Here’s Why Steven Universe: The Movie Has a Time Skip

One of most prominent details that’s already publicly known about Steven Universe: The Movie is that the film will feature a two-year time skip from the events at the end of the fifth season of the television show. Given how dense every single moment of the show can be, and how much information is conveyed in such a short amount of time, such a huge time jump feels incredibly significant — and it is, according to creator Rebecca Sugar.

During a recent interview with Sugar, ComicBook.com had the opportunity to ask a number of questions about the upcoming film, both to release before the film’s premiere and after. The following answer doesn’t spoil anything in the film that hasn’t already been included in promotional materials, but it does offer some insight into why the crew did what they did.

ComicBook.com: The most obvious thing about the movie is the time jump. Why the skip? Why the decision there?

Rebecca Sugar: Oh, gosh. Well, what was really exciting to me about telling stories after the events of “Change Your Mind” is that Steven has been affirmed as himself in a way that he never was throughout the original series. That in and of itself allows him to grow so much into his own person. I really wanted to show that jump in maturity that he gained and just this feeling that he made so much progress over the series just encapsulated in his new design. The movie really needs to feel like he’s arrived, so that has a lot to do with the time skip.

The neck is a character all its own.

Yeah, the neck. We were all really excited about the neck because how Steven’s head attaches to his body was always a bit of a tricky design solution internally. Some of my earliest sketches of Steven are me just trying to figure out how his neck works with his head and body kind of just being attached to one another with no neck. We were all internally very excited to finally have a full neck to draw on him. There’s a lot more you can do with him drawing-wise.

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What do you think of the time skip? Are you excited to check it out when it premieres? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things animation! You can also check out our full review of the film, which we gave 5 out of 5, right here.

Steven Universe: The Movie is scheduled to premiere Monday, September 2nd, at 6PM ET on Cartoon Network.