Unicorn: Warriors Eternal creators on the animated marvel 20 years in the making

polygon.com:

Watching Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, the latest creation from acclaimed animator-director Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack, Primal), in the media landscape of 2023 feels about as miraculous as seeing an actual unicorn grazing in a parking lot. In an era defined by sequels and reboots, spin-offs and reimaginings, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is that all too precious rarity: a genuinely original animated series with no ties to any existing franchise, a passion project conceived by one of the most preeminent creators working in American animation today. Even Tartakovsky feels like it’s a small miracle it’s finally here.

“For me, it’s a new type of storytelling,” Tartakovsky told Polygon over Zoom. “It’s everything that I’ve kind of trained for throughout the years, doing all these different shows, culminating into this one thing.”

While Tartakovsky has established a reputation for creating animation that’s as conceptually ambitious as it is visually idiosyncratic, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal represents a new challenge for the veteran director through its emphasis on emotional storytelling. “With every project I’ve learned more and with every project I hope I’m getting better at telling stories,” Tartakovsky says. “It took awhile, but by the time we got here and somebody finally bought it, I felt like Oh, now it’s fate; it’s destiny because I never gave up on it.”

The production of Unicorn: Warriors Eternal dates back as early as Tartakovsky’s time working on Samurai Jack at Cartoon Network Studios, over 20 years ago.

“It started around the end of Jack and Clone Wars,” Tartakovsky says. “I was thinking about what’s next for me. I wanted to break away from the graphic look; that very flat, stylized aesthetic of Dexter, PowerPuff