceptions. So to be able to dig into it, it's just been like, you know, one's fandom just explodes after, after you start digging in, because it's, it's, it feels like you're discovering a Egyptian tomb that no one's known about

[00:42:25] or something.

[00:42:25] It's just, it's wild.

[00:42:27] DANIEL: it's like being a fan of an obscure band that no one's heard of. But our position is, no, we're the fans of a Beatles album you didn't know existed.

[00:42:35] PETER: Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:36] DANIEL: Like, that's our attitude. It's like, a really important artist made this.

[00:42:42] JOSH: Right.

[00:42:43] DANIEL: How do you not know about it?

[00:42:44] JOSH: Right. Yeah, I mean, as somebody who has spent many, many years, reading and appreciating, George Lucas and, the output of Lucasfilm, um, you know, just listening to your podcast is, is kind of like a revelation every week. It's kind of like, whoa, I never knew that was going on. I never knew, this story or that story.

[00:43:04] and even just hearing, some of the stories from the people who were working on the show at Skywalker Ranch at the time, it's just, you're really getting a window into what it was like to, to be there, you know, working on this, project in this moment where, you know, it was before the resurgence of Star Wars, so it was, the spotlight wasn't on them to the degree that, Maybe it would be a few years later and there's this sort of remarkable sense of freedom and play that, they were sort of able to be doing this amazing work you know, in this very unique circumstance that I think they couldn't really find anywhere else or really get anywhere ever again.

[00:43:42] PETER: It was, you know, it was a golden age. I mean, it really was. And I, I think partly that was because it was before the internet.

[00:43:48] JOSH: um,

[00:43:49] PETER: comes out, as soon as the prequels come out and kind of that the vitriol of hatred that came out for that film, even though I think it was honestly a small minority, I really believe that, but their voices were very loud and, and that undoubtedly hurt George a lot to hear that.

[00:44:05] Whereas with Young Indy, you know, it was still that time where like he was at the top of the world, really. I mean, even though he's a very meek guy, I think he's a very shy guy in real life. It's like, this was a time where he was at the height of his game, both in terms of industry standing, but also in terms of fan appreciation.

[00:44:20] so, you know, the ability just to play and to play creatively, you know, I mean, their writer's room sounds just like a wonderful experience and a wonderful time of just. There are shoots for this series. You know, it was a three week shoot for every episode. most episodes of at the time had a five day production schedule in America, you know, for network television shows, five days.

[00:44:43] today, sometimes, I mean, I was on a show once that had four days. per episode. And that's just mind boggling. they had three weeks, and they had the ability to be creative and the directors they felt like they really had real ownership over their episodes, whereas again, today or anytime in television history, a director is just there to, to basically.

[00:45:02] do what they had done the previous week. Like, it's very rare to have a director come in and imprint an artistic vision onto a television show because production is just moving so fast. And that's not to, it's not to denigrate any television directors out there, but it's just like the nature of the job is, is one where you're, you're just, you're moving.

[00:45:18] You got to hop on the train, you got to do your thing, and then you got to get off as quickly as possible because you're moving, you know, people are moving on very quickly. , but here it was like, this show was, was truly, uh, a movie of the week every week. And, and people felt very proud of, from everything we've heard, people felt very proud to have worked on it.

[00:45:37] And that's, that's special. That's really special.

[00:45:40] JOSH: you guys have talked to, As we said, many people who worked on the show, , had many fascinating conversations, and I'm wondering, having it understood that is not to the exclusion of anyone else, but is there one particular conversation or one episode that if you had to hand somebody one episode of your show, it's like, no, no, no, no, you should really listen to this one.

[00:46:01] And maybe that's an unfair question to ask, but

[00:46:05] DANIEL: no, that's a great question. No, it's a great question. It's a hard question. They're all great. And it's, you know, I do a lot of the editing on post production and invariably, I think any editor would share this, you know, you start, you're like, okay, I gotta, I gotta get this into shape. I don't know, you know, and then you're done.

[00:46:21] And I'm always just like, I'm so proud of this episode. Like, I feel that every time. And just so, you know, I just so, so it's hard for me to be like, which is the best? I will say, I do think that I do. For new listeners and maybe for people who don't know much about the show, I think the Matthew Jacobs episode is a great place to start.

[00:46:39] I think that's one of the reasons we put it early. it's a conversation that I think is accessible to a modern television fan, but also just sort of takes the show on its feet. You know, on its face for what it is, I think that the historical documentary one is, is wonderful. I don't know that I would tell someone to start there because I don't think that would make any sense.

[00:46:59] PETER: I think, you know, if, if you're coming into the podcast, , wanting to, , maybe you're not as familiar with the Young Indiana Jones television show, or maybe you watched it, occasionally once or twice or whatever. Um, our episode with Ray Morton is fantastic. He's a film historian and, and we just talk about like the context of

[00:47:15] television in the era and kind of the world into which young Indy was entering into. And it's a really fascinating episode just because, you know, that truly was a different era. I the whole nature of the industry was entirely different and the changes were subtle and over time.

[00:47:31] So there wasn't really like a. Definitive moment of explosion of change, but it was like now looking back, it's like, my God, it really was just so different back then. And so we, we talk about that context. We talk about,, how things change and, and how Young Indy fit into that, into that world. Um, so it's really good for extra episode.

[00:47:50] We don't get too much into the weeds on, on the series or, or, you know, specifics about, , episodes. Um, and then, yeah, the Matthew Jacobs episode, it's fantastic. He was one of the regular writers on the show. I think he's one of the most credited writers as well, next to Jonathan Hales, uh, you know, it's really just a wonderful episode.

[00:48:11] You know, the joy I think with this series of two is like everyone we've talked to so far is just really pleased to talk about it, you know, and I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this yourself with your Star Wars podcast here, but it's like, you know, some people you talk to and they're kind of like, well, I've done this, you know, 500 times already and I, you know, sometimes they get the sense that people are a little bored to talk about the topic or whatever and, but with this, it's, it's like, this is like, it feels like this is the first time anyone has wanted to talk to them about this show. And, and they were so excited cause they really were so proud of it.

[00:48:42] DANIEL: it's great seeing people clearly remember stories that I don't know that they've told that much. I mean, maybe in their personal lives with people that they know, you know, but like, I don't think they've ever been to conventions, I don't think they've ever been on stages telling these stories, but you can see it in their eyes, you can see the twinkle, you know, when they remember being in George's office, or when they remember getting into an argument with George, you know, in the soundstage, like, like, uh, Laird Malamud did about what Whether the music should be right, you know, and, and he had that moment that I love in our show that I think I used in the teaser, which I think it just came to him.

[00:49:14] Like he told the story and he was like, it was just two creative people. And he kind of catches himself and he's like, I just equated myself with George Lucas and you could just see it hit him. And then he's like, well, George is 1. 8 creative people and I'm 0. 02, you know, but I just thought seeing that moment, you know, seeing him remember

[00:49:33] that time he worked with George Lucas and they had an argument. Like, just two people working together and sort of get hit with the gravity of that, was an incredible experience for me, you know. And that's one of the things that the show gives to us.

[00:49:48] JOSH: A similar question. May or may not be asking for a friend. your podcast has reawakened my own personal interest in Young Indy. I actually, had these on my shelf, still in, uh, the cellophane,

[00:50:01] so, and

[00:50:01] PETER: quality, good quality.

[00:50:03] JOSH: that they're streaming on Disney I doubt I will ever, though, are the documentaries also streaming on Disney the,

[00:50:10] DANIEL: No, and you but You have them there. You have them in those boxes. You're one of the few people.

[00:50:14] JOSH: well then, I will be opening

[00:50:16] DANIEL: you should open those boxes.

[00:50:17] JOSH: yeah. Um say there is somebody who, wants to watch either for the first time or re engage, with the series for the first time in many, many years, if someone were to say, okay, I, I have time to watch one of these, which one would

[00:50:32] you sit them down in front of?

[00:50:33] DANIEL: That's hard. because I have this conversation with people. This is one of those questions. You have a podcast about Young Indiana Jones. It comes up pretty quickly. Which one of these should I watch? Right? It comes up a lot. I always tell people to start with Trenches of Hell, which is episode 8 on Disney That's not the same thing as if I can only watch one.

[00:50:54] Which one would I watch, right? So, if you were never gonna watch another one again, I would watch Daredevils of the Desert, which I think is 15.

[00:51:03] PETER: Daredevils of the Desert was usually my go to favorite whenever I was asked about this. I think it's a fun episode. You see very young performances from Daniel Craig, as well as Catherine Zeta Jones. They're both, you know, they're not big at that time. This is just their You know, this was their their acting job of the month, I guess, or whatever.

[00:51:23] You know, this was not a guest star or anything like that role. But you could see them there. They do great jobs. And Daniel Craig hams it up with a bad German accent. It's fantastic. That one's great. I also think a Oganga. Giver and take her of life, is a wonderful one. It gets very philosophical and can kind of show you the breadth of the, of the show.

[00:51:43] I also think structurally it's, it bears a lot of similarities to like the Empire Strikes back or something along those lines,, where it, it kind of begins with a big battle, like that's kind of the end of, another movie that maybe you just didn't even see. And , then it carries on and it takes you into a more thoughtful, philosophical, episodes after that, probably those two

[00:52:03] would be my, my suggestion.

[00:52:05] DANIEL: The show has a lot of cinematic inspirations, , clearly films that interested George. Ogonga in particular, it's got a little bit of Apocalypse Now, certainly a little bit of Heart of Darkness, and then a little bit of The African Queen, right? Like, it's just a few, a few things sort of mixed into that.

[00:52:21] Daredevils is just straight, you know, Lawrence of Arabia, like, and even, there's a, there, on the VHS release in the late 90s, it's one of the few sources of sort of behind the scenes interviews on the show that you can get. And I actually only recently tracked down the interview with George because he does a little intro on all of them.

[00:52:39] The ones that were released on VHS. And he basically is like, well, I had an excuse to have all my characters in the Middle East in World War I and so, you know, we just couldn't do a big World War I in the Middle East movie, you know, like he was just sort of enjoying the fact that he could do it, you know, and do this.

[00:52:56] And there's a whole story about licensing footage from the film that was directed by the director of the episode, you know, so it's like the director is redirecting his own movie and they brought back actors from the movie essentially playing, like, They're fictional characters, but essentially playing the same parts, so you can use them in both footage.

[00:53:18] It's like a very elaborate sort of production thing. But it ends up just being one of the more entertaining, episodes. And also just feel, it feels thematically like an Indiana Jones movie. In fact, I think overseas it was packaged with the trilogy in parts of Europe on VHS, uh, in the late 90s.

[00:53:37] PETER: Yeah, it's a, it's a really fun episode. You know, certain arc in the series where he's an intelligence officer. During World War One, he starts, you know, as infantry, you know, trench warfare guy, becomes very disillusioned with that, and as everyone did, I mean, it's, you know, not unique, but he, he came to the conclusion that, , the best course for him in the war is to try to end it as quickly as possible, not to have victory, but just to end the war, and to do that was to become a spy and to try to, find ways to achieve peace. , and so this is one of the, stories of him at really his height of his, of his espionage days. He goes undercover to help lay the groundwork, for an attack in the Middle East. And, Catherine Zeta Jones is there being all. And, you know, Daniel Craig literally has a mustache that he twirls.

[00:54:26] I mean, it's just, it's great. It's awesome. It's,

[00:54:28] it's a lot of fun.

[00:54:29] DANIEL: And he has a fist fight with Indiana Jones, and so you actually have Indiana Jones and James Bond fighting. Like, it's, it's, it's notable for

[00:54:37] PETER: Exactly.

[00:54:37] JOSH: I'm gonna queue up all the episodes that you just mentioned. It'll be my, uh, my weekend watching. Um, you may have already answered this question, but is there anything that, through doing your podcast, is there anything that you've learned about either George Lucas or Lucasfilm that you didn't know before?

[00:54:57] PETER: I mean so much the, you know, again, just the, the, the beauty of this podcast is that, um, it's all fresh territory, like, you know, I've, I've written, you know, Literally books on the Star Wars franchise and like, I had no idea about so many of these topics, and so much of Young Indy. I guess the, the, the biggest thing is just how involved George was with every step of the process.

[00:55:17] Like, he was in the writer's room. He was basically the showrunner. This was a little bit before the era of the traditional showrunner that we think of today. You know, I think we can say that the, that era of showrunner kind of begins with the X-Files and, , deep space nine. , but like, , , George was running the writer's room then, you know, he's involved with the post-production process.

[00:55:37] They're in the editing room every day. , he doesn't take a credit on a lot of these things. And that's the thing that I've always really appreciated about George. He was happy to be there and to be kind of, you know, the guiding voice, but he didn't need the applause. , and that's something that, you don't see a lot of in Hollywood today where everyone, scrambling for credit over everything else.

[00:55:56] He just loved the work and he loved the challenge and that's really fun.

[00:56:00] DANIEL: I'm really happy that so far I've learned that George Lucas is the man I hoped he was, right? cause you never know, and, and talking to people who certainly didn't have to talk to me. You know, and, and didn't have to talk to us and didn't have to do this, but they were willing to come on and, and tell all these wonderful stories.

[00:56:21] And, you know, you get the complete picture. You know, for example, I think by the time you hear all the others, it's clear that George Lucas likes his chocolate. This, this theme comes up in a number of stories, like incidentally, and I'm like, Oh, interesting. Um, you

[00:56:35] know, but like, he cares about the art.

[00:56:38] He cares about people. He's considerate. You know, he's a little no nonsense y in some ways, , but that's just wonderful, you know? You'd hate to hear You know, as often can be, sometimes people are very good at putting on a facade and putting on a show, like he, like Peter was saying about Hollywood, it can be a lot of BS.

[00:56:58] but no, clearly this guy, he was the wizard who lived in the magical kingdom north of San Francisco, and that's, that's who he was. And not everybody gets him, and not everybody shares his sensibility, and that's That's a truth, you know. Maybe we've been dancing around a little bit. , obviously the prequels have their detractors, and Young Indy has its detractors.

[00:57:16] I think more so now, in some ways, than it did at the time, because it was very well reviewed. You know, if you read the papers, right? Um, but I think a lot of Gen X people would be like, yeah, I remember that show. It was just a little kid, and it wasn't the Indiana Jones movie, so I didn't, I didn't pay attention.

[00:57:32] That's usually what I hear, if I talk to someone who did watch the show. And I think, you know, they're not giving it It's due, and they're not giving it a shot, and, uh, I hope that our show gets people talking. You know, I hope our show does for young Indiana Jones what George Lucas wanted Young Indiana Jones to do for the 20th century in history and all these important things, right?

[00:57:54] Get them talking about it, thinking about it, asking questions about what television should be, what art should be, how these things should inform and entertain us, right? That's what I hope.

[00:58:07] PETER: Yeah, to echo that too, I think like what the Clone Wars, I think did for the prequels, which in many ways got people to like reexamine them. You know, even the detractors, you know, got people to reexamine the prequels. And I think now the prequels are, well, I shouldn't say universally loved, but I think the, the love it feels, there's more love out there on the internet, on the interwebs than there is hates these days.

[00:58:26] And I, I really love that. And I'd hope that maybe our show can bring some of that to you and Indy, and really helped to promote this, this true, true achievement. I mean, true achievement.

[00:58:36] JOSH: Well, you guys have one confirmed convert. So that's one. so if nothing else, I want you to know

[00:58:42] PETER: got him.

[00:58:43] JOSH: so just as, we're wrapping up here, is there anything else that you wanted to add or maybe you, came in, , thinking you wanted to say that I haven't asked you about?

[00:58:51] DANIEL: I figured we'd talk a little more Star Wars, um, but I, uh, I just think if you're, if you're listening to this and you're, you're a Star Wars fan, cause it's a Star Wars podcast. And so I hope that you will look at that era, you know, the 90s and the early 2000s. That you'll remember that there was a guy.

[00:59:14] who had a story and he and he had things to say and he was using these wonderful mediums and these, these, these tools and these beautiful pictures and incredible sound to tell you something and to give you something and that whatever you're a fan of today, and you can be a fan of anything you want, they're not doing that.

[00:59:34] Like it's a very special, unique thing. And I would urge you to take the time to think about it.

[00:59:42] PETER: And, you know, I think, if you're a fan of the Star Wars prequels as, as I think you should be, really think about like what that story is, is telling. It's, it's a story of, of a kid, learning about a larger world. Who then becomes disillusioned by that world, distrusting of that world, and ends up rebelling against it in kind of a violent sort of way.

[01:00:03] Young Indy is a story about a kid getting exposed to a world, and then growing up and Becoming disillusioned with the world, and eventually rebelling against it in a less violent kind of way. , there's a lot of overlap with the Star Wars prequels and Young Indy. , and you're seeing him, George, kind of playing around with ideas that he will then go on to develop more so in the Star Wars prequels.

[01:00:28] So it's just, it's a wonderful chapter in the Star Wars story, , that is, is really fascinating and really worth exploring.

[01:00:37] JOSH: No, totally, and I'm about to wrap up here, but, you just made me realize something that, um, uh, Young Indy and the Star Wars prequels do have in common is that they are both, stories where an older George Lucas is visiting the youth of His characters, and he's approaching youth from the perspective of an older man than he was when he was, telling stories about the adventures of Luke Skywalker and, Indiana Jones, and, um, when we did an episode on Revenge of the Sith, one of the things that What really stood out for us was, um, you really do get a sense that this was George Lucas's final word on what it meant to, live a good life, how to be a good person.

[01:01:28] It was his, you know, final word on how he viewed politics and society and, and a whole litany of things. We're struck that it really felt like he was making this statement for his kids and for the children of generations to come. And, you know, hearing you say, Peter, what you just said there are a lot of parallels between, what Young Indy goes through and what Anakin Skywalker goes through.

[01:01:58] And, now I am, more certain than I was, before I started this interview with you guys that I am definitely going to have to revisit and re watch the entire show.

[01:02:07]

[01:02:07] DANIEL: That's it. Good.

[01:02:09] PETER: Fantastic.

[01:02:11] JOSH: So guys, if people are interested in, , listening to your podcast, where can they find you and feel free to plug any other projects that you like while you're at

[01:02:18] it.

[01:02:18] DANIEL: Well, you can find us certainly on Instagram at youngindiepod, and then the show itself, and the links are on Instagram, but, uh, we're on Apple Podcasts, we're on Spotify, we're on Amazon Music, uh, so you can, you can subscribe in any of those platforms. We have a small YouTube present, presence, I have to say, I'm not good, good enough at, uh, at keeping that updated.

[01:02:40] I've been focusing a lot on the Instagram, but Instagram is a great place to go just for news and updates and sneak peaks, you know, teasers for what's coming up. We always try to do that. And yeah, please, please follow us there.

[01:02:54] JOSH: No, yeah, and I can't say enough good things about, , the clips that you do post of the show, , to Instagram. The way that you, cut them together with show footage is, is, is really fantastic and that's what first attracted my attention and got me to check out the show. And I'm so glad I did,, because as I said, , every episode I'm like, wow, I've never heard anyone say this anywhere before, so it's, it's, it's, it's really, a really wonderful show, and I, I can't wait, , to keep listening and hear what else you guys uncover, so, so thank you very much for, putting it together and for putting it out there.

[01:03:25] DANIEL: It's our pleasure. Thank you for listening.

[01:03:28] JOSH: Well that is my pleasure. I want to thank my guests Peter Holmstrom and Daniel Noa, hosts of the Young Indy Chronicler, for chatting with me today. If you like what you heard, please consider following us at trashcompod on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Transcripts for this episode and all our other episodes are available at trashcompod.com, and we will see you on the next one.