'Primal' Trailer: Genndy Tartakovsky's New Series Is Brutally Beautiful

Genndy Tartakovsky makes his highly anticipated return to TV with Primal, an Adult Swim animated series that looked to be as ambitious and visionary as his acclaimed show Samurai Jack. But even the title, and the show's premise of a caveman who befriends a dinosaur, couldn't prepare us for just how bloody this show would be. Watch the Primal trailer below.

The first Primal trailer is as simple as its title suggests: the 40-second clip is mostly composed of a series of images that flash by, each more beautiful and brutal than the last. There are images of wild, threatening greenery, the main caveman standing in silhouette in front of a cave at dusk, and dinosaurs battling each other. Finally, in one of the bloodiest images, we see the caveman, eyes wide and intense, rapidly stabbing a dinosaur until the sprays of blood nearly wash over the screen. It's stark and disturbing, with bold animation to match.

It's exciting to see Tartakovsky unleashed after spending the past few years shepherding Sony's Hotel Translyvania franchise to billion-dollar box office success. He's returning to his old stomping grounds on Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, both of which aired his Emmy-winning series Samurai Jack (Cartoon Network with the first four seasons, Adult Swim with the final season). Primal is the first TV series that Tartakovsky has worked on since helping develop the Steven Universe pilot in 2013. But he's clearly used the success of those films as a blank check to go nuts with his passion projects, and Primal looks to be Tartakovsky at his most ambitious and unhinged.

Here is the logline for the series per Deadline:

Primal features a caveman at the dawn of evolution. A dinosaur on the brink of extinction. Bonded by tragedy, this unlikely friendship becomes the only hope of survival in a violent, primordial world.

Primal premieres on Adult Swim in fall 2019.