- published: 27 Mar 2011
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Joel McNeely (born 28 March 1959) is a music composer for movies and television.
Joel McNeely was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Both of his parents were involved in music and theater, and as a child he played the piano, saxophone, bass, and flute. He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, studied jazz at the University of Miami, and earned a masters degree as a composition major at the Eastman School of Music.
Lucasfilm chose McNeely to compose the soundtrack to the 1996 Star Wars novel Shadows of the Empire. This was an experimental project where he conveyed general moods and themes instead of writing music to flow for specific scenes.
He is also notable for conducting a series of re-recordings of Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, John Barry and other's scores under the label of Varèse Sarabande, notably Vertigo, Psycho and Citizen Kane, and selected scores from the Twilight Zone television series, among others. He also composed the score for The Avengers and the theme and music for FOX's Dark Angel also scored the movies Terminal Velocity, Iron Will (Which was used in the teaser trailers of Toy Story), Flipper, Gold Diggers, Samantha, Virus, and I Know Who Killed Me (2007). He also scored a multitude of Disney animated films (Mulan II, Peter Pan: Return to Neverland (2002), Tinker Bell and many others).
Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials. The character first appeared in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, to be followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles from 1992 to 1996, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. Alongside the more widely known films and television programs, the character is also featured in novels, comics, video games, and other media. Jones is also featured in the theme park attraction Indiana Jones Adventure, which exists in similar forms at Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.
Jones is most famously played by Harrison Ford and has also been portrayed by River Phoenix (as the young Jones in The Last Crusade), and in the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles by Corey Carrier, Sean Patrick Flanery, and George Hall. Doug Lee has supplied Jones's voice to two LucasArts video games, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, while David Esch supplied his voice to Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb and John Armstrong in Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings.