George Lucas Talks About Young Indy

"The inspiration for the whole concept of Young Indiana Jones came out of an educational project I was working on, a multimedia, interactive history of the early 20th Century," said George Lucas in a recent interview with a programming executive of The Family Channel. Lucas is chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. and the creator of the phenomenally successful Star Wars saga, among other movies. He is executive producer of the Young Indiana Jones movies.

"I've been very fascinated by history and how to show history to young people," Lucas said. "It's the kind of history we can relate to because some of the events our grandfathers, perhaps even our fathers, participated in."

Three of the four new Young Indiana Jones movies cover World War I and immediately after. One movie is set around 1910, when Indiana is a boy.

"We worked very hard to give the movies a historical perspective as far as authenticity goes," Lucas said. "We had a lot of researchers and then experts came in afterward to review the scripts."

Lucas tells the early history of the film business in the first movie to air on The Family Channel, Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies. It will air at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Oct. 15. It's a funny, affectionate look at a sometimes wacky industry. Real-life characters such as Erich Von Stroheim and Irving Thalberg are included in the film.

Two historical figures in the next movie, Young Indiana Jones and The Treasure of The Peacock's Eye, are Howard Carter, a renowned archaeologist, and Bronislaw Malinowski, the father of field anthropology.

Young Indiana Jones and The Attack of The Hawkmen is about the Americans who went to fight for France during World War I before America entered the war. Indy tries to recruit famed aircraft designer Anthony Fokker to join the Allies.

In Young Indiana Jones and Travels With Father a 10-year-old Indy has a fight with his father while they are traveling in Russia.

"He runs away and meets an 80-year-old man who's also running away from home and the old man turns out to be Leo Tolstoy," said Lucas. "They are forced to travel together and it's about how they become friends."

Lucas maintained close control of each film. "I'm very involved in the development of the scripts and I oversee them personally," he said. "I communicated regularly with the directors by phone and fax. Then I'm in the finishing process. The director has to trust my judgment then just as I trusted his while he was shooting it."