Among my many reactions to the Steven Universe movie is that Spinel made all the way reinvigorated in the Steven U fighting game concept I’ve been working on - off and on - for the past few years. That is some cool, classic inspired animation and even cooler moves, and the gamer in me couldn’t help but remember Peacock.
Seriously, though. My opinions on the film are similar to and thus by now pretty well worn out by most, so no need to fully go through them. I will say that the film works well as an ode/finale to what came before, as apposed to looking at it as the next step in the story - albeit on that front it also works as a “jumping off point” should the series continue in this format in the future. If they continued to make Steven Universe movies, it would be convenient to be able to say “you just have to look at the first one to get the gist of all the characters,” and though there is of course still tons of stuff you need the series to really understand (mostly Diamond related), it does at least give some power to the recappy nature of the plot.
All in all, my belated reaction is that I quite liked it. It’s a good showing of why films like this that are made for tv really capture their charm when allowed to freely express themselves - I remember growing up a few examples of networks trying to force short movies like this that are meant to be smaller installments of series and less dramatically complete on their own into theatres, to general disaster, and I like that this got to shine in the medium it was meant to.
Also, newborn Garnet is adorable and hilarious, but you already knew that. Favorite song (of which there are many): Drift Away. I love a good tragic backtory, I adore a good Heel Turn, and quite like both in song.