Steven Universe: The Movie Releases First Full Clip

Steven Universe: The Movie is fast approaching, and Monday, September 2nd can’t get here quickly enough. In a ramp-up to the movie, Cartoon Network has posted the first clip on Twitter for fans to get a little taste before the premiere next week. Steven and The Crystal Gems meet their antagonist for the film after the gem interrupts a peaceful afternoon on the hillside near the Crystal Temple.

Cartoon Network’s clip also shows off some more of Steven’s powers after the time skip as he quickly re-grows a flower that he picks before laying down. Fans also get a long look at the new character designs that appeared near the end of last season’s finale. The entire clip moves and flows like the best of the show as the color palette and pleasant mood radiate everywhere until the new evil gem shows up.

After the events of “Change Your Mind”, many fans wondered how the series would press forward after what felt like a definitive conclusion. Steven Universe: The Movie is a huge undertaking, and on that creator Rebecca Sugar says could have only ever worked as a movie. She told Comicbook.com about it this week. Sugar was quick to give a comprehensive and thoughtful answer about how the film functions and if she views it as a separate “season” unto itself.

“It’s completely separate. Tonally I think it’s a little bit of a departure, too. It really is its own thing. but so full of the spirit of everything we’ve been working toward,” Sugar explained, “I like to approach different projects differently. I feel this way also about the children’s books that we’ve done. When we get to cross into another medium, also the games like Attack the Light and Save the Light, when we cross into another medium, I like to think about what only that medium can do and really lean into that. We have a new book coming out in the fall called The Tale of Steven, which is a retelling of “Change Your Mind,” but in a way that only could work in a storybook format, telling the story through page layouts and what it means to be reading a book. In approaching a Steven Universe movie musical, we tried to tell a story that could only work as a movie musical, and at that length, and with that tone.”

Steven Universe loves to play with tropes and viewer expectations, so it only makes sense that the musical would play into one of the audience’s biggest expectations in expecting new original songs. The musical format is the easiest way to achieve that, and it totally works in-universe because of how central voice and song are in the narrative.

Fans will have to wait to see how Steven and the Crystal Gems confront this latest threat. But, thankfully, the long hiatus is almost at its end. Check out our full review of the movie here!