This post contains spoilers for Steven Universe: The Movie and the show’s prior seasons.
“This is not the end,” Rebecca Sugar, creator of Steven Universe and director of Steven Universe: The Movie, said in a recent interview with TV Guide, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t believe her. Steven Universe is one of Cartoon Network’s most ravenously beloved properties—a cartoon propelled by empathy even when it navigates the most complex traumas life can throw at its animated humans (or space rocks).
But after watching Steven Universe: The Movie, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more a masterful coda than a herald of something new. Don’t get me wrong: the flick delivers. Just look at the credits: Chance the Rapper, Ted Leo, Aimee Mann, James Fauntleroy, and many more are on the 38-track soundtrack (for, by the way an 82-minute movie). Plus, we get a bold new gem fusion (Steg!), and a villain in Spinel who is visually stunning and emotionally heart-wrenching. This is also totally a movie new viewers can enjoy even if they haven’t seen the show’s five prior seasons. Spinel’s first cruel blow to Steven and the Crystal Gems also carves some important narrative fat from the meal—robbing the Gems of their memories lets the audience focus on a now-teenaged Steven and his latest confrontation with the failures of his late mother, Rose Quartz.
And that’s just it. As grateful as I am that we have this movie, and as gorgeous its music and animation and story are, and as much as it totally made me cry fat wet tears, just like I always do when I watch the greatest Steven Universe hits, this is yet another story about Steven’s mom, his family, and how they grow together. The core themes of the movie are spoken out loud, by Steven: “All this ‘happily ever after’ stuff has made me forget the first power I ever had: the power to change! … There is no ‘happily ever after.’ I’ll always have work to do.” The moment he looks out into the distance, having won Spinel over with his words, just as he’s done so many times in the past, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that while this felt nice—and while the writing and animation and music and art direction were as strong as they were for “Change Your Mind” and any of the multi-season arcs that came before it—it also felt like déjà vu.
We’ve seen versions of the central conflict between Spinel and Steven play out before in the episodes featuring Bismuth, another Gem burned by Rose Quartz who ultimately sides with our hero. We later saw almost all of the remaining mysteries surrounding Rose Quartz and the Diamond Authority wrap up at the end of season five. And we’ve seen many of the themes of change and growth from The Movie play out in the show. All of this made the film feel more like a capstone presentation of the ideas from the previous 160 episodes than the rock upon which to build a new storytelling foundation for future seasons.
Nonetheless, I have no doubt we’ll get more Steven Universe for as long as Cartoon Network wants to keep Sugar, its first woman and nonbinary creator of a television series, and her stupefyingly talented team on its payroll. We could get future seasons or StevenBombs from the mainline series, or, who knows, a Teen Titans Go!-style overhaul (which, honestly, could be fantastic).
But what I personally want is for Steven and his Crystal Gem family to go out on top, on a high note. Steven Universe: The Movie wouldn’t be the worst spot to take a bow.
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