Indiana Jones Wiki
Register
Advertisement
This article is about the overall franchise. You may be looking for the man himself.
Indiana Jones logo

The Indiana Jones logo. Variations of it can be found on most products after Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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

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 mainly concern the (quite adventurous) life and discoveries of archaeologist and professor Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Junior, 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, 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 unearthly being after the crash of Roswell. However, despite 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.[1]

The nature of his discoveries often have to do with the prevention of the antagonists obtaining the power. The villains traditionally have been Nazi agents, a concept largely inspired from the legendary Nazi mysticism. He has also been the opponent of Italian Fascists, Imperial Japan, gangsters, cults, secret societies, Soviets and even the undead.

Corpus[]

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 and deities in the Indiana Jones world.

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 five 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, Last Crusade, in 1989, and a second sequel, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in 2008, with the newest Indiana Jones movie, Dial of Destiny, in 2023.

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 and the Dial of Destiny
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 Bennett
Douglas Henshall
Remy Baudouin Ronny Coutteure
Marcus Brody Denholm Elliott Denholm Elliot
Sallah John Rhys-Davies 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
Helena Shaw Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Jürgen Voller Mads Mikkelsen

Spin-offs[]

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

Television[]

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 reprinted different Dark Horse stories, along with feature articles and puzzles.

Novels[]

Young adult[]

IndianaJonesAndThePlantationTreasure

Young Indiana Jones and the Plantation Treasure.

Beginning in 1990, Random House published a series of original Indy stories aimed at younger readers. The books centered around Indy's adventures as an adolescent, from age 12 to age 15. Initially inspired by River Phoenix's appearance as the young adventurer in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the books began to incorporate themes and characters from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles starting with 1993's Young Indiana Jones and the Titanic Adventure. At the same time, Random House began printing the series under its' Bullseye Books banner. The last entry in the series, Young Indiana Jones and the Eye of the Tiger, was published in 1995. Two additional books (Young Indiana Jones and the Mask of the Madman and Young Indiana Jones and the Ring of Power) were planned, but never published.

Meanwhile, Hachette Livre's translations of the Random House books were meeting with great success in France, and in 1997 the company secured the rights to publish their own original French-language stories. Over the following two years, Hachette released seven Indy books as part of its Bibliothèque Verte series.

In 2009, a new series of young adult novels, entitled Untold Adventures was introduced by Scholastic, Inc. in the US, and Harper Collins in the UK, focusing on Indy's adventures as an adult, and beginning in a quest to find the Akashic Hall of Records.

Gamebooks[]

IndianaJonesAndTheCurseOfHorrorIsland

Indiana Jones and the Curse of Horror Island.

Gamebooks (also sometimes called Adventure Books) are books that allow the reader to participate in the story by making choices at key points in the narrative. The popularity of the concept arguably reached its zenith with Bantam Books' Choose Your Own Adventure series in the mid-1980's.

A number of Indiana Jones gamebooks have been produced over the years. Ballantine's Find Your Fate Adventure series included a total of eleven Indy titles, mixed with a handful of books featuring other popular adventurers such as James Bond. These books placed the reader in the role of Indy's child companion, either his younger cousin or another youth, such as the case of Indiana Jones and the Dragon of Vengeance where the protagonist is the son of a friend. The series originally ran from 1984 to 1987; certain titles were reprinted in 1994 to capitalize on author R. L. Stine's Goosebumps fame.

In 1992, Bantam adapted eight episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as part of their continuing Choose Your Own Adventure series, allowing readers for the first time to sit in for Indy himself.

Video games[]

The first Indiana Jones video game was a loose adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark released in 1982.

Notes and references[]

  1. Comment made by Indy after the collapse of Atlantis in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

External links[]

Advertisement