Samurai Jack and Dialogue

‘Sup peeps. Both Uncharted and Journey are free on the PlayStation store, which is cool I guess. I’ve mentioned watching Samurai Jack, I think, but lately I’ve been getting really into Community too, and I’m thinking of rewatching the first season of The Clone Wars since I have those DVDs (got them from Blockbuster when they went under years ago!).

I was considering doing another Rick Riordan Note, but I think I’m going to try making that for ImpishIdea? Something about responding to fan criticism, or Percy’s fatal flaw, or something like that.

Now, let’s talk about Samurai Jack!

[Also a lot of what I’m talking about here applies to the original Star Wars: Clone Wars 2D animated series too, because it’s also created by the same animator, Genndy Tartakovsky, and has a lot of stylistic similarities.]

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Samurai Jack and Dialogue

Since I’m going about two episodes a day with this show, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. One of the things that sticks out pretty early on is how light on dialogue several episodes are. There aren’t any with no dialogue, at least that I can think of off the top of my head. But there are many that don’t have that much.

So the story of Samurai Jack goes something like this: an ancient evil being called Aku threatens imperial Japan. The Emperor’s son, our titular samurai, manages to fight him using a magic sword, but before he can fully defeat Aku, the monster chucks him in a time portal and he lands in the far future. The samurai finds himself in a futuristic world with robots, aliens and mutants alongside magic and swords, and it’s all ruled by Aku. So he’s trying to go back to the past so that he can stop this dystopia before it happens, helping random people being oppressed by Aku’s reign as he does so.

In the first four seasons, while there are some episodes that lead into each other, for the most part, each episode is something of a standalone adventure. Aside from flashbacks and such, there are very few recurring characters--the only human that shows up between seasons often is the Scotsman. A couple of the gods appear in more than one episode, but it isn’t like they have direct interactions with Jack.

And from the introductory movie (or three-part episode, depending on what format you watch it in), the series has huge chunks of story that don’t have dialogue. Jack’s training montage, for instance, shows him going around the world and learning different skillz. There’s not a word of dialogue from when little Jack leaves Japan until he gets back as an adult, where he happens upon one of Aku’s minions whipping his father.

This made me think about dialogue, and how much dialogue gets put into screen stories these days, especially in bits that don’t really need them? Samurai Jack has fight scenes in which there’s not a word spoken, unless it’s with someone like Aku who just never shuts up. It’s in-character, so it makes sense. But considering that he’s fighting robots and monsters for most of the series, of course there isn’t a lot of dialogue in those sequences.

But there are other sequences that don’t have dialogue, nor is there much reason for it. “The Blind Archers,” aside from the bit that he’s being shot at, has an extended sequence where after Jack blindfolds himself, takes in his surroundings by listening to what’s going on around him, and showing us what he hears as he hears it. After a brief word to explain what he’s doing, there’s not another word in the episode until he defeats the archers.

Then there’s the episode showing the origins of Aku, and a huge chunk of the first part doesn’t have dialogue at all; it just shows you what happened. And considering that it starts before human history began, of course it can’t have that much dialogue.

Yes, there are episodes that have a huge chunk of dialogue. But so much of the actual action takes place without it. It sounds dumb when I put it like that; of course there’s not a lot of conversation going on during a fight. But sit and think about the animated shows that you watched as a kid. How many of them have absolutely no dialogue during the fight scenes. Usually there are quips, or explanations of what someone’s doing, or side characters watching saying something.

There’s so little of that in Samurai Jack. And there are non-action scenes that tell you so much without saying a word, and it’s beautiful.

Now I’m thinking of Samurai Jack as the polar opposite of the 90’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Have you ever watched it? There are rarely a few seconds that aren’t spent by someone (usually Peter) talking. 

Film and television are visual mediums. That’s something that sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often it’s forgotten. Yes, there are times where you need dialogue, and I’m not saying that every story can be composed the same way that Samurai Jack is; and it doesn’t need to be. But it’s a good reminder of how much story you can tell without having to directly say anything. You can great stories with sound and sights alone. The audience can pick up quite a lot by what you show them.

You don’t need for Jack to tell the audience that he’s pissed; you can convey it through his frustrated expression, and how he fights with much more aggression and starts screaming in incoherent rage. You don’t need to tell us that the archers are blind; you can just show us how Jack discovers they are, when he waves his hat out as a target and they don’t shoot at anything until they hear a noise. You don’t need to have Jack wail and moan about how much he misses home; you see it as he wanders around the ruins and has wordless recollections about growing up there in its glory days.

This works well by virtue of the story’s format, I know; some of this wouldn’t work as well if you’re juggling several main characters, and want to give all of them some development. But because this show only has the one lead, and it’s not too worried about inter-episode continuity, it can afford to not rely heavily on dialogue and still tell powerful stories that carry the series. And it works extremely well because of it.

Samurai Jack is one of the best animated series I’ve ever seen (at least, so far; I haven’t gotten to the final revival finale season, so who knows?). It’s easily the one that takes advantage of the medium it’s in the most--by showing instead of telling, as a good animated series should.

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