Steven believes he has his happily ever after, but the return of a gem from Pink Diamond's past shatters his perfect world.
A song about Steven leads into narration from White Diamond, reading from a book to detail how Pink Diamond left the others for Earth, resulting in Steven's birth.
This is being broadcast to other gems, and she says Steven, now 16, is taking his place as a Diamond, only for the boy to say that although he is, he's staying on Earth. White has the feed cut, then she and the others plead with Steven to stay with them, wanting to adore him at the palace since he's all they have left of Pink. They acknowledge he's not Pink, but say he's similar to her, and point out they've been doing as he asked by dismantling armies, not harming others, and being polite. Pleased but unfazed, Steven warps home, where Connie is waiting to see him before leaving for space camp, which slightly confuses him since she's been to space. She's happy her parents are helping with her interests, however, and believes it will be fun, so she gives Steven a hug and a surprise kiss on the cheek, then leaves. Steven sings about how he used to worry the fighting would never end, but his powers developed and he was able to save not just the world, but the universe. He sits next to his dad, who is with Pearl as she learns to play the bass, and she sings out how she used to be just a servant, but joined Pink and found joy and love. Steven uses Lion and Lars's connected portals to quickly head to the beach and join Lars, the Off Colors, and Garnet, who details Sapphire and Ruby's fusion. He bubbles some food for later and asks about Amethyst, so Garnet directs him to the nearby "Little Homeworld" where displaced gems are setting up. He warps in as Amethyst, Lapis, Peridot, and Bismuth are installing the gate, with the Amethyst excited for the other gems to be able to create a new home. She sings about having emerged alone and sad during a war she didn't understand, but eventually found the place she belongs: with her Crystal Gem family. They join Pearl and Garnet on the installed warp gate and teleport to sit on a cliff, singing about how this would be a perfect happily ever after to pause at if they could.
Relaxing, Steven asks Garnet if the future shows permanent peace, but she becomes distressed and the sky darkens as a pink ship shaped like a pepper grinder descends.
The pilot (Sarah Stiles) identifies Steven and plants her ship, now with a drill on it, into the Earth. It seems to pump some fluid into the ground, and she leaps down. Looking like a pink combination of My Life As a Teenage Robot's XJ9 "Jenny" and Steamboat Willie with an upside-down heart gem, she recognizes the Crystal Gems. Pearl realizes who she is, though the new gem admits to having a new look and toys to help her crush their peace. Steven interrupts with his victory helping the universe, but she snaps that she's been listening to his words on loop and laughs maniacally at the thought of Pink Diamond now retiring to a nowhere-planet with nobody gems. She breaks into song about finally getting to meet Pink's "other friends," and wonders what they heard about her and did while she wasn't around. Using rubberhose style antics, she easily tosses the Crystal Gems around, and becomes angry when Steven asks Pearl to tell them who she is. Unsheathing an electric scythe, she snarls that she's the loser from a game Pink didn't know she was playing, and is glad to be playing a new one beating Pink's friends. With a single swoop, she poofs Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, but following slashes to Steven only result in strange purple lines across his body. She gleefully says that while he won't poof, he can't challenge her injector as just a human. He wrestles away her scythe and poofs her with it, but to his confusion, his attempts to bubble her gem fail, and his own gem has a strange light.
He returns to the temple, where Greg meets him. Admitting he doesn't know who she is or why she attacked, Steven shows the weapon and how it's affecting his powers.
Greg jokes that he's always this confused and points out the gems will soon return; Pearl's gem floats, but to their surprise a holographic clam appears around it. It requests a name and setting preferences, identifying "Um Greg Universe" and going with defaults settings, which results in Pearl with an older look. She ignores Steven in favor of greeting "her Um Greg Universe," declaring her eternal servitude before Ruby reforms, confused at what's happening. Pearl explains Ruby and Sapphire's purposes as the latter reforms, and Sapphire says she knows Ruby will serve her but predicts she won't last a day. Amethyst reforms in her birth look, and mirrors what the others do and say as Pearl admits she's indeed an Amethyst, but of a wrong height and muscle size. Pearl wonders what's going on and doesn't recognize Steven. The unknown gem reforms, but with her gem right-side-up this time, she looks different and happily calls him her best friend. Pearl gushes about how lucky they are, declaring her a "Spinel," who has a perfect cut and color and will entertain them. Spinel tries to play with Steven and notices the other gems, causing Steven to realize she doesn't remember anything, either.
Steven takes everyone to the injector, where he becomes sure Spinel doesn't remember, and to his frustration, he can't store her weapon in Lion's mane.
Steven and Spinel turn toward Little Homeworld, with Ruby and Sapphire only following when the latter foresees it, and they leave Greg babysitting. The others are just as puzzled as Steven tells them everything, and as they joke about how fast Spinel became his friend, Peridot examines the weapon. Bismuth swipes it, urging caution, as it's a "rejuvenator," which Homeworld designed to reset gems who were stepping out of line. Peridot wonders why Steven's okay, and he realizes it reset his gem, so now his power control is like when he was a kid. Wondering if he should call the Diamonds, Steven grows frustrated at being unable to do anything, and tears up saying Garnet would know what to do. With Spinel trying to cheer him up, Steven sings a sad version of the future song from earlier, lamenting how just moments ago they were all in happily ever after. Bismuth steps in that things are always hard for them, but Crystal Gems never give up as long as one stands, only for Steven to stay in a rut. He blames himself for their situation, but Bismuth assures him that, since they know who the gems are, they can help them get through this and she believes in him. She finally inspires him into action, and Spinel suggests the missing memories could be like a puzzle, so Steven decides they should give them back their old experiences. Though able to figure out what should get the others back, Steven still has to defeat Spinel to save the world, and will have to look inside himself to get his powers back.
I had an absolute blast watching this movie, and while there are a lot of sad moments, it had me smiling almost the whole time.
This review is a lot shorter with the summary, but I feel like I was working on that section too much and spoiling everything, rather than just reviewing. It's frustrating, because there's aspects of this I really want to talk about, but I'll have to find a new way to do that, and I'll keep it up for other reviews! In particular, there is a new fusion in this episode, and its one I think a lot of people will enjoy and I've already seen discussions for. At the start, it made me so happy to see Steven getting older, with his new design sort of encompassing how much he's experienced and grown. One of the biggest themes in Steven Universe is the need to accept change, which I feel is an important lesson to teach and is something people struggle with as they grow out of childhood, much like creativity. Of course, one of the biggest changes is that he now has a neck, which even Rebecca Sugar, the other animators, and Steven's actor made jokes about in a video. It's small and in a way is silly for the fandom to focus on, but it's actually a pretty important visual change to his design that shows his literal growth. There is an episode in which Steven, upon realizing the gems don't grow and change like humans, wonders if how his gem half will affect his growth. Upset at the idea of being a kid forever while others grow up, Steven forces himself to maintain a shapeshift that makes him taller, which wears him out. Steven's new look matches the current situation, which is set two years after he brought peace to the galaxy, as everything is drastically different from the start. At the series beginning, Steven was small, naive, and couldn't use his powers right, but now he's matured and mastered those powers to help everyone. Much like we can compare the original and new designs for Steven, we can compare how as a kid, shapeshifting practice led to him turning his fingers into cats, yet now he effortlessly floats, summons his shield, and forms protective shapes. Change and growth are key aspects to the series, and the creators show this with a simple design change and having Steven incorporate his powers into everything. For much of this movie, the change is actually backward, with the original Crystal Gems we know and love starting out in their newest designs, only to quickly be returned to their original looks from before they rebelled. Amethyst gets hit the hardest with this, reverting from her sleek, stylish look to a design of childlike wonder and with angular marks. Her arms and legs in this form sport rings, which to me seemed like the rings you might see inside a rock or tree, and this combined with her need to mimic others to find her identity matches how she was returned to just after being born. Pearl, fitting how she was meant to serve and is able to store things like a computer, is essentially rebooted like one, requesting a user and settings. Ruby and Sapphire look the same as usual, which makes sense given they're usually fused, but once Garnet returns, she has the splotchy design from her first fusion. While Steven only lost the use of his powers, since his gem was reset to when he couldn't understand them, the other gems' loss of their current appearances and memories was massive for everything they'd fought against. They've all been returned to how they were under the Diamonds' oppressive regime, which takes away their individuality and everything Pink and Steven taught them. With Spinel, we get both an original and current form as well, and it certainly stands out from a typical Steven Universe character. The way characters talk about her, it's as if she's the only gem of her kind, much like the Diamonds, and as such has a look all her own. Made to entertain, and as such has a wacky, upbeat personality and an appearance like a rubber hose character, and sort of like a mime. Thanks to this strange form, she is able to stretch and expand her limbs, even blowing her first into a horn to control her injector. There's a beautiful choice with her introduction to have the song she sings be a sort of hyper, jazzy style like you'd hear in an old cartoon. Along with this, she dances a lot here and in general, and is just sort of bouncing up and down like rubber hose characters tended to do. Spinel's current design is striking for these reasons and for her being so dark, with lines below her eyes that resemble running mascara and her violence. This show has always had a variety with its weapons, with each gem carrying something others don't, and Spinel's scythe stands out as well. We learn from weapon expert Bismuth that it's actually not something built specifically for her, or even combat, as rejuvenators were made to reset gems who were stepping out of line. This is part of what makes the weapon terrifying, as like we see demonstrated in this movie, it strips a gem of their individuality and experiences. Another thing that makes it unnerving is the simple fact it's a scythe, which isn't used too often as a weapon in shows and is associated with death. Although much of this movie is about change, there are also a key thing returning, which Steven even mentions: he is paying for his mom's mistakes. Given how Spinel talks about Pink and that Pearl is the only one who knew her, it's clear she is yet another character taking out a vendetta on Steven. We of course learn the exact reason she is so angry, and it's an aspect of Pink's personality that we were initially unaware of, but our perceptions changed over time. At first, Pink, as Rose Quartz, comes off to fans as an incredible leader fighting for freedom, thanks in part to the loving way the Crystal Gems remember her. Over time, we learn a lot of dark secrets she'd hidden: she bubbled and hid Bismuth from the others when the latter was willing to shatter the enemy, she could often be petty and childish around the other Diamonds, and even Steven calls her selfish. That's not to say that Pink is terrible; she learned over time and became better, but she did a lot of bad things that damaged those around her. Spinel also takes aim at the general positive nature of this series, at one point getting angry with Steven and telling him things won't get better just because he sings. It's a valid enough criticism to say that, but something I love about Steven Universe is that's not the only thing he does. Steven isn't just so positive he sings at all times and thinks that's it; he still fights and tries in other ways to convince his foes to talk, and is just positive he can succeed. Steven is a refreshing character because he's a return to a hero who is generally positive and believes things can be better and he can make them that way. He's had his struggles, like when he feared he wouldn't be able to live up to his mom's actions or when he and Amethyst believed themselves to be the worst. A lot of people feel like characters who are overwhelmingly positive are unrealistic because real people have problems, but Steven has his problems and I think in general a lot of people just think cynical views are more realistic than positive ones. Many popular characters have grimmer views, and some series are stuck with fans demanding "dark and gritty" *cough* DCEU *cough* but positivity can be perfect. More cynical characters are often ones people can easily relate to, but the positive ones are what we should hope to strive toward. In this movie, being positive is actually something Steven often struggles with, which is another new addition, but as we all know, if you think the Crystal Gems can't, they'll always find a way! There are plenty of sad moments in the show, and the climax is one of the darkest in terms of action for the show, but the general positivity along with Steven's determination returns it to its happy base.
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AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
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