More Than a Decade Later, the Beloved Samurai Jack Gets the Ending It Deserves
Cartoon Network
After a 12-year hiatus, the beloved animated series Samurai Jack returns for its fifth and final season on Adult Swim on March 11.
Samurai Jack’s road back to TV has been hampered by a number of false starts. The show ended in 2004 after 52 episodes on Cartoon Network, much to the chagrin of loyal viewers who were hoping for a showdown between the samurai prince hurtled into the future and the shape-shifting, power-mongering demon, Aku. Since its cancellation, series creator Genndy Tartakovsky’s has tried various avenues to wrap up Jack’s story and give the hero a proper send-off.
Proving that development hell is a very real place, even Tartakovsky, director of the Hotel Transylvania franchise and Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: Clone Wars, was unable to get a Samurai Jack feature film off the ground. But it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
“In 12 years, we’ve [gone to] five different studios to try and develop a movie, never really going anywhere,” Tartakovsky said during a recent Adult Swim press roundtable.
At one point, uber-producer J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) was attached to the film version; unfortunately, creative differences couldn’t be worked out. “One of the frustrating things was when I was working with J.J. on the movie, he [told me], ‘Well, it’s gotta have nine twists and turns.’ For him, that works really well. All his movies kind of have that, but that’s so not Jack. He can have one [twist] and then have the whole episode to really explore it,” Tartakovsky says.
After wrapping Hotel Transylvania 2, Tartakovsky took a break and mulled his next project. Sony had released the rights to the Samurai Jack movie, so he emailed his contacts at Cartoon Network.
“I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll just put it out there and see if there’s a bite from Cartoon Network to see if they’d be interested in doing [Samurai Jack].’” The network did more than bite: Tartakovsky says that within two weeks he had a deal in place for the 10-episode final season. “I guess the universe was ready for it,” he says.
Still set sometime in the future, the revival picks up 50 years since viewers last saw Samurai Jack. He’s been wandering the Earth, stuck in a sort of purgatory. Although he’s stopped aging (a side effect of time travel), the years have still taken their toll. With his mission a failure, Jack is in his own head, dwelling on his broken promises to his family. Not only has Aku destroyed every time portal that would allow Jack to return home, he also has at his disposal a cult of assassins who’ve been trained to kill Jack.
The show’s unhurried pacing, cinematic structure and the minimal use of dialogue were just some of the characteristics that drew a fervent audience to the original series in the first place. (Tartakovsky has mentioned director Akira Kurosawa and the Kung Fu TV show among its influences.) The new series once again features fantastic action sequences and beautifully illustrated characters and scenes. Despite their lighter moments, the first two episodes carry the heft of Jack’s burden and his despair. Even under prodding, though, Tartakovsky is careful not to divulge more details about the series conclusion. “I’ve had this ending in mind since 2008,” Tartakovsky says. “What’s great about these 10 episodes—since I’ve had this story for a long time—is to have Jack go through this ‘thing’ so that you’re really going to feel for him, and you’re going to feel for the situation.”
He does clarify, however, that Season Five will not follow the comic book series written by Jim Zub and illustrated by Andy Suriano, who was a character designer on the original Samurai Jack series. The comic books are non-canon, Tartakovsky says. “Sometimes the comics are their own alternate universe, and I think Andy did a lot of good art, but it’s not anything I would do. I want to make sure that this is clearly its own thing.”
What to Expect for Samurai Jack’s Final Season