![]() The episode “Growing Pains” dedicated its running time to Steven seeking medical help at the insistence of Connie, giving Steven a rundown on the trauma he is still recovering from. Perhaps most talked about amongst the show’s fans, as the season has gone on, are the signs of mental illness Steven has been showing, in ways that have tied into how he has always been: focused only on the problems in front of him, to the detriment of his own wellbeing (“I wouldn’t wanna waste their time,” he says of seeing a doctor). But Steven has been tied up in the fight so long that it’s unclear as to what a similar experience would look like for him, his confusion leading into a downward spiral of anxiety, depression, and PTSD in the second half of this season. Each episode has shown what normalcy, victory, and The End looks like for other characters: on Little Homeworld, the Earth settlement for Gems, beloved characters are experiencing new things and moving on. Show artist and storyline writer Ian Jones Quarterly confirmed on Twitter that with the culmination of the episode “Change Your Mind,” Steven Universe as we know it had finished - and the differences between the main series and Future have only become clearer, as the new season mostly leaves behind its sci-fi world for slice-of-life storytelling, slowly winding down to a complete conclusion.Ĭontinuing the themes from the movie, Steven is confused about his feelings over having nothing left to fix, and what his purpose is after the fighting is done. It’s a task complicated by his adolescence the certainty of his childhood long behind him, the only thing Steven knows is that living is a lot of hard work, that growing up means different things for different people. If Steven Universe was about a seemingly ordinary boy learning to be super, about his connection to a history with far-reaching implications, Future, a 14-episode season, is about him simply about learning to be human. ![]() This opened the door to the current and final iteration of the show, which began airing in December, Steven Universe Future, an extended epilogue taking place two years after the finale of the main series, further exploring what life for Steven looks like now that his purpose as a Gem has been served. Steven realized he’s still cleaning up the mess left behind by his parents, and needed to adjust the idea of what a happy ending might actually mean for him. Steven’s songs about finally reaching his “Happily Ever After” became disrupted by the battle against Spinel, a vengeful former servant of Rose Quartz. The first response to this was Steven Universe: The Movie, released in September 2019, which showed that even though the story had effectively reached its end, the series was still capable of growth. But that arc is now over, and creator Rebecca Sugar (a former storyboard artist and writer on Adventure Time) and her team looked for new ways for Steven to grow, beyond the confines of that particular conflict. Along the way, the Diamonds’ began to appear, and a larger threat to the Earth and even the rest of the universe became clearer. ![]() In the original Steven Universe, which began airing on Cartoon Network in 2013, each episode would follow Steven and his caretakers, the Crystal Gems - magical, non-binary humanoid aliens: the prim and proper Pearl (Deedee Magno Hall), the wild and unruly Amethyst (Michaela Dietz), and the ice-cool Garnet (Estelle) - on various adventures, protecting Beach City from strange, often Gem-related threats, as Steven learned about his heritage and his alien mother, Rose Quartz. And with Steven Universe Future, a season of epilogue which just finished its final episode, the scars of Steven's lengthy battle are laid out as he learns how to live a somewhat normal life. Everything in Beach City and the gem Homeworld felt final, with a peaceful truce between Steven and his biological family, the once-tyrannical Diamonds. After five seasons and 160 episodes of conflict between earth's own Crystal Gems and the Gem Empire they rebelled against, Steven Universe ended with a visually stunning finale in early 2019, with Steven, the alien Gem/human hybrid, finally resolving his identity crisis as he realized he was his own person, not just a reincarnation of his mother. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |