!!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!!

This article contains heavy spoilers for the recent film, Steven Universe: The Movie! If you haven’t watched it yet, do so before reading this!

Aaah, Steven Universe. Move aside, My Hero Academia and Gravity Falls, there’s only room for one favorite cartoon in my heart! Steven Universe is a wonderful cartoon OVERFLOWING with lore, music, and cosplay material! A modern masterpiece, with fans all across the globe, featuring the voices of the LEGENDARY Estelle, Dee Dee Magno Hall, Zach Callison, Michaela Dietz, and Tom Scharpling, it is full to bursting with an amazing soundtrack, heartfelt moments, and a story and characters that you will laugh, cry, and fall in love with. Naturally, everyone was BLOWN AWAY when they decided to make a movie, which came out Monday, Sept.2. Of course, this spurred massive movie viewing parties all over the nation! Here is my opinion of the recent cinematic phenomenon.

The Characters

Alright, we’ve got the basics, Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst, Steven (of course!), Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth. But wait, where’s Connie? Oh wait, there she is. SQUIRRELED INTO LIKE 2 SCENES IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE!! NOT ACCEPTABLE!! WE DON’T EVEN GET A SINGLE STEVONNIE MOMENT??? WHAT???? I’m sorry, this is very unacceptable to me. Stevonnie is a key part of the show and they treat it like it’s nothing??? Not cool! Whatever. We’ve got a bunch of cool background characters too! The new Gems that come to Earth to populate Little Homeworld are super cool! We don’t get any real info on them, but we do get a scene with the Heaven & Earth beetles from that Season 1 episode! Isn’t that cool?

Anyways, onto the main attraction: our AMAZING villain, Spinel! This AMAZING character is full to bursting with fantastic lore and character development! Like seriously, what? First, she’s a villain, then she’s a weird clingy person, then she’s good emo, then she’s a villain again, and then finally she’s a good guy who wants to start over with the Diamonds? WOAH, THAT’S A LOT OF LORE! Basically, she kinda had an abusive relationship with Pink Diamond, who she was made to be a playmate for, but who eventually abandoned her on a little space garden for thousands of years. Seriously, at this point it is really obvious: ROSE QUARTZ WAS NOT A GOOD PERSON. LIKE, SERIOUSLY. NOT COOL, PINK. SOMEBODY SHOULD COME GIVE THIS LONELY EMO A HUG.

Anyways, she’s got amazing stretchy powers, making her body like living Play-Doh. It’s SUPER COOL. It’s actually very similar to Monkey D. Luffy from the anime One Piece, which Rebecca Sugar, creator of SU, has said repeatedly she loves. So, maybe Luffy inspired? Probably. Anyways, she has this amazing scythe (good one, RS, I’ve loved scythes ever since Soul Eater) called a Rejuvenator, which resets the memories of the Gems it poofs. More on that later.

The Story

This movie has an amazing story as well. It begins with Steven in the future, now 16, sending out a broadcast with the Diamonds explaining the events of the show (this is important later, remember it). The Diamonds then sing a song called ‘Let Us Adore You,’ begging Steven to stay with them on Homeworld with them because he reminds them so much of Pink Diamond. Steven refuses and goes home to Earth through a warp pad. Future Connie is waiting for him at the warp in the Temple, and they have a moment in which it is explained she’s going off to Space Camp for the next few days (lame excuse for not having her in the movie, guys).

So Steven goes off to chat with each of the Gems, singing a song called ‘Happily Ever After’ with them as he does so, each Gem explaining their backstory in it. He goes by Little Homeworld, a new area of Beach City for friendly Gems who want to make their home on Earth. Suddenly, as the Crystal Gems are laying on a hillside after Happily Ever After, a shadow looms over them. It seems to be a giant machine! They hear a mysterious voice, and Pearl seems to recognize it. Suddenly, the big machine is revealed to be an Injector, a device that injects toxins into the ground, destroying life on Earth itself! Spinel, our amazing villain, is revealed to be in control of the Injector and proceeds to sing an amazing song called Other Friends, during which she proceeds to humiliatingly destroy the Crystal Gems, who are rusty from not having anything to fight for years.

She manages to poof each of the Gems with her Rejuvenator, an energy scythe with the ability to reset a Gem’s memory after they have reformed from being poofed. So after poofing Spinel herself with the Rejuvenator (He was also hit himself, but didn’t poof because he’s hybrid) He scoops up the Gems and heads to the Temple to await their reformation but is surprised when they come back without their memories, Pearl being convinced she is Greg’s servant, Ruby convinced her sole purpose is to guard Sapphire, Sapphire convinced she is to be escorted by Ruby, and Amethyst copying everything other Gems do as if she had just formed. So Steven has to get back the Gems’ memories, using past experiences. He helps Garnet fuse again and finds The Answer, he sings a song after fusing with his dad called Independent Together for Pearl, does a montage with Amethyst telling her about who she is, and then all the Gems are back to normal, and so is Spinel. She remembers who she is and tells Steven about her backstory with Pink, having been abandoned for thousands of years by her, in a heart-wrenching song called Drift Away. So she realizes her mistakes and goes back with Steven, turning off the Injector. But then, the Rejuvenator falls out of Steven’s pocket, and Spinel thinks he was going to betray her.

So she immediately starts up the Injector again and goes full VILLAIN MODE. LIKE, SERIOUSLY SAVAGE. So, after a massive, amazing battle(no Obsidian, sadly…) Spinel realizes her true mistakes after all and decides she should start over, singing a song called I’ll Love Again. Just then the Diamonds appear, having come to see Steven. They recognize Spinel as “Pink’s little playmate” and Steven says maybe she can start over with the Diamonds instead, so after a reprise of Let Us Adore You, Spinel goes off with the Diamonds, and Steven is left with his Happily Ever After. Now after all this, I know you’re thinking, IS THIS THE END OF STEVEN UNIVERSE??!! And I am so, so extremely pleased to say… NO! The sixth season of Steven Universe is on its way.

My Overall Review

This movie was AMAZING. ABSOLUTELY MINDBLOWING. I loved it, and though it was missing some things I think should have been in there, I respect the decisions of the directors, because of look at what they managed to come up with. I watched it with some friends, and we had the best time EVER singing along to all the songs, crying at the end, and falling in love with Steven Universe all over again. This was the cartoon movie event of the decade, and I truly believe it changed me as a person. (Fun fact: I liked this movie so much, I bought a SU movie t-shirt at Hot Topic the other day.)