Trivia / Steven Universe: The Movie

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• Acting in the Dark: In a variation, Takafumi Hori guest animated both of Spinel's fights before "A Single Pale Rose" aired and didn't want any spoilers. Since he didn't know Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz were the same person, the crew had to give him a vague explanation of why Spinel would hold Rose's friends responsible for Pink's actions.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Steven's new outfit includes a jacket because his voice actor Zach Callison wore a wide variety of different jackets on set.
• Adored by the Network: The movie was given a nice 6PM slot on Labor Day, a commercial free premiere on Cartoon Network (in addition to a limited commercial airing of a sing-a-long version), lots of reruns after its premiere, and heavy promotion from not just CN, but other WarnerMedia entities such as Boomerang, Toonami, and even CNN.
• Based on a Dream: The melody for "Found" was based on a song Rebecca Sugar dreamed of.
• Blooper: After the song "Change", when Spinel shouts "Just can it, won't ya?!", her heart gem is briefly back right-side-up instead of being upside-down◊.
• Content Leak: Here.
• Creator Backlash: Steven's first Latin Spanish voice actress; Leisha Medina, left the series due to feelings that the fans never appreciated her work on the series (Alongside voice acting, she also did scripts and translated the songs) and constantly criticized her for the quality of the translated songs. She was replaced by Jorge Bringas for the Movie and Future.
• Cut Song: Peridot singing a patter/rap song was planned during the movie's development, but got cut for time.
• Defictionalization: A real version of The Tale of Steven, featured in the movie's Storybook Opening, was made as a tie-in. It is written by the show's creator and illustrated by its former art director.
• Deleted Scene: Multiple planned scenes were cut for time, as even the finished version of the movie was ten minutes longer than it was meant to be.
  • Amethyst was originally supposed to shapeshift into more objects in Vidalia's garage, and Steven had to explain to Vidalia why her friend was now a bucket and acting like she didn't know her.
  • There was one scene boarded where Peridot's robonoids dog-pile Amethyst.
  • There was originally dialogue explaining that Spinel's Rejuvenator and Injector were Pink Diamond's equipment that Spinel knew where to find because of their friendship together.
  • A unused storyboard sequence has Steven's entire life flashing right before his eyes as he regains his powers.
  • There is a boarded scene where Pearl shows Steven a picture of Bismuth and the other Little Homeworld helping the Beach City evacuees, but begs Steven not to look at the photo she took most recently before that.
• Demand Overload: Happened when Steven Universe: The Movie was announced at the show's 2018 San Diego Comic-Con panel, with both Twitter and Tumblr experiencing temporary downtime as a result of fans posting their reactions to the news.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • Rebecca Sugar got the idea for the Gems being reverted to "factory settings" after accidentally wiping her phone while preparing for a trip to Japan.
  • When it came to basing a feature-length film on a television show, one inspiration was, oddly enough, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. The conflict for both is losing and attempting to retrieve a foundational element of the series: the duo's television in Beavis and Butt-head and the cast's growth and experiences in Steven Universe.
• Meaningful Release Date: The official poster for the movie was revealed on Rebecca Sugar's birthday, July 9th.
• Meme Acknowledgment: There is a video of various cast and crew members addressing Steven's newly acquired neck and jokingly treating it as the most important development of the movie, much like the fans had been doing since the release of the poster.
• Newbie Boom: The movie was made to be a (relatively) standalone story and (unusually for a TV movie) is rerun somewhat regularly, contrast to the Continuity Lockout the series developed. Plenty of people who never watched the original series enjoyed the movie, and it inspired some of them to check the original series out.
• Non-Singing Voice: In the Latin American dub, none of the Diamonds sing with their respective voice actresses. "Let Us Adore You" and its reprise are instead sung by Marilyn Viloria.
• One-Take Wonder: Sarah Stiles spontaneously decided to sing all of "Other Friends" in one take (previously it was done in pieces); most of the final version comes from that take.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Steven is no longer voiced by Leisha Medina in the Latin American dub, being replaced by the male Jorge Bringas, who voiced Rainbow Quartz 2.0 ("Change Your Mind") and is known as the Latin American voice of Sonic Boom Sonic.
  • Elena Díaz Toledo retired from Etcetera Group, leading to Yellow Diamond instead being played by Yulika Krausz starting from this movie. She also voiced the Zircons in "The Trial".
• Production Nickname:
  • Many different staff members have referred to sixteen-year-old Steven's design as "Neck Steven" after the most visible physical difference, that being he now has an actual neck.
  • As mentioned by Ian JQ and the app Quidd, Spinel's original and current forms were given titles by the crew to differentiate them; the former is "Best Friend Spinel", while the latter is "Villain Spinel".
• Recycled Soundtrack: "Disobedient" is adapted from an instrumental track that Mike Krol wrote but never published.
• Release Date Change: Debatably; the movie was originally given the premiere window of "Fall 2019", and then the final release date of September 2^nd. This is technically in summer (with fall not officially starting until September 23^rd), but people will often consider all of September as part of "fall", especially when talking about release dates.
• Screwed by the Network: While it was treated quite nicely in the US, this wasn't the case with the UK premiere. It premiered in the UK Cartoon Network on October 1st at 8pm, without any promotion or network advertisements, and it was also showing on a school night, meaning kids would probably be getting ready to go to bed by the time the movie was on.
• Spoiled by the Cast List: On August 24th, more than a week before the movie's release, the Apple TV listing for the movie credited Ted Leo as voicing a character named "Steg". The name alone was a fairly obvious spoiler to people familiar with the series, giving away that Steven and Greg would fuse.
• Throw It In!: While writing "Happily Ever After", Jeff Liu misunderstood Rebecca Sugar and played the music for the verses at double speed. This made it easier to write lyrics recapping the main characters' stories, so it was kept going forward.
• Unspecified Role Credit: Possibly due to the cast list appearing at the beginning of the movie, and unlike the main series, voice actors are not credited to specific characters.
• What Could Have Been: The sing-along version of the film was supposed to receive a theatrical release on March 23, 2020 via Fathom Events that would be paired with the Steven Universe: Future episode "Homeworld Bound", but it wound up being cancelled once the coronavirus pandemic ended up closing theaters.
• Word of God:
  • During an interview, Rebecca Sugar suggested Steven's experiences in "Change Your Mind" were part of why he was able to finally physically grow in the time between "Change Your Mind" and the movie.
  • While implied, the movie never explicitly reveals why Pink abandoned Spinel in the garden. In an article released after the movie aired, Rebecca Sugar states that Pink left Spinel behind because Pink felt she had outgrown her, not realizing how hurt Spinel would be when she found out their "game" was just an excuse to ditch her.
  • It's not explained how Spinel permanently changed her Shapeshifter Default Form between hearing Steven's message and arriving on Earth, as that usually requires a Gem's physical form to be destroyed. During a book signing, Rebecca Sugar explained that the crew have long thought Gems could be poofed by sheer emotional shock (the kind Spinel experienced upon learning Pink Diamond abandoned her), hence Eyeball's comment in the episode "Back to the Moon" that she "nearly dissipated [her] form" after learning she was assigned to look for Jasper.
• Write What You Know: Spinel's backstory is based on an anecdote from Rebecca Sugar that also inspired "Everything Stays", a song she wrote for Adventure Time. As a child, Rebecca forgot her stuffed bunny in her garden and found it half a year later with its stomach faded as it was bleached by the sun. Likewise, Spinel was a "doll" forgotten in the garden by Pink.

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