Are the Young Indiana Jones Adventures considered Canon?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve recently been watching The Young Indiana Jones Adventures, which I picked up on DVD in the US when my wife and I were there a few months ago.

Despite the fact they’re nominally aimed at teenagers rather than adults, I find them to be very enjoyable, well researched, and entertaining.

My question is, though, are they considered “Canon” within the Indiana Jones Universe? If so, they certainly add a new dimension to the character (for example, Indiana Jones & T.E. Lawrence are shown to be friends and penpals, and Indy lost his virginity to Mata Hari, for example).

Any other fans out there heard a definitive answer one way or the other?

2

This is one of those big arguments among the fans. I would say most think they are canon because Lucas had a part in them. I like them and do think they are canon, and in some cases they have retro fitted the young Indy to the movies. At least in the young adult Temple of Doom novel the diamond is the Peacock Eye from one of the movies.

I have seen more then half of them, I like most of them, though a couple are pretty boring. They are well researched for the most part and fun. I’m upset now that I missed them when they were first on. I’m also upset that they took the old Indy bookends out, but what are you going to do.

3

In a sense they are canon, because there’s nothing that I’ve seen that contradicts the movies in any way. The novels might do so, though.

However, they do have some cast members who also appeared in the movies in different roles. That’s a bit weird, but only in real world terms.

4

I think that the old Indy stuff might ultimately contradict the movies - especially if Shia Lebouf turns out to be Indy’s son…there were a lot of segments in which the family was gathered around utterly disbelieving Indy’s stories. But yeah, there’s nothing that directly contradicts the movies.

The novels, though, yeesh…in order for them to work, Indy had to have gotten his undergrad AND graduate degree in like two years…while he was hanging out with Elliot Ness and running off to Hollywood!

5

There’s a canon??? I thought they were just making this up as they go.