(no subject)

[skygiants]

I don't .... think I liked it very much .......?

And the thing is there were, like, three or four perfectly reasonable ten-minute episodes of Steven Universe in there. Spinel herself would make for a great ten-minute existential horror mid-season Steven Universe episode. The idea of factory resets -- you only need one in there, really, and it's Pearl, and it's not Greg that she imprints on, but when Pearl gets an accidental factory reset and as a result Peridot or Lapis gets a Pearl for a day and we do a deep dive into messed-up class stuff in gem culture, that's also a great ten-minute episode. But because it's A Movie, we can't have the sharp focus on any of these things and instead we've got to have a lot of inflated peril glued together by nostalgic retreads of character arcs we've already seen.

And, I mean, do I always love to be reminded of Steven and Amethyst's friendship and how much Ruby and Sapphire love each other? Sure I do -- there were a lot of little moments in the movie that I liked and that made me smile, because I love the characters and it's nice to see them again; Bismuth sang! Sadie had beautiful green hair! -- but one of the things Steven Universe has always been best at is slowly and carefully progressing its character arcs, and using each returning moment to tell us something new, and this movie didn't really tell us anything new.

I can imagine a version of this movie that I like a lot, is the thing. There's a version where Steven comes home, all ready to return to the vision of an ideal life that he left before the high drama of the ending of the series, only to find that everyone else has grown in his absence and his vision of 'happily ever after' doesn't fit anymore; where the parallel with Spinel is that they're both afraid of change and afraid that they've been left behind. The movie pays lip service to the idea that continuing change is important, but all the danger is completely external to Steven and Steven himself doesn't really have to change in any way so it doesn't feel like it really commits ...

On the other hand, maybe I'm just annoyed because I optimistically wrote up a whole list of stuff I wanted to see addressed after the end of the last season and the movie isn't interested in any of it.

Comments

[aquamirage]

yeah

[nextian]

MX SUGAR GAVE AN INTERVIEW LIKE "oh i loved the RGU movie" and the thing is, charitably, the RGU movie is an Exact Retread, but also the RGU movie is like, doing that for a reason and this isn't, it's just an exact retread to no purpose!! and it didn't feel like a BETRAYAL or anything to me but lord did that not need to exist, sigh

[aquamirage]

the mood is EXTREMELY SIGH LOW KEY BUMMERS

[skygiants]

the bonus here is I was considering doing a rewatch to make our third roommate see it and now I'm extra motivated to actually watch some really good episodes

[aquamirage]

remember.........this?????? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAbtya9GDOY

[skygiants]

I HAVE NEVER FOR A MOMENT FORGOTTEN

[skygiants]

My secret that can never be revealed to anyone is: I also don't particularly like the Utena movie (in comparison to the show.)

[nextian]

LMAO YEP

[skygiants]

like I've seen "The Answer" several times and it remains a lovely episode and if I want to watch it again I can just watch "The Answer" again!

[kiezh]

I'm deliberately spoiling myself by reading reviews before I watch it and... yeah, this is what I was afraid of. No followup on any of the huge issues the season finale left hanging, no compelling story that knows exactly where it's going (SU has done AMAZING things with 10-minute episodes that know what they want to say!)...

Anyway if I set my expectations really low then maybe I can enjoy some Cool Bits (Bismuth sings?! DO WANT) without expecting a coherent story with a point. :/

[skygiants]

Honestly, I was all ready to be like 'ok, the movie will wrap it up! I'm ready to emotionally let go!" and now, contrarily, I really want there to be a sixth season just so it goes out on a note I liked better!

[cinaed]

Ha, yeah. Like I loved the concept of Spinel and the factory reset thing was a neat and horrifying idea, but for a movie that talks a lot about change, nothing...really changed? Well, Steven apparently saved the universe but that was all off-screen!

I did love Connie showing up five minutes late from Space Camp with her sword ready to fight, though.

[skygiants]

The thing is you could explore so many interesting dynamics with the factory reset idea but this film ... does not explore any of them! Any one gem getting a factory reset would be neat and interesting but all THREE main crystal gems getting a factory reset is too much.

Connie's adorable Space Camp outfit is one of my top five actual favorite things about this film.

[landingtree]

I've just come from watching this. Sigh of agreement.

Spoilering merrily away: when I was watching the bit in which Spinel meets the diamonds I was leaning back into the sofa going, "No, stop, this is a terrible idea!" The whole thing with Steven and the diamonds has been that the diamonds are going to have to take him as himself now, and permit their family to be complicated. That does not seem to be what they're doing. Steven withdraws completely, the diamonds find someone desperate and vulnerable to replace him... I can certainly imagine a course of events where they meet each other's needs sweetly, but what springs to mind instead is, 'Let Spinel be taught friendship by someone who has believed in the reality of other people for more than two years! Do not give White someone to treat like a caricature of Pink! Especially not someone who was, ten minutes ago, using technology White still possesses to try to turn back time to the good old days before Pink cruelly changed, because that is not an intersection of ideas which wants to happen!'

There's a route to go down if you want an Utena-the-movie retread... Everything up to Spinel's departure takes the first half hour, inspirational songs about change included, and then the remaining hour does another darker loop on that. But as movie revisions go, I much prefer yours.

[aamcnamara]

when I was watching the bit in which Spinel meets the diamonds I was leaning back into the sofa going, "No, stop, this is a terrible idea!"
EXTREME DITTO, I can't believe they tried to sell that to us as a happy ending.

[skygiants]

The awful thing about the ending, really, is that it's such a convenient solution for Steven (and by proxy the writers) -- Steven, for valid reasons, really doesn't want to deal with these people who keep pushing his boundaries, and now it's great! He doesn't have to! they'll push each other's boundaries instead! -- and normally I would expect Steven Universe to be the kind of show that acknowledges that things are complicated, and sometimes people want more from you than you want to give, and there's no easy way out of that. You can't fix unhealthy dynamics by just substituting people for each other.

And, as you say, one way to do it would definitely have been an Utena-style second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse -- and it's possible we could still return to that in a hypothetical season six. But because it is so convenient I really worry that it's just going to be a way for the writers to Not Deal with the Diamonds (and Spinel) while everything goes back to status quo...

[aamcnamara]

I would respect your version of this movie a lot more than I do the actual movie, because, well...yeah.

My biggest initial reaction was, you timeskipped DECOLONIZATION?? So yeah same--it's hard to distance What I Wanted The Movie To Address from my thoughts about the movie itself. But I am not particularly happy with what the movie IS.

And as mentioned above, Spinel and the Diamonds is a timebomb waiting to go off. The Spinel who sees Steven greet his best friends after their reprieve from the end of the world and thinks she's been scorned and tricked, and tries to kill the world again...is not a Spinel who is going to do well with three Diamonds who still slip up and refer to people as 'lesser beings'. That truly was my strongest reaction having watched the whole movie--if they had landed that ending, it would have been an unexceptionable retread of much SU content, and I would have gone okay that was cheerful and colorful and pleasant, sure, that wasn't what I wanted but it was fine. But. For a series concerned with emotional realism and complexity, and people needing time and space to heal, that WAY missed the mark.

Plus, I want to know how much of Spinel's people-pleaser always-clowning personality is her vs the expectations of her type of gem vs a result of being abandoned before. The series has explored so much of what's ingrained in gems vs what they can do and be once they don't have those expectations from Homeworld, it was a really obvious gap not to go into that for Spinel. (I want Spinel to learn how to have healthy relationships! And be on her own sometimes and that be okay!)

Greg and Steven fusing was ridiculous/ly great, though, I liked that. And Connie at Space Camp. And more Bismuth! And everyone hanging out in Beach City and building Little Homeworld after the end of everything else. Just.

[skygiants]

I initially thought, when we had the "decolonization is over! everything is fine now! THANK YOU STEVEN UNIVERSE FOR SAVING THE DAY!!!" song that we were going to start with that and then complicate it .... to a degree more than just "resting on your laurels is bad." But, unfortunately ...

And, I mean, a hypothetical season six could still address that with a series of small and interesting arcs of the kind that SU has previously excelled at; the movie made me want that hypothetical season even more while making me less optimistic that I might get the things I really want out of it even if it does happen.

And man, there's SO MANY more interesting things to do with Spinel and her backstory and her personality than send her off in a way that's VERY OBVIOUSLY going to be a disaster in the long run -- like, I get that she needed distance from Steven and that's probably a good thing, but I for one would have loved to see some actually interesting, meaningful interactions between Pearl and Spinel, or LAPIS and Spinel, both of whom have had really interesting long game arcs about fear and purpose and abandonment. Honestly, I think that's another big issue I had, and maybe it's just the requirements of the movie format -- it's an hour and a half in which everything is just unequivocally one hundred percent About Steven/Rose, when the whole point really is that Spinel -- and the Diamonds -- have got to learn not to focus their lives Around Rose. And if we'd had any chance for Spinel to interact meaningfully with anyone else, I think that might have helped.

...I'll admit I did not quite know how to react to the Greg-Steven fusion, where did that twelvepack even COME from. But there were a lot of bits I did like! I rewatched it last night with friends who hadn't yet seen it and I did like it better the second time, knowing how to calibrate my expectations - there really were a lot of nice small moments, and I enjoyed everyone's Arc Songs a lot more when I wasn't kind of impatiently tapping my watch waiting to see what the next bit would bring. But as a whole story it really just doesn't do what I come to Steven Universe for..

[aamcnamara]

whole point really is that Spinel -- and the Diamonds -- have got to learn not to focus their lives Around Rose
Oh man yeah. If you want to do a story about Spinel and the Diamonds learning not to focus their lives around Rose/Steven, make Steven a minor character in what's technically his own movie! I would respect that choice.

But better yet...don't keep focusing on the colonizers' emotional travails. (Will never be over that.) Like you say, I want a sixth season to do the narrative work I wanted the movie to do, but I also am far less confident--having seen the movie--that that's what they would do, given a sixth season. Sigh.

"What determines a fusion's physical form" is an open question but I am willing to believe that in some cases it is simply what the individual parts of the fusion think would be a ROCKIN' BOD.