The return of Samurai Jack has been a long time coming – 13 years, to be exact. Season 4 of Genndy Tartakovsky's beloved series ended without a resolution for Jack. He never got back to the past, and now, in the show's timeline, it's been 50 years. The world has changed, but Jack hasn't. But neither has the plan for the next chapter of Jack's story. Not really.
"Generally, we wanted to do what we did in the old days, but do it newer, do it better," Tartakovsky remarked during a recent press event for the show.
He explained they still wanted to do the same show, the same style, the same experience, but amped up. "The tone of the story just drove us," Tartakovsky said, "That was really the biggest motivation. The storytelling, because it's this one arc, was more interesting because now we could take our time, we wouldn't have to rush through anything. Where it's going is a really huge arc, and it's hopefully really satisfying at the end."
Tartakovsky wouldn't have been okay with Samurai Jack never returning. With a story to finish, he felt bad about leaving Jack and fans hanging. He kicked around the idea of a feature film for a while, and though that didn't manifest, he held onto his plans for Jack's future. He explained, "It's a big idea, and I don't know if I want to give it away yet because it comes around episode 5 or 6 where we start to realize, 'Oh wait, this is where it's heading?'"
He continued, "I wanted to do [this idea] in animation because I feel like it's never been done right and it's really challenging, and at the end of the day I really want you to feel. That's the thing. Ideally, you're gonna be more invested in Jack than you ever have before."
And Jack is in a tough place from the beginning of Season 5. The years haven't been kind to him, mentally speaking. Jack seems resigned and tired. He has a constant inner monologue that the audience gets to experience. Voice actor Phil LaMarr said it's been amazing to come back to the role and take Jack into new territory: "Before, he was very much armored, and each episode was just an exploration of a certain part of the world. It didn't really explore him. This story arc is so much an exploration of Jack. There's so many sides of him emotionally that we've never mined before. It was an amazing and fun challenge to try to take this character that I've been sitting with for a while. He's never really gone away."
LaMarr's done some work on Jack's voice since so much time has passed. "The voice has changed, I mean your voice changes over time. Like, your mom's voice. When you were 5 [compared] to now, she doesn't sound the same - but she sounds the same. When you hear her say your full name, the hair on the back of your neck stands up. It's the same thing," LaMarr remarked. "I know that Jack is the same voice, but it's probably, my voice has changed a little bit, it's probably gotten a little deeper, a little thicker. I tried as much as I could to capture where we were before. I think it was slightly thinner. But that character who's talking is not the same old Jack. It was a great challenge to try to thread that needle – to separate them but be the same guy."
Keeping some aspects the same was important to Tartakovsky. When he first started talking with Cartoon Network about more Samurai Jack, he wanted to do it on his terms. He teased that he told art director Scott Wills that if he would have received one story note back, he would have been out. He didn't have to worry though. Cartoon Network executive vice president and chief content officer Rob Sorcher liked the idea of Samurai Jack coming back and suggested Adult Swim as its home. Mike Lazzo, senior executive vice president at Adult Swim, called Tartakovsky immediately and didn't even ask what the story was. "Within two weeks the deal was done and we started going. That was just amazing," Tartakovsky said.
Going through Adult Swim meant they could get more violent with the story. Human enemies are a factor now, not just robots. It was tempting to go full blood and guts, but Tartakovsky tempered it. He said, "'Whoa, it's for Jack, we've got to do it with style.' We changed a lot of stuff. What it does, it's a very mature story rather than gory. That's the difference. We could have easily gone gory and made it Kill Bill, that type of gore. But that's not Jack. It's still stylistic and very designed. You're trying to do it tastefully rather than gory."
They don't have carte blanche though; Adult Swim still has censors. Tartakovsky said, "We drew a dog's butt. Just like a circle, little asterisks, very innocent, we didn't think anything of it. We got it back, they're like, 'No dog anuses on Adult Swim.'" The more you know...
Is this the end of Samurai Jack? For Tartakovsky, it is. "Once you get through these 10 [episodes], it's done. There's other things that I want to do creatively, artistically. But I feel like after this, for me, Jack is put to bed," he said.
But he mentioned the 50 year gap: "If somebody wants to go in and do those, what's happened in those 50 years... When we were doing Clone Wars, it was like, 'This is just a war. How many of these can we really do before it just gets old?' That's how it feels like. You want to get grander, and the finish is the grandest."
Samurai Jack returns for Season 5 on Friday, March 11, on Adult Swim.
Amy Ratcliffe is a writer for IGN TV. You can follow her on on Twitter at @amy_geek.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire