Genndy Tartakovsky is a truly unique creator. Samurai Jack was so good, that I had to watch how it ends years later since watching the show on cartoon network
brcmthrowaway · 2h ago
What about Pantheon?
skavi · 2h ago
It doesn’t appear that Tartakovsky was affiliated at all with Pantheon. I would have been surprised if he was affiliated given the show’s fairly mundane animation.
So what about Pantheon? It doesn’t seem relevant to this discussion apart from it also being animated.
I used to have an artist roommate obsessed with the art style of the show. If anyone hasn't yet watched the rebooted season from 2017, I highly recommend it.
I wasn't much a fan of the rebooted series, I thought the inclusion of the new character took too much focus. Almost felt to me more like a fan fiction ending with someone's OC
usefulcat · 59m ago
I liked the fifth season because they needed to do something different with the story. I feel like they had hit the point of diminishing returns by end of the previous four seasons.
thatguy0900 · 31m ago
I think they could have honestly done the same thing but no new character, have jack retrace his steps to see old characters and that he actually had been making a difference the whole time before finding a time portal and beating aku.
lelandfe · 5h ago
12 years on you can get the original creator back to storyboard everything, hire back the old VO team, and still have people complaining the show is too different :P
No comments yet
k__ · 5h ago
I watched the whole series because of some clips from the new season.
The new stuff felt more mature to me and the old stuff more like a kids show.
Overall I liked both, but I get it, the new stuff felt a bit off.
No comments yet
duxup · 6h ago
Samurai Jack is so beautiful and being able to portray things / have the confidence in the art really seems to cut back on unnecessary / clumsy dialogue that so many shows have today.
stevenwoo · 5h ago
His first season of Primal has almost zero dialogue and works really well, but it's a caveman and a dinosaur buddy show.
BolexNOLA · 6h ago
The episode with the three blind archers guarding the well that grants wishes is a master class in gesticulates at everything
Whenever I think of Tartakovsky I also think of his clone wars micro series he did for Cartoon Network. The episode with the special forces clone troopers that has no dialogue after the first 30-60 seconds or show is just so unbelievably good. So much tension.
lazystar · 4h ago
> Whenever I think of Tartakovsky I also think of his clone wars micro series he did for Cartoon Network.
the episode with mace windu taking on an entire droid army - by himself - is what opened my imagination to the true potential that a jedi master has. it's a shame that neither the movies, nor any other tv show, have come close to conveying "why" everyone fears and respects force users.
Dracophoenix · 2h ago
> the episode with mace windu taking on an entire droid army - by himself - is what opened my imagination to the true potential that a jedi master has.
As a kid, that was my favorite episode of the series first season. I still remember coming back after school catching the 5 minute micro-episodes on Cartoon Network.
> it's a shame that neither the movies, nor any other tv show, have come close to conveying "why" everyone fears and respects force users.
It stops becoming Star Wars as we know it and starts becoming Dragon Ball Z with laser swords. Quite a number of books and video games in the Expanded Universe/Legends veered in that direction, in many cases to the detriment of consistency in lore.
eutropia · 3h ago
a million times this.
Clone Wars microseries did more for my love of star wars than all the movies put together.
pure effing magic.
usefulcat · 56m ago
Yes, I was going to mention that exact episode. The distinctive visual style is perhaps more obvious, but the show also makes excellent use of sound.
photonthug · 6h ago
Ok I’m rewatching that one soon, forgot about it. The flashback of like, all heroes including Vishnu and zeus fighting aku was also rad. Maybe even the pilot, or the start of the reboot? Awesome
TuringTourist · 6h ago
I never watched Samurai Jack when it was coming out as a child. I have begun watching it recently and it is absolutely a breathtaking piece of work.
keeganpoppen · 6h ago
same. i did watch the more recent "last season", or whatever it is that they made, and i thought the artwork was absolutely fantastic.
photonthug · 6h ago
Always loved these aesthetics. No mention of primal here, which is well worth checking out and pretty remarkable for being almost completely free of dialog and more oriented towards adults.
nntwozz · 4h ago
Glad to see Primal mentioned in the comments, still waiting for season 3!
I loved the small segments of behind the scenes the did for Samurai Jack back in the day in CN. It was my first time as a child to appreciate visuals and sound in a new perspective.
Even to this day a beautiful work of art.
coro_1 · 4h ago
Slightly off topic, but I only recently discovered Samurai Jack. I found it through some old VHS archive recordings. The care with the animation is unreal. I'd love any links or suggestions for where to find more authentic versions. Commercials welcomed. The original airings have a different feel compared to the heavily processed versions on streaming platforms and archive.org
Samurai Jack could easily be a a part of Death Love Robots because of its unique style and content.
KetoManx64 · 2h ago
Except it's not nihilistic, which just about every episode of LD&R is.
AtlasBarfed · 6h ago
The star wars clone wars shorts are just amazing animation. The way he caught the essence of the characters in animation that was superior to the human portrayals was a testament to his talent.
It made the cgi clone wars look so amateurish.
The best sam jack imo is the light vs dark. My jaw dropped at that.
He's definitely one of the few creators where I can feel him tickling my mind, overwhelming me with creativity.
BolexNOLA · 6h ago
Clone Wars was so fun. The episode with the special forces troopers that’s mostly silent immediately comes to mind, as well as the one where General grievous just goes to town on a group of surrounded Jedi.
It was also pretty cool watching Mace force crush grievous‘s chest lol
thatguy0900 · 5h ago
For anyone who liked samurai Jack's art style, there's a newer show called primal made by some of its creators that has a very similar style to it. Similar to the low dialogue in samurai jack it has no talking at all
bitwize · 1h ago
Samurai Jack always struck me as a 90s-modern, anime-and-Kurosawa-film-influenced update of another animated classic, Thundarr the Barbarian. The premise is quite different, but the vibe of "quasi-solitary warrior wandering through a ruined future, righting wrongs" is very much in force.
blacksmith_tb · 38m ago
Except that Thundarr, while having some great weird and zany plotting, took itself seriously, while Samurai Jack is a parody, an homage, and also _really beautiful_ compared to the extremely lumpy animation that seemed cool in the 80s (and I watched it on Saturday mornings back then, so I should know).
Marazan · 6h ago
A truly breathtakingly daring show booth visually and sonically.
I adored if at the time and it still looks and feels unique to this day
dfxm12 · 6h ago
The article only touches on the visual world and even quotes Genndy Tartakovsky as saying we’ve almost forgotten what animation was about — movement and visuals, but I agree with you about the sounds. The background music sets the scene as much as any background visual.
Affric · 5h ago
Mm, we live in such a world of words that they are often the default method of communication we use but there are so many more symbols available and even non symbolic ways to communicate.
Sonics is so much wider than language and music but in a lot of real time art takes a back seat.
throw_a_grenade · 6h ago
Tangential: does anyone know if there is a site that collects backgrounds from cartoons? Those would be gorgeous wallpapers.
photonthug · 6h ago
May I also recommend ren and stimpy in this category ? Beyond that you may even have to go back to looney tunes for more watercolor style layering.
So what about Pantheon? It doesn’t seem relevant to this discussion apart from it also being animated.
I used to have an artist roommate obsessed with the art style of the show. If anyone hasn't yet watched the rebooted season from 2017, I highly recommend it.
Edit: one great clip from S5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFDkcvrSaYU
Balance is important!
No comments yet
The new stuff felt more mature to me and the old stuff more like a kids show.
Overall I liked both, but I get it, the new stuff felt a bit off.
No comments yet
Whenever I think of Tartakovsky I also think of his clone wars micro series he did for Cartoon Network. The episode with the special forces clone troopers that has no dialogue after the first 30-60 seconds or show is just so unbelievably good. So much tension.
the episode with mace windu taking on an entire droid army - by himself - is what opened my imagination to the true potential that a jedi master has. it's a shame that neither the movies, nor any other tv show, have come close to conveying "why" everyone fears and respects force users.
As a kid, that was my favorite episode of the series first season. I still remember coming back after school catching the 5 minute micro-episodes on Cartoon Network.
> it's a shame that neither the movies, nor any other tv show, have come close to conveying "why" everyone fears and respects force users.
It stops becoming Star Wars as we know it and starts becoming Dragon Ball Z with laser swords. Quite a number of books and video games in the Expanded Universe/Legends veered in that direction, in many cases to the detriment of consistency in lore.
Clone Wars microseries did more for my love of star wars than all the movies put together.
pure effing magic.
https://www.joblo.com/genndy-tartakovsky-primal-season-3/
Even to this day a beautiful work of art.
It made the cgi clone wars look so amateurish.
The best sam jack imo is the light vs dark. My jaw dropped at that.
He's definitely one of the few creators where I can feel him tickling my mind, overwhelming me with creativity.
It was also pretty cool watching Mace force crush grievous‘s chest lol
I adored if at the time and it still looks and feels unique to this day
Sonics is so much wider than language and music but in a lot of real time art takes a back seat.
He never topped this effort in the rest of his work. He's been taking animation shortcuts ever since.