Never ask a gem what they think of a brilliant cut.
Let's play another game!
This time I get to win!
Lives on the line, winner takes all!
Ready or not, let's begin!
— Spinel, "Other Friends"
Steven Universe is no stranger to Nightmare Fuel, but for the Made-for-TV Movie, Sugar and co. decided to up the ante with a new threat: Spinel, an absolutely psychotic Gem who's arguably responsible for this page all on her own.
Spoilers Off applies to all Moments pages, so ALL spoilers are unmarked! Proceed with caution.
Teaser
- The first teaser
for the movie is only 18 seconds long, but it manages to pack a surprising amount of creepiness into those seconds. The camera shows an unknown heart-shaped gem, which is slowly rotating (and instantly flipping upside-down and right-side-up with each half-rotation), with its main facet reflecting Steven, Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet in turn. Then, the gem flips one more time to reveal the silhouette of an unknown Gem, complete with glowing eyes and mouth and a Slasher Smile to rival the best of them. The audio becomes filled with the sound of sinister childlike laughter as the camera cuts to the title. Something big is coming, and it is not good.- The instrumental song, "Downward Spiral" (which is based on the backing of the song "Drift Away" in the movie), is part of what makes the promo so ominous. It sounds like someone chopped up a recording of a classical piece and is playing single notes at a time, sometimes cutting off or reversing the audio. By the time the title screen appears, the audio sounds like it's glitching out and a shrill electronic beeping overtakes the music.
- The instrumental song, "Downward Spiral" (which is based on the backing of the song "Drift Away"
Trailers
- The trailers for the movie doesn't even begin to describe it. We get an even closer look at the antagonist, but aside from her appearance as well as her psychotic laughter and violent tactics against the heroes, we still know precious little about her- except for an idea of what her plans are. She makes her grand debut by crashing down onto Beach City with a huge Injector- and it apparently has enough to destroy Earth all on its own, as Peridot states that the Crystal Gems have less than two days before all life on Earth is destroyed. Her main objective from doing this? Kill Steven.
Movie
- Spinel's rejuvenator basically restores a Gem to what they were when they first emerged, and the Diamonds previously used them on any Gem that stepped out of line. It's especially creepy to see how slavishly Pearl serves Greg.
- All of the Rejuvenated Gems count, but the scariest by far is Pearl. Unlike the other Gems that simply reform, Pearl's Gem only regenerates when touched by Greg, being surrounded by a seashell-like hologram. She calmly has him answer a series of questions, similar to a factory reset phone and then regains her form and sheepishly obeys him. Rejuvenated, Pearl is often stiff and doesn't move, and when she does, it is only when necessary, similar to a doll.
- Because Amethyst was overcooked, she has no base form, only lines on her joints like a mannequin. Not only that but Amethyst has no base personality, copying others, similar to a feral child.
- When Spinel uses the rejuvenator on the gems, she slices all of them in half in one fell swoop and we're treated to a good five seconds of the gems after being separated at the torso before they finally poof.
- Before this, during the Villain Song, Pearl vocally realizes who Spinel is, but no one else knows her. When Steven asks her to explain, Spinel visibly snaps. If looks could kill...
- Spinel then uses the Rejuvenator on Steven. Much like with other Gem technology it leaves his body on the fritz but doesn't poof him which he nervously tries to play off as "nothing". Spinel then calls his bluff by slashing him again and again while laughing maniacally.
- Steven then manages to use the weapon on Spinel, slicing her diagonally and getting her across the face with her unhinged expression never changing. The cut half slides down a little and like with the Crystal Gems there's a delay (long enough to make us think it didn't work) before she poofs. Also, remember the laugh from the teaser? This is where it happens.
- Ruby nearly gets shattered by a giant anvil, and refusing to move because it would mean disrupting Sapphire's vision.
- After managing to get Ruby and Sapphire to fuse into Garnet, and Steven is heading out to look for Amethyst, Spinel tries to come along. But when Steven tells her to wait and how he'll be right back, Spinel snaps and briefly flashes to her darker self as she practically snarls: "NO!! ", thankfully she reverts back quickly, but it's worth noting that none of the other gems have reactions to similar deep memory things; Pearl doesn't even react to the sight of Rose, but Spinel is the only one who reacts to Steven bringing up something (even if he didn't know at the time), despite her having no memory of the event it's tied to. The implication that her trauma and damage is so deeply seeded that not even Identity Amnesia can get rid of it is deeply unsettling.
- The reason Spinel is so crazy. She was Pink Diamond's old playmate before she received Earth. When Pink finally received her own colony, she didn't want Spinel to follow her, so she told her to stand still until she came back. She never did, and so Spinel never moved for nearly 6000 years - that is, until the news of Steven and his friends on Earth reached her. Having waited so long she began doubting herself, and the grass she stood upon for so long having their roots entangling over her feet.
- Spinel was never meant to be a warrior Gem, being more of a jester for Pink, but, just untrained and running on rage, she still managed to be one of the most dangerous opponents the Crystal Gems ever faced, defeating every member of the original group except Steven. How many other Gems can do what she can and become genuinely dangerous threats beyond what the Crystal Gems can deal with?
- Rejuvenated Pearl offhandedly mentions that the Spinel we see is "perfectly cut". The only other gem described this way is Jasper, who happens to be a lucky fluke from the Beta Kindergarten. Spinel, being the property of a Diamond, would almost certainly have been custom-made by contrast - a child's playmate given the power to rival elite quartz warriors.
- During the third act, Steven manages to talk Spinel down and sway her over to his way of thinking by convincing her to give friendship a chance, successfully averting the end of the world. For a moment, it seems like everything’s fine - except Spinel still hasn’t gotten to the root of her problem: her abandonment issues and her lack of self-worth. She’s simply traded one unhealthy, needy obsession with pleasing a Diamond so she’ll be accepted for another - so the moment something triggers her paranoia, Steven and the audience are both swiftly reminded how unstable she still is. When Steven makes it clear he wants to bury the whole incident and forget it ever happened, Spinel assumes that includes her. She accuses Steven of using her, getting what he wanted from her and then casting her aside like she’s nothing to gallivant with his real friends, just like his mother did, complete with a plan to mind-wipe her. She swiftly reverts back to wanting Steven (and the rest of his planet) dead and works herself up into a vicious, murderous rage to attack him. This turnaround happens within the span of about sixty seconds, and it is deeply disturbing to watch.Spinel: "We can just forget this ever happened"...You mean, I can just forget this ever happened! [begins laughing hysterically] Wow! What a plan! I turn off the Injector, and then the moment my back is turned, Bam! Presto! Change-o! PROBLEM SOLVED! Well, think again. You're not getting rid of me that easy...!
- In the climax, we get to see the Injector in all its glory as it wrecks Beach City. We are also treated to Greg's arm getting injured thanks to a splash; said injured arm doesn't change apart from turning grey, which almost makes it look necrotic.
- It also went completely limp, considering the injector is toxic to organic life, it likely was necrotic. Greg was effectively running around with a couple of pounds of dead flesh hanging off him. Had Steven not gotten his powers back to be able to heal him, it's entirely possible that Greg's arm would have just straight-up fallen off, or at least would have had to be amputated before the rotting flesh poisoned the rest of him.
- Steven's weariness as he climbs the side of the Injector; at this point, he's so exhausted that he can barely even keep his grip, and it's clear he's running on fumes at this point. Even worse is knowing that even if he doesn't fall to his death, he's still heading straight for someone who wants him dead, with no backup and no powers.
- And then, during the fight with Spinel, she holds him by his arm over the edge, threatening to drop him one finger at a time. If it weren't for his last-second epiphany, he would've fallen to his doom there.
- And during this scene, while Spinel said a lot of scary things in the Movie, the line she says as she dangles Steven with a perilous fall, is the only time she says something threatening outside of her usual bombastic tone. And the sheer chillingly COLD calmness of the delivery, and the stark aversion of the Never Say "Die" trope easily makes it the scariest thing she says in the filmSpinel: Ya know, I came here to take my anger out on a bunch of strangers. But now that I know you, I wanna kill you even more.
- Also, her Death Glare while she says this needs to be seen to be believed.◊ Hard to believe it's the former innocent and happy Spinel capable of such an expression, and you'd forgive any character less brave than Steven for crapping themselves at the sight along with this line.
- Spinel is terrifyingly relentless when she isn't experiencing Identity Amnesia, especially in the climax; she even punches Steven hard enough to make him visibly bleed from his nose, the first time he's been hurt that badly in the show. The fact she's supposed to be a giddy, harmless and playful Gem only makes it worse.
- Spinel’s rubber hose animation during combat in general. The way she fights and moves is like some deranged fusion between Luffy, Maka, and an old-time cartoon character gone wrong. It doesn’t help that the latter has also gone mad and wields a scythe in a scarily sinister manner...
- Just something to bear in mind, but the entire movie shows Steven taking craploads of punishment, with blood being shown. Hell, towards the end of the "Independent Together" number, Steg is visibly pained and struggling to keep the form together. And once he lands, he defuses, with Steven looking close to collapsing. Matter of fact, he looks exactly the same as he did during the climax of "Change Your Mind". In other words, messing with his gem meant that he was slowly dying over the course of the movie.
- Spinel inadvertently destabilizes the Injector and causes it to explode, destroying much of Beach City in a mushroom cloud that can be seen from Little Homeworld. This scene is made even worse by Greg and the Crystal Gems, fearing that Steven was caught in the explosion, crying out his name in horror.
