Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal | Adult Swim

Just stumbled upon this thread, wanted to give my thoughts:

Pros: I really like that it's essentially a silent program. The animation is good and works really well with the score and environmental sound design to tell the story in a vibrant way. Not the biggest fan of some of the creature designs but I can sort of forgive it for being a stylistic choice. The relationship between the main pair goes through a nice gradual progression and some of their back-and-forth interactions are fun to watch. The first and third episodes are really solid and I think manage to bring in some potentially deep themes on revenge, loss, and even some reflections on the violence in such a necessarily violent world. On that, I think the violence and gore level is roughly appropriate and done in a way that you see what you need to see but it's not too overdone; until the last episode anyway, the show doesn't seem to revel in it like I thought it would based on the trailer.

Cons: The anachronistic fantasy setting isn't really something I could jive with, and the last two episodes honestly went off the rails for me, especially the last one. The first three episodes, okay, at least we're dealing in the realm where it's just a handful of real animals more or less realistically interacting, but then you get all these weird fantasy creatures that feel more like every straight-up B-movie monster you've ever seen, and it broke my suspension of disbelief as much as that existed. Episode 4 just felt like one long and fairly aimless action scene, and I couldn't take the whole second half of episode 5 seriously. I was honestly too busy laughing at how outrageous things got to really feel the emotional impact of what happened.

Overall I give it a 6/10; it's not something I'd generally push unless I knew someone who I know would be into it, but I think it's solid and I plan to continue watching provided I can access the next batch of episodes when they come out.
 
Primal boss teases "crazier, more emotional" part 2

With the next five episodes of the first season still to come, Tartakovsky – who also brought us classics such as Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack – exclusively told Digital Spy that fans can expect the show to up the ante in the second half.

"We're finishing the next five right now. And I feel great about it," he said. "I feel like we're doing more of what we did in the first five, but pushing it even further.

"So it's going to be crazier. It's more emotional. Spear and Fang's relationship is growing, and all those kind of things."

He continued: "It's completely unexpected where we're taking it to. It's hard when you’re doing prehistoric or… you know, those type of things. There's a lot of cliché things you go to, right? That's very natural. You want to do this. You want to do A, B and C, and what's been done in the past, and it's good.

"What we're doing is the opposite of that. So again, it's kind of more risky, storytelling-wise, but it is so dramatic and impactful that I'm very excited about it. And why not? I mean, with all the streaming and everything, there's so much competition.

"You've got to do something to stand out. And I think that we're just at the beginning of all that."

Speaking about the possibility of a second season, Tartakovsky said that there are no guarantees, but he's hopeful of getting the green light.
 
They gave Ballmasterz a second season and have greenlit Mike Tyson Mysteries over and over, I think he'll be ok.
 
This does kind of seem to hint that
Fang was not dead at the end of episode 5.
 
Yeah this is great news and I absolutely cannot wait for Season 2.
 
This does kind of seem to hint that
Fang was not dead at the end of episode 5.

I didn't know people thought she really was. We knew more episodes were coming and that was pretty much a cliffhanger ending.
 
Apparently, there was a new episode of Primal at midnight! No joke!

 
april fools, i know
 
April Fool’s joke, or is it really not? Any way to watch it if it isn’t?
 
Can confirm it's real; I watched it online last night. Its definitely not the next chronological episode in the overall story, judging by what happens (and doesn't) in it, which makes me think that it was definitely planned to be a Halloween special and they decided to air it now because of seemingly obvious thematic reasons.

I don't know how I felt about this one; the last few episodes of the show really felt like they reveled in the violence rather than just showing it more matter-of-factly like they did early on. This might be the most mixed I've felt so far with this show, especially the opening action sequence which I both loved and hated. After the opening though, the rest of the episode just feels really repetitive and starts to contradict its own logic. They tried to do the "sympathizing the monster" angle again this time but it didn't work nearly as well for me as it did with the mammoth episode.

All that said, while I haven't been a huge fan of Primal's creature designs (mostly because I find them kinda bland, not necessarily for the inaccuracies), the sauropods were nicely done overall, no doubt thanks to paleoartist David Krentz being involved enough to be credited on this episode. (He also did the mammoth one.) I especially like that they designed the hands (and feet) properly, and we definitely get to see them used.
 
I really enjoyed the newest episode, but I can understand if the level of gore and violence is just too much for some people. This episode was just insanity from beginning to end and equally brutal, horrific and tragic IMO. I don't know about anyone else, but damn did I feel bad for that Sauropod, especially with how it ended. Their were some really great character moments between Spear and Fang too.
 
Genndy just did an interview with Collider where he confirmed the next five episodes are supposed to come out in the fall.



He talks about how the show was developed, it’s influences, among other things like Dexter’s Lab, Samurai Jack, Clone Wars, Hotel Transylvania, working on Iron Man 2 and his next two projects with Sony Animation.

Great interview!
 
I would love it if Favreau could try to offer him an episode of Mandalorian S3. After all, he does say in the interview, that Favreau took influence from Samurai Jack for Iron Man 1.

Plus, I really want to see Tartakovsky return to the Star Wars Universe! Was a huge fan of Clone Wars growing up.

 

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