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Spoilers to all of Steven Universe The Movie, do NOT read this if you haven't watched the Movie. I actually beg you to watch the Movie before reading this analysis.

So this title might confuse you, and I don't blame you. No, my mental health is perfectly fine - and yes, I know a movie is not a video game in the slightest. 

Today, I'm going to do an analysis about Steven Universe The Movie and how it's very close to being an Arkham game (the only thing holding it back is that it's a movie).

This is one out of the Canon Steven Universe Analysis Trilogy, with me covering three most prominent plot-points in the series.

Here are the name of these important scenes:

Change Your Mind
The Movie
Steven Universe Future

Now, there are two things you've probably noticed that are odd about this list.

One of them is that I'm starting in the middle of the trilogy, and the other is the fact that the quantity of the list starts small up to large.

Change Your Mind is roughly 45 minutes. The Movie is 1 hour and 22 minutes (82 minutes). And the entirety of Steven Universe Future (even the bad episodes) is estimated to be, at least, 220 minutes (3 hours and 40 minutes).

It's kind of weird, because Change Your Mind has, possibly, the most amount of build-up in the series, but only gets one episode to analyze. Meanwhile Future has twenty episodes-worth of build-up but merely half of them are important to the story and will receive an analysis.

I already did an analysis about Future about two or three years ago. It was mostly me defending the show entirely, as it was not really liked during the time (I have no clue if it's still being hated on to this day). But I suppose an updated analysis will come eventually. 

Anyways, so I'm going to get started with my analysis of this movie and how it's an Arkham game (and more importantly, what makes an Arkham game).

I'm basically going through the movie's story and what makes it good while explaining the stuff needed to make an Arkham game (you don't HAVE to make it a video game, it can be any sort of storytelling). I'll also mildly dip into the four Batman Arkham games without spoiling them.

Here's the four things required for something to be an Arkham game:

#1: Progressive Plot.
#2: New Topics + World-building
#3: Foreshadowing + Big Reveal.
#4: One Long Night.

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#1: Progressive Plot.

Something that happens in the Arkham games is that the story starts off with something simple - Batman gets involved with something with one particular goal in mind. But then gets sidetracked by something else and it ends up becoming a story that's constantly upscaling in terms of theatrics and danger until it reaches it's climax - which is usually at the end of the main story (side missions are not part of the story's campaign - unless it's Arkham Knight).  

In the Movie, we get just that. We start off with Steven being introduced to a new threat (to which, the Movie's description says 'his greatest challenge yet') and he needs to stop Spinel from destroying the Earth. 

But she rejuvenated Steven and the gems, before he rejuvenated her in retaliation. And when they all reformed, Steven is only confused and has many questions that need answering. 

Who is Spinel? Why is she doing this? What does she want? What's happening to the gems? How do we stop the injector? What is rejuvenation? Is it curable? What do we need to do?

But in order to stop the injector, and answer those questions, he needs to cure Spinel from the illness he inflicted onto her. And in order to do that, he needs to understand Spinel and her motivations. But he has no idea who she is and what she wants, but someone else does.

Pearl.

But in order to do that, he needs to do something to cure her from rejuvenation as well. But then he gets sidelined when Amethyst goes missing (because right now, she's a curious gem who imitates everyone around her - which is very important information for her character, but that's for entirely different analysis). 

Steven cured Amethyst and then jumped back into curing Pearl. In the meantime, Steven cured Garnet halfway, but she ultimately gets forgotten about when he made progress with Pearl. And when he finally cured Pearl, he then gets to learn how to cure Spinel (the details and specifics for Spinel's cure and revelation is saved for the other segment, so I'm going to be brief on this part of the story). 

After curing Spinel, she agreed to stop the injector... and then panics when she second guesses Steven. After one huge misunderstanding (or perhaps something else that wasn't a misunderstanding - I'll explain more later), Spinel reactivates the injector and now Steven has to stop the injector and her at the same time.

This was the climax of the Movie, and not too long after that, it ends with everything back to the status quo. Which is something that kinda happens in every Arkham game (minus Arkham Knight, once again). 

That's basically the entire Movie summed up in nine paragraphs. 

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#2: New Topics + World-building.

From game mechanics to storytelling, every Arkham game brings something new to talk about and a whole new place to explore (Arkham Origins DID give us a new place to explore, don't be that guy and say it didn't). 

The Movie introduces us to the concept of rejuvenation and a rare type of gem (Spinel). As well as it gives us Little Homeworld - answering a few questions we had after the end of Change Your Mind. 

While it may not seem like much, this was enough to fit into a film with a short runtime of 82 minutes. Of course, it could've done so much more if the songs weren't compacted into the story (I don't have a problem with it being a musical, but I just wish there was just a little bit more space between each song to give the audience some breathing room).

Spinel was the perfect villain for Steven at this point and time, and I just wish she stayed as a villain for a little longer (expanding more onto a hero/villain dynamic between these two). 

Back to the topic, when we were prompt with these new things, we had questions and we definitely got answers by the end of the movie. 

Little Homeworld gave us a whole new place to explore (visually speaking) without slowing the plot down a bit. And that's basically all I got from this bit. Like I said, this seems short due to the fact the Movie had a small runtime.

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#3: Foreshadowing + Big Reveal.

Each Arkham game has something big subtly hidden early on in the beginning or middle, and then it gets revealed during the middle or end of the game.

Spinel's backstory was the big reveal for the Movie, and this was foreshadowed in various ways before Drift Away.

Two instances I can remember off the top of my head are during Other Friends, Spinel said, "Who am I? WHO AM I? What are you even SAYING? I'm the loser of the game you didn't know you were PLAYING!"

And the second one is when Steven tried to leave Spinel during her rejuvenated state and her response was, "NO!" with a dark and grim look in her eyes (I actually found it a bit frightening the first time I saw her do that). 

You may have either didn't notice these details until your second watch of the Movie, OR you did, but had no idea what they could mean until the reveal. 

And when the reveal happened, it was... I can't describe how I felt when I saw it for the first time, other than shedding tears after going about six years without crying in a movie.

I can't exactly say that each reveal in the Arkham games really moved me (emotionally speaking), but the big reveal in the Movie is something that I never knew I needed to see and feel. I legitimately cried when I learned Spinel's backstory during my first watch and I softly shed tears during my second watch because I felt so bad for her.

Batman Arkham Knight tried doing what the Movie had done with a character that shares some similarities of Spinel (keep in mind, Arkham Knight came out in June 23rd 2015 while the Movie came out in September 2nd, 2019), but they did it so poorly (I'm almost wishing that the Movie's writers did Arkham Knight instead of the original writers). 

Spinel is an example of how to write a villain that the audience can't help but sympathize with. And yes, she does suffer the 'Pink Diamond Bad Fatigue,' it's so good that you can forget about it and enjoy it for what it is.

While this whole character arc for Spinel gets completely forgotten about in Steven Universe Future (kind of ironic), you can simply enjoy that her story was told in this movie and she gets a happy ending.

Not everyone gets a happy ending in an Arkham game...

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#4: One Long Night.

Every single Arkham game takes place within one night. And it's actually possible to beat the games 100% in real life during the span of one night - all except one, Arkham Knight.

[Jeez, Arkham Knight seems to be singled out every single time...]

Arkham Asylum, Arkham City and Arkham Origins takes about six and a half hours to complete the entire story + side missions (challenges and DLC are excluded - except DLC in Arkham Knight connects to main game [once again, Arkham Knight being singled out]).

Arkham Knight took me 13 hours to complete the entire story and all side missions... on New Game + (which is basically a replay of the original game, but with all of your upgrades you got in your original save file. But in exchange, you face tougher and smarter opponents). 

While the Movie doesn't exactly take place in one night, it does take place in one day - which is close enough to being one long night. 

The Movie starts during the afternoon (from what I can presume), and the sky gets progressively darker due to the clouds and the sun setting as the story advances. And when Steven fought Spinel while singing Change, it was past midnight. And when the Diamonds came on Earth at the end, it was morning. 

Again, not exactly taking place in one night, the Movie's time still matches the same as every Arkham game. And in case you missed my analysis about one long nights, I absolutely LOVE stories that take place in one day.

Maybe it's because I'm the type of person to who wants quick results, but I also look at it and try inspiring/motivating myself to be as productive as I can in one day (and end up suffering from burnout more times than I like to admit). 

And this is probably the first, and most likely only, time that Steven Universe ever had the one long night storytelling. And to be completely honest, I'm fine if that's the only one in the entire series.

It just makes it more enjoyable for me.

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And that's my analysis for the Movie. I got not clue when I'm doing Change Your Mind or Future, but I will do them eventually. Maybe. I dunno. 

Thanks for reading.

October 14th, 2023. 10:57 PM.