It's dangerous to declare the existence of patterns based on insufficient data, but I'm the sort of person who feels like living dangerously. In my opinion, at least, there seems to be a relationship between the subject of dinosaurs and the creation of great works of animation. Walt Disney astonished audiences with the "Rite of Spring" segment in Fantasia, depicting beautifully animated scenes of prehistoric life. Following in Disney's footsteps, Don Bluth produced perhaps his greatest film, The Land Before Time, in 1988.
And so now we come to Genndy Tartakovsky, one of the most accomplished animators of the present day. He is the successor to the likes of Disney and Bluth, and like them his magnum opus involves prehistoric life. To say that Primal is unique in being an adult animated TV series that is not a comedy is to miss the point. While that is certainly true, Primal has a powerful, artistic quality to it not found in any other work of animation. The story is simple— a caveman and a dinosaur, struggling to survive in a deadly prehistoric world— but with no dialogue, the artwork does the talking. There is a great deal of violence, true, but it is always presented in such a way that it feels dramatic rather than gratuitous. Comparisons to the likes of Fantasia are perhaps not unwarranted. In short, Primal is more than an excellent TV series. It is a visually stunning work of animation.
Primal is Tartakovsky firing on all cylinders, flexing all his muscles as an animator. It is perhaps the most genuine example today of an animated TV series with a true artistic vision. In an age when most animated TV series are micro-managed to the point of losing whatever uniqueness they originally had, Primal has a true voice of its own. And in Tartakovsky's hands, that voice is as loud and clear as the roar of a tyrannosaur.
An Animated Tour de Force
It's dangerous to declare the existence of patterns based on insufficient data, but I'm the sort of person who feels like living dangerously. In my opinion, at least, there seems to be a relationship between the subject of dinosaurs and the creation of great works of animation. Walt Disney astonished audiences with the "Rite of Spring" segment in Fantasia, depicting beautifully animated scenes of prehistoric life. Following in Disney's footsteps, Don Bluth produced perhaps his greatest film, The Land Before Time, in 1988.
And so now we come to Genndy Tartakovsky, one of the most accomplished animators of the present day. He is the successor to the likes of Disney and Bluth, and like them his magnum opus involves prehistoric life. To say that Primal is unique in being an adult animated TV series that is not a comedy is to miss the point. While that is certainly true, Primal has a powerful, artistic quality to it not found in any other work of animation. The story is simple— a caveman and a dinosaur, struggling to survive in a deadly prehistoric world— but with no dialogue, the artwork does the talking. There is a great deal of violence, true, but it is always presented in such a way that it feels dramatic rather than gratuitous. Comparisons to the likes of Fantasia are perhaps not unwarranted. In short, Primal is more than an excellent TV series. It is a visually stunning work of animation.
Primal is Tartakovsky firing on all cylinders, flexing all his muscles as an animator. It is perhaps the most genuine example today of an animated TV series with a true artistic vision. In an age when most animated TV series are micro-managed to the point of losing whatever uniqueness they originally had, Primal has a true voice of its own. And in Tartakovsky's hands, that voice is as loud and clear as the roar of a tyrannosaur.