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August 27, 2019 10:28 AM   Subscribe

In preparation for its October airing, Adult Swim has released a two minute trailer for Genndy Tartakovsky's new miniseries, Primal. (SLYT)

Primal previously on the Blue.
posted by NoxAeternum (40 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Jesus, that is some gore. Makes me miss the inky black robot blood of the Samurai Jack days.
posted by Think_Long at 10:32 AM on August 27, 2019 [3 favorites]


Yuck, featherless dinos. Can't wait for feather dinos to become the default in fiction media, Genndy's an old fart, so I can get his attachment to corny looking dinos, just saying when the next generation gets to making cartoons I hope they have the good sense to feather it up!

This was an interesting trailer, wasn't expecting this art/animation style but you can still see his hallmarks in here. However, I'm a lot less interested these days in following some dude go around doing a bunch of "badass violence."
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:36 AM on August 27, 2019 [7 favorites]


Looks mellow.
posted by Liquidwolf at 10:44 AM on August 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


You know, if the Herculoids had popped up I'd have likely squeed with glee.   As it was, I kept wondering why there dinosaurs and mammoths side by side.  Animation was neat though, I'll hand 'em that.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:45 AM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


Yuck, featherless dinos.

In dinosaur/caveman stuff featherless dinos are cannon.
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:47 AM on August 27, 2019 [12 favorites]


For anyone looking forward to this, I'm honestly curious to hear why.
posted by kokaku at 10:47 AM on August 27, 2019 [3 favorites]


I'm with kakaku. Absolutely nothing about that appealed on any level.
posted by dobbs at 10:56 AM on August 27, 2019


@kokaku For me, Genndy Tartakovsky made some of my favorite animated series of all time: Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack. Those two series could loosely be described as "kawaii superhero" and "future samurai", but both were so much more than that, for me. This new series really doesn't look like my cup of tea, but I'll give it a shot on faith. There's probably something there.
posted by clinthowarth at 10:59 AM on August 27, 2019 [5 favorites]


Because 2019 desperately needed a cartoon about a lone murderous muscle man that was made by a bunch of dudes.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:10 AM on August 27, 2019 [5 favorites]


This show is the work of Aku, I know it.
posted by Catblack at 11:18 AM on August 27, 2019 [5 favorites]


I love me some Tartakovsky but had to nope out at cavemen existing at same as dinos.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 11:19 AM on August 27, 2019 [3 favorites]


I mean, done correctly, this could be great, but I'm not getting that feeling from this. It feels like eating-an-entire-cheesecake-indulgent.

I guess he's exploring more mature themes but honestly in my years of adult life I have never punched a dinosaur so hard it exploded.
posted by Query at 11:26 AM on August 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


Apropos not much in particular, I should get a Frylock tattoo.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:51 AM on August 27, 2019 [4 favorites]


I mean, I can shrug at the "alternate timeline with humans + dinos" I guess, BUT

--Human beings on their own, even if they had a Dino Friend, isn't a good way to stay alive. Where are all the other humans? Break a leg or get old and you are toast, buddy.
--Related: it's dumb to take the risk of killing an entire fucking mammoth for food for one dude and his dino-friend. Learn to gather, or kill small prey, asshole.
--I have never thought "yeah I'd love to see an animated slow-mo guts explosion"

This is so over-the-top dudely it approaches parody. Is he going to hit women on the head and drag them by their hair too?
posted by emjaybee at 12:10 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


Is it just me or does dude really look like Kronar?

Sorcery.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:45 PM on August 27, 2019 [11 favorites]


i think the caveman cartoon looks like a cool pulpy throwback and there's no need to take it so seriously
posted by JimBennett at 1:19 PM on August 27, 2019 [5 favorites]


Chill out about the Dino and Caveman coexisting. Feels like any second Neil Degrasse Tyson is gonna come up in here and tell us about the scientific inaccuracies of this animated fantasy.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:21 PM on August 27, 2019 [7 favorites]


For me, Genndy Tartakovsky made some of my favorite animated series of all time: Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack.

I usually hear Tartakovsky talked about for Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Clone Wars, but not Powerpuff Girls. He was involved, of course, but not in a creative capacity; that honor falls to Craig McCracken.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:37 PM on August 27, 2019 [4 favorites]


That poor mastodon.
posted by gottabefunky at 1:40 PM on August 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


thag simmons rides again
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 2:15 PM on August 27, 2019 [4 favorites]


Wow, tough crowd. I think it looks kinda cool, but I liked the Netflix Castlevania, too.
posted by lkc at 2:21 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


"Here's some more of my ideas on what it is to be a man in the world."
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:37 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


Death and glory! Victory at sea!
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:06 PM on August 27, 2019 [3 favorites]


Makes me nostalgic for zombie stuff.
posted by missmobtown at 3:41 PM on August 27, 2019


For anyone looking forward to this, I'm honestly curious to hear why.

First of all, there's a lot of things featured on the blue that you might not like. Feel free to pass on by, you don't have to drop in and ask for it to be explained to you as to why something is good. To come into this thread and ask why this might be good - as opposed to, say, using google - is rude, and a sign of unrecognised privilege.

Second of all, Tartakovsky has absolutely earned his chops, paid his dues, and laid the groundwork for the current period of excellent animation that we are living through. If you've enjoyed any animation in the past ten years, then you've been watching things that have been influenced by the work of Tartakovsky. Whether you like his work or not, whether you regard the genre of 'caveman-pulp' as flawed or fun, Tartakovsky's finally making something that is his. He's not working within the boundaries of Saturday morning breakfast cartoons, he's not doing some Star Wars spin off, this is (being sold as) a top level creator giving you his unfettered vision.

So, some people are extremely excited to see what Tartakovsky can do. Will it be good? Why is it in this weird caveman-and-dinosaurs genre? I can't answer that sort of question. But as to why people might look forward to a piece of media presented to them in 2019, it requires that you contextualise the source. My guess is that people aren't looking forward to it because they want to vicariously live their dreams of smashing up wooly mammoths, but rather because the auteur who created the great cartoons of their childhood, and possibly their children's childhood, is making something 'adult' for the first time.
posted by The River Ivel at 5:30 PM on August 27, 2019 [15 favorites]


Is it just me or does dude really look like Kronar?

See, I could really go for an Oglaf series, something between the one-off cartoons and the longer-form stories with Ivan, Greir, and Navaan; even with the likelihood that it would be highly-bowdlerized, it could be a lot of fun. Not so much this kill-and-kill-again stuff.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:53 PM on August 27, 2019 [3 favorites]


Tartakovsky's stuff was in a lot of ways formative for the aesthetic I used all throughout art school. I grew up with animation nerds - my old best friend is an animator now - and film nerds, and although all my work is static the way movement and framing tells stories has always been really important to me. He used these qualities to greater effect than anyone else in cartoons at the time. Gore isn't my thing, but this feels like two minutes of him doing his favorite stuff. If that's what the rest of the show is, I'm excited to see it.
posted by Mizu at 6:32 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


I, for one, cannot wait for this. I think that everyone complaining that cavemen and dinosaurs didn't live together, or that the dinosaurs should have feathers, or whatever the hell else is bothering you simply do not get it. Why are you upset that this isn't some kind of animated Ken Burns documentary? I think the premise of the show is great! I'm 59 years old, and my inner 8-year old is gonna eat this up like it was chocolate-coated crack!

To each there own, of course. Not everyone is going to like everything, and that's okay. But I honestly feel bad that so many of the people commenting on this so far seem to be jaded to the point that they won't be able to get the same enjoyment out of this as the rest of us will. Condolences on the death of your inner children. I hope you all gave them a nice funeral.
posted by Quasimike at 6:46 PM on August 27, 2019 [6 favorites]


Ditto. It's knowing that you've seen Genndy's name pop up in the credits of things you thoroughly enjoyed often enough to know that you'll probably really like it. Just like having an author you like that you want to check out their new book. They don't disappoint you enough for you not to like them.

Me myself am really waiting for the new Invader Zim and still sad over Kyo-Ani-Me because it's really sad when names you know are no longer and really joyous when names you know pop up yet again.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:54 PM on August 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


Me myself am really waiting for the new Invader Zim

It's out already - go and watch!
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:13 PM on August 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


What I've always wanted is for Gendy Tartakovsky and Guillermo del Toro to team up on something. I don't know how I can make this happen. Maybe Primal will have enough monsters to catch del Toro's attention.
posted by Mizu at 9:09 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


To come into this thread and ask why this might be good - as opposed to, say, using google - is rude, and a sign of unrecognised privilege.

Not super thrilled with appropriating the concept of privilege just to get a scolding "let me google that for you" jab in.

Dexter's Lab, the Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack are all, you know, fun. This looks Tartakovsky mashed Conan the Barbarian together with dinosaurs but somehow made it joyless. Not unreasonable to ask what people are getting out of it.
posted by JDHarper at 10:08 PM on August 27, 2019 [4 favorites]


The fact that this is splitting people's opinions as starkly as it is is interesting to me in and of itself. You're calling his previous work fun and I totally agree with you, but it was also marketed to a very different audience with very different expectations for cartoons. That we even have those different expectations and audiences today is in part due to Tartakovsky. If you revisit something like Dexter's Lab, there's a lot of dark and shocking moments that get drowned out by the candy colored shenanigans.

There's an undercurrent to his work that I think might get explored in Primal that hasn't been on full display yet. All animation is highly collaborative, so who are the different artists he's working with now? What opportunities are they getting? What is joyless to you might be freedom to use a talent to express previously unsaid things to another. Beyond its visual framing and the physical action of the characters, I'm interested in what appears to be wordless storytelling. That's very difficult, especially when you main characters for example don't have a full range of human facial expressions - how much are we going to care about the dino buddy? What emotions are going to be manipulated? I want to find out.

If it's divisive, that's perfectly fine. Media consumption is so faceted now, there's a specific thing for everyone. If this isn't for most people, that's okay. I think it's fine to ask what folks are hoping to get out of this. I never understood the appeal of Game of Thrones, for example, and everyone loved the hell out of that (until the last season.) I wasn't welcome to come in and shit on discussion about it, of course, but honestly I don't think anybody's done that here. It's just a preview. People are allowed to be unmoved by it.
posted by Mizu at 10:48 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


It's knowing that you've seen Genndy's name pop up in the credits of things you thoroughly enjoyed often enough to know that you'll probably really like it.

This one's tricky for me, as I was super hyped to see Samurai Jack get a final season. And in places, it was everything I wanted from it and more. But then the whole "sexualizing near-child soldiers" thing started tasting really bitter in my mouth, and I had to start doing the anime-type caveat of "It's really great! If you ignore the questionable sexual dynamics. And the kinda fetishy situations the love interest gets set up into. And how often 'He's really old but well-preserved, she's just out of her murder-cadre training' comes up, and..."
And I've gotten better at realizing quicker that when I start having to do that; maybe it's time to stop recommending it.

So on the one hand, I'm with you, I really want to be excited by this in a 100% unalloyed "Yessss!" way. But with how that went, I'm on higher alert than I'd like to have to be with this.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:33 PM on August 27, 2019 [2 favorites]


Condolences on the death of your inner children. I hope you all gave them a nice funeral.

My inner child thinks birds are cool and would like to see more birdlike dinosaurs.
posted by Pyry at 12:23 AM on August 28, 2019 [3 favorites]


My inner child is alive and healthy, thanks, and even as an actual child I'm pretty sure that I knew that people had different tastes in things and that that was OK.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:57 AM on August 28, 2019


Not unreasonable to ask what people are getting out of it

If that's what was actually being asked (even asked "honestly"), which is debatable.
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:04 AM on August 28, 2019 [2 favorites]


“Genndy Tartakovsky | Reading the Action”—Any-Mation, 24 July 2017
posted by ob1quixote at 4:32 PM on August 28, 2019


To come into this thread and ask why this might be good - as opposed to, say, using google - is rude, and a sign of unrecognised privilege.

And this is why I've stopped visiting or posting to this site.
See y'all.
posted by the sobsister at 7:02 PM on August 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


Adult Swim has released a scene from the series.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:06 AM on September 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


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