A decade after the seriesā fourth season, Genndy Tartakovskyās Samurai Jack returns
Thirteen years after the showās original four-season run onĀ Cartoon Network, Jack is back. This Saturday marks the return of Genndy Tartakovskyās animated hero as the fifth and final season of Samurai Jack begins onĀ Adult SwimĀ March 11 atĀ 11:00pm ET/PT.
RELATED: The Samurai Jack Season 5 Trailer is Here!
Itās been 50 years since we last saw the time-displaced heroĀ andĀ the years haveĀ not been kind. Aku has destroyed every time portal and Jack (Phil Lamarr) has stopped aging, a side effect of time travel. It seems he is cursed to just roam the land for all eternity. His past haunts him as well as a cult of assassins dedicated to killing him for Akuās glory.
CS recently had the chance to sit down with Tartakovsky,Ā whose creative vision for the character comes to a close with ten final episodes. Tartakovsky, who has known the showās ending for years, discusses the decision to bring back Jack asĀ a darker and more matureĀ samurai warrior.
Samurai JackĀ season 5 is created, executive produced and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios.
CS: It seems that, in some ways, āSamurai Jackā has aged alongsideĀ its audience.Ā
Genndy Tartakovsky: It wasnāt intentional. Itās just sort of where our filmmaking is today. I think weāre trying to do the same things. The quiet and the loud. The fast and the slow. The biggest change, I think, is that because itās all one story, we can take our time. Youāre not driven to this end or a certain resolution. You can keep it going. That changes things. Then I think weāre just better. The sequence of the girls walking through the catacombs with that music? To me, thatās what itās all about. Or the rain sequence. Thereās a lot of moments like that. The quiet with the wolf walking, mirroring Jack. Itās all the same stuff we were doing before, but now weāre doing it better an more mature. We donāt have to explain ourselves as much.
CS: In the earlier episodes, Jack was unquestionably the good guy. Now it seems that heās questioning whether or not heās really doingĀ the right thing?
Genndy Tartakovsky: Itās soul searching rather than everything on the surface. The first series is very good or bad. Jack does the right thing all the time. I donāt think we ever really dove into it deeper than that. With this, weāre diving in right from the first episode. Wow, he went past those people and he didnāt help them. The haunting of the past is my favorite thing. Then his dialogue with himself. His turmoil is his fun because we never really got to get it to this level.
CS: I know youāve had the ending in mind for years and years, but did you always plan the 50-year time jump?
Genndy Tartakovsky: No, actually. That came in when we started doing it. We realized that it felt wrong to have it be episode 53, just carrying on from that baby episode. We wanted time passage so, as we discussed it, the natural thing became the jump. Because it was time travel, maybe there was some fault in it that weāre just discovering now.
CS: It also leaves you some unexplored territory. I know you mentioned that the āSamurai Jackā comics are not canon, but having that 50-year stretch feels like the perfect place for legends of Jack to thrive.
Genndy Tartakovsky: That was another reason for it. You always want to build in a back door for yourself just in case. Or have some kind of parachute. For whatever reason, even though Iām not planning to, if somebody wanted to make more or somebody for some reason wanted to make more, Iāve got that 50 years where I can jump in and do something.
CS: How mapped out are those 50 years for you?
Genndy Tartakovsky: There are some things that we definitely know. But itās not like thereās a villain that I know he fights in, say, episode 75. Its not that specific.
CS: āSamurai Jackā is one of many shows returning after long absences. Is there any correlation there?
Genndy Tartakovsky: Itās completely its own thing. It wasnāt done because I was going āOh, they brought that show back, letās bring my show back!ā Literally, I have been getting yelled out since we stopped. The show has only gotten more popular. Thatās the weird thing. Weāre more popular now than we were when the show was on. Maybe it was before its time. Maybe the network didnāt know how to sell it. Itās a strange show, especially back in the day when there was nothing else like it. Now it just felt like the right time. The story is true. I finished āHotel 2ā and I wasnāt sure what was next. I was emotionally drained from āPopeye,ā my other feature, getting cancelled. I was asking, āWhat should I do?ā and this was always in the back of my head. I thought Iād send an exploratory e-mail. I got a great reaction from it and, within two weeks, it was ready to go. I believe in fate.
CS: āSamurai Jackā has always excelled at depicting a sort of Joseph Campbell multiverse. A decade later, are there new pop culture elements that lead to some of the faces Jack will encounter on his final journeys?
Genndy Tartakovsky: No, probably fewer things. Thereās only so many times we can reference a āStar Warsā line before itās like, āAll right, letās move on.ā I think we want to be more unique, especially now that Jack has evolved into whatever it is. You want to be true to that universe. There are things that have influenced my life that, if you really knew everything I love, you would pick out. āOh, that feels like that little moment!ā There are even more that are so super hyper nerdy that Iām not sure anyone will ever get them. But I know that Iām referencing this because it was special in my life. After having kids, thereās a bit of that that seeps in. Iām almost 50. Youāre a different filmmaker than when youāre 28 or 29.
CS:Ā Does the new season reflect how you yourself has changed as storyteller?
Genndy Tartakovsky: I think that the maturity of it is a factor. Weāre better storytellers. Iām a better filmmaker than I was 12 years ago. Iāve learned a lot. Iāve made mistakes. I can do it with more confidence. I mean, Iām still as insecure as anyone else, but when I put it down on paper and I pitch it and it works, I know it works. When we have a joke, it always lands. I mean, comedy is subjective but, when we do a screening for the crew, people laugh at the right places. Before, especially on āDexter,ā I always had the feeling of, āOh sāt, I donāt know if this is going to work.ā It was a grab bag. And because we were able to storyboard all the episodes ourselves, itās a different thing. Itās much tighter.
CS: āSamurai Jackā has always had a unique sense of humor. I think my favorite joke was the āDragonās Lairā/āSpace Aceā gag from the second season.
Genndy Tartakovsky: That was this guy in the room, Aaron Springer. Everybody in the room cried laughing at that line. Itās just stupid enough. Itās for us. Itās for people who have grown up with all those things.
CS: The series is influenced by a great many things, from true history to modern storytelling. Do you re-immerse yourself in anything before diving back into the world?
Genndy Tartakovsky: I think theyāre there. I donāt think I watched anything going into this season. It was so fresh in my head and I was so excited to storyboard again and storyboard for myself. With this, it was so much more about the character than about making it different. Itās a different muscle. Making a feature like āHotel 3ā or āHotel 2ā is kind of fun and and jokey. It doesnāt take itself too seriously. You could do whatever you want, basically. Then this is more creative with pathos and mood and I want to tell each sequence in a unique way. It was great to flex that muscle again. Itās just me.
CS: Was it tricky to balance your work on āSamurai Jackā with the upcoming āHotel Transylvania 3ā?
Genndy Tartakovsky: Luckily, it was just the end of storyboarding on Jack and the beginning of storyboarding on that. They overlapped a little bit, but not too much. Plus, itās not like Iām doing all the boarding on that. I have a staff of about ten people. Itās about launching them and then you wait about two weeks for them to pitch you back. Itās different. I couldnāt do the whole season like that, but just what we had was okay.
CS: Is the āPopeyeā movie definitely dead?
Genndy Tartakovsky: Itās done. Well, itās done for me. I donāt know where it is in the universe, but for me, itās done.
CS: Do you have any interest in one day working in live action?
Genndy Tartakovsky: I do! Itās not my priority, because animation is my life. Iāve always thought that maybe I need to do a live-action movie, have it make a lot of money, and then come back and have a bigger budget for animation and do more with that. Thatās kind of the big plan, but who knows? Live action is exciting and fun and is an even bigger stage, but doing āJackā has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.
CS: Is there a continuing education required in animation? Do you need to keep up with new technologies?
Genndy Tartakovsky: As far as education goes, the technology has run way past me. Luckily, as a director I can just tell people what I need and I donāt need to tell them how to get it. That was part of the nice relationship with Sony Pictures Imageworks. I could say, āI want it to look like this and thatā and hand them a thumbnail. They could figure everything out. For me, itās really awkward. Going through television, I knew every part of the job. I could do the writing and I knew how to use the camera and do post production. I had done it all in my career. I always fell, as a kid, that thatās what a director needed to be. Hitchcock could do anything in my mind. Heās the director. That person has to be the best actor, the best designer, the best cinematographer. Then I came to realize that isnāt the case. You just need to surround yourself with the best. I saw an interview with Bernard Herrmann where he said, āOh yeah, Hitch would just give me the print and Iād put music on it.ā He wouldnāt even spot it. When I found Scott [Wills], I could just tell him I wanted this mood. If I gave him a color, heād throw a painting at me. Iām hiring him for him. Then heād bring me back something I could never have imagined. Thatās what you want. You want people around you that are twice as good as you are. That makes me look really good.
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