I don't want to do animation to mimic reality. I want to push reality.
Genndy Tartakovsky
For me, I'm not a great wordsmith, and so maybe from lack of great dialogue writing, I thought it's easier and better to express a story through visuals.
I feel like animation's stagnant. There's not much that's trying to push the artform, and so, for me, I'm way too critical about it.
Animation is my love, but I think there's definitely room in live-action. I mean, 'Iron Man 2' was fun, and I got to see that world.
Doing simple flip books, I used to get such a kick out of it, just drawings and nothing else.
To me, the best of 'Jack' is when we have a very good, but small idea, executed to the nines.
There was a show I loved as a kid: 'The Blue Falcon & Dynomutt.'
Well I grew up following most of the major titles like 'Fantastic Four,' 'Spider-Man,' 'Avengers,' etc. But I had also a lot of love for the smaller titles like 'Master of Kung Fu,' 'Black Panther,' 'The Defenders,' 'Inhumans,' and of course Power-Man and Iron Fist.'
I grew up in the '70s, early '80s as a kid, and when we first immigrated to this country I went to a 7-Eleven and for the first time in my life I saw... back in the day they had this little spinning comic book rack, and there were comic books and I was basically drawn to them.
Trying to be a leader, you've got to be really sure of what you're doing and you've got to guide people the right way.
Luckily, as a director I can just tell people what I need and I don't need to tell them how to get it.
I'm a very happy, optimistic person.
I'm not as articulate as I'd wanna be.
In feature animation, it's kind of taboo to make a movie that's more cartoony. But I never really believed that.
With features, you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on production and marketing, so everybody's panicked because you literally have an opening weekend to succeed.
Stories are important, but I'm really into characters, and if you can give birth to a good one, that's true success.
You can never guess what a kid's going to find funny - besides, you know, an obvious fart joke here and there.
You know, I loved 'Toy Story.' It's a great movie, but it has some pretty serious drama.
Boarding for me, like in the days of 'Dexter,' was really hard, because I couldn't draw as well, and I had people around me who drew really well, so it was hard.
I've always thought that maybe I need to do a live-action movie, have it make a lot of money, and then come back and have a bigger budget for animation and do more with that.
It makes things very easy when the people you are working for have trust and believe in you and actually really like and respect your work.
I have been very fortunate for the most part of my career when it comes to support and trust.
Storytelling has changed. Shows like 'Adventure Time' have taken storytelling in a different direction.
I've always felt that kids are a lot smarter than we've given them credit for, but we've never given them a chance to figure things out as they're watching television.
You can't have a beauty scene for beauty's sake.
If you look back at Disney's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' or 'Pocahontas,' animated films were trying to get more and more real before CG really arrived.
Akira Kurosawa, David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock were the main inspirations for 'Samurai Jack,' along with a lot of '70s cinema.
I used to work until two in the morning every night, then still get up at six. Now, I have to help my daughter with her homework, spend time with my wife.
I always felt like as the director, I gotta be the best at everything.
Jack' came from... I had the same dream since I was 10, about the world being destroyed and run by mutants. I'd find a samurai sword, pick up the girl I had a crush on, and we'd go through the land, surviving. That was the initial spark to 'Samurai Jack.'
I don't like darkness in everything. I like my superheroes in primary colors, and fun.
I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, loving comic books, and they were much cartoonier. And then everything became super dark and muscular and airbrushed, and I stopped collecting comics.
I love 'Jack' as one of my creations and would never want to change it from what it was supposed to be. There was no reason to reinvent.
The magic of 'Jack' is that it's unique, there's not a lot of stuff like it.
I think the fate of 'Star Wars' is everlasting, which is great.
I watching this Disney documentary, and I'm not Disney, but I was thinking about Mickey Mouse and he became an icon. Walt moved onto other things but he made him exist. I was thinking, 'Wow, is 'Samurai Jack' my 'Mickey Mouse?' Am I stupid to stop working on it?'
Everything that I've ever made in my life is from my instinct.
I love the way the long scenes feel - one of the characteristics of '70s filmmaking is that you don't cut around a lot; you let things play out. I did that on 'Samurai Jack,' and it carried over into 'Clone Wars.'
There are so many sitcoms, especially in animation, that we've almost forgotten what animation was about - movement and visuals.
I love to have contrast.
I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have something that is your own idea get produced and then become successful.
I really loved that old UPA stuff, like 'Gerald McBoing-Boing' and 'Mr. Magoo.' They were simple yet effective 'toons that talked to everyone, not just kids.
The computer tends to equalize everything, all the movies are slowly blending together, the way they look.
There's nothing like watching hand-drawn animation on the big screen.
I'm not sure comics sustain mortgage, and the house, and three kids.
I read comics because of the art.
Besides kind of like the Wes Anderson, or, of course, a lot of the European movies, most everybody in the States, the big studios, make pretty much the same film. And we're kind of held to Pixar standards, or Disney standards, as it's kind of always been in the animation industry.
The last thing you want to do is blend in. You want to stand out, and hopefully in a good way.
Humor is the hardest thing to do. Action is so much easier, because you're just trying to establish the mood, and a pacing, and a rhythm, and an energy. Where, in humor, comedy is so subjective.
And there is no finer moment, when I sit in a screening, and the parents and the kids are all laughing at the same gag.
