Western Animation / Steven Universe: The Movie

Due to the sheer volume of spoilers, all spoilers below are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

♫ Gee, it's swell to finally meet her other friends! ♫

Steven
Have you heard the tale of
(Have you heard the tale of)
Steven
Always putting others first
Can you imagine it
Ever compassionate
Steven Universe!

— "The Tale of Steven"

Steven Universe: The Movie is a Made-for-TV Movie based on the Cartoon Network animated series Steven Universe.

First announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2018, the film would see an early screening at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 26, 2019, before seeing its commercial-free television premiere on September 2, 2019.

Two years after the events of the series finale, Steven has finished his work dismantling the remnants of the Gem Empire and returns home to Earth, believing that his time defending the planet is over and that he can finally relax. However, when a mysterious Gem lands in Beach City, seeking revenge for being abandoned by a certain Diamond and armed with a large weapon that threatens to kill all organic life on Earth, he gets caught up in what may very well be his biggest challenge yet: facing off against a fragment of his villainous mother's tragic past. And with the help of the Crystal Gems (who have mysteriously reverted back to their previous selves) and other allies, he might just be able to overcome it.

Alongside the premiere was the release of its official soundtrack. The film was released on DVD on November 12, 2019, with a vinyl version of the soundtrack containing an additional eight demo tracks being released a few days later. A 96-page art book was released March 2020, featuring character designs, storyboards and more about its production. It would be followed by Steven Universe: Future, a miniseries taking place shortly after the film and which serves as the epilogue for the franchise.

The official trailer can be viewed here and the Toonami trailer can be viewed here. The official website, a rarity for a Cartoon Network series, can be accessed here.

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Tropes:

A-B

• Absurd Cutting Power: The sword Bismuth made for Connie is able to cut an entire car in half in midair.
• Actor Allusion: Steven and Greg's new fusion Steg, and Amethyst and Pearl's fusion Opal, have a duet together. Their voice actors, Ted Leo and Aimee Mann, are a rock band called The Both.
• Ambiguous Situation: While Spinel knows that Pink Diamond abandoned her for Earth and the Crystal Gems, it's unknown if she also knew about the rebellion or Rose Quartz, as she doesn't seem to care about how much they meant to her and kept referring her to her deadname.
• Aesoptinum: For Steven, the "missing piece" he needs to recover from the rejuvenator is to get rid of the mindset he'd gotten into of trying to make his life suddenly stop at an arbitrary point he's comfortable with.
• All There in the Script: Steg only had his name shown in the closed captions.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: This occurs with all the amnesiac Gems, but Spinel, in particular, is a lot more cheerful and happy when the rejuvenator's made her forget.
• Amnesiac Villain Joins the Heroes: Spinel gets hit with the rejuvenator, losing her memories. Without her help, Steven might not have restored the Crystal Gems in time. They can't keep her that way, however, because villain Spinel is the only one who knows how the injector works.
• Amnesia Danger: Spinel is the only one who knows how to operate her injector, so after she gets rejuvenated, restoring her memories becomes just as important as restoring those of the Crystal Gems — especially Pearl, who is the only one who knows who Spinel is.
• Amnesia Episode: After getting hit by the Rejuvenator, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl (as well as Spinel) get restored to their personality from the time they were created, losing every memory of their Character Development. Steven spends the entire second act of the movie trying to restore their memories.
• And I Must Scream: Spinel was told by Pink to stand still until she returned. But she never did...
• Animated Musical: In line with the show's own penchant for such sequences, the film is a full-blown musical with 16 songs. In addition to creator Rebecca Sugar herself, the movie features the collaborative work of several award-winning music artists, including Chance the Rapper, Estelle, Patti LuPone, Uzo Aduba, Gallant, and Aimee Mann. The pre-credits scene pays homage to the Takarazuka Revue, which has adapted anime and manga into musicals as well.
• Animation Bump:
  • The visuals for most of the movie look similar to a standard episode outside warmer colors and shading, but the characters are given more fluidity in their movements.
  • The sequences for "Other Friends" and "Change" are much more fluid than the rest of the movie, thanks to guest animator Takafumi Hori.
• Anvil on Head: Ruby is nearly shattered when Bismuth's anvil is set falling by Spinel's antics with the giant pizza cutter, which ends up proving the catalyst for her to re-fuse with Sapphire when the latter saves her.
• Apocalypse How: Class 6. As Peridot mentioned, the effects of the injector's power will push all organic life (i.e. all native life) on Earth to extinction.
• An Arm and a Leg: Narrowly averted; during the finale, Greg takes a splash of bio-poison to his left arm, causing it to wither and go lame. He’d have likely lost it, but Steven’s restored powers are able to undo the damage.
• Arc Words: "Happily ever after."
  • Also the Gems' and Steven's "missing pieces".
• Art Shift: The intro to the movie is done in a much more stylized design than the show, courtesy of Chromosphere Studio, who previously animated the Dove Self-Esteem Project x Steven Universe shorts.
• Aside Glance: When singing about Sapphire being able to see the future, the amnesic Pearl winks at the camera like it's a big secret the audience doesn't already know.
• Ax-Crazy: After she'd Go Mad from the Isolation, Spinel becomes far from sane, and brutally attacks the Crystal Gems in addition to trying to wipe out all life on Earth, all the while cackling like a hyena.
• Baby See, Baby Do: Uniquely, the rejuvenator erases Amethyst's memories and knowledge of everything, basically bringing her as close as a Gem can get to being an infant. Instead of actually communicating or acting on her own, Amethyst simply mimics the words, body language, and shape of whoever she's looking at.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Spinel is literally a jester or clown, looks the part, and even at her most villainous has some silly traits and looks like a 1930s cartoon character. She's one of the most dangerous villains in the series. Made even worse by the fact that she's not a god-like Diamond or elite soldiers like Jasper or Aquamarine, but is essentially a Gem version of a toy or pet, and she still manages to take out three of the four Crystal Gems, disable Steven's Gem powers in the opening of the movie, and poses a serious threat to the entire Earth.
• Black Comedy: When Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot see Spinel acting friendly with Steven, despite her earlier actions, they make jokes about how fast she stopped trying to kill him, and how it compares to how long it took for them to stop trying to kill him, with Lapis joking that she's still on the fence about it.
• Blank Slate: While the other Gems hit by the rejuvenater at least know their place in Homeworld's Hive Caste System and even the specific job they were made for, Amethyst repeats and mimes whatever is said to and done in front of her, implying that Rose, Pearl, and Garnet had to teach her to talk when they first found her.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Due to his powers being messed with, Steven bears a lot more injuries here than he did on the show, which explains why the movie was rated TV-PG-V for violence, as opposed to the standard PG rating. This includes a chemical burn on his arm and a nose bleed.
• Bloodless Carnage: As usual, full Gems do not bleed, but for the first time in the show's history, Steven does. It's a nosebleed, but Spinel is the first enemy he's faced who managed to hit him hard enough to cause even that.
• Big Bad: Of the movie, we have Spinel, Pink Diamond's former playmate having come back for revenge.
• Big "WHAT?!": Spinel lets out a loud "WHAAAAA?!" when she sees the Diamonds arrive on Earth after her injector is destroyed.
• Book Ends: After the song "Happily Ever After", Steven picks a flower (presumably from the lighthouse cliff) and applies his saliva to the stalk causing it to grow back. When he kisses the ground near the end, the spot where his lips touched grows the same yellow flower.
• Break the Cutie: Big-time in Spinel's backstory. She was made to be Pink Diamond's adorable playmate and best friend, but once Pink got her own colony, she "outgrew" the purpose Spinel was made for, and left her behind in their garden, telling her to wait there until Pink came back. Except she never did, so Spinel stood rooted to the spot (eventually literally) for 6,000 years, only eventually finding out what happened to Pink via Steven's universe-wide transmission. She could only break down in tears when she realized she'd spent all that time waiting for someone who was never coming back for her.
• Brick Joke:
  • When Steven shows the giant injector to Greg and the Gems after they reformed and lost their memories, Spinel asks Steven if he wants to climb it. Before his final battle against her after she became a villain again, Steven is forced to climb up the injector after his super-jump stops in mid-air.
  • Pearl stores Greg's bass guitar in her gem while trying to help. After her memory has been restored and she and Amethyst fuse into Opal, Opal pulls out the guitar to join the performance.
• Broken Bird: Spinel, who was once Pink Diamond's companion until Pink was given Earth as her own colony and Spinel was left alone for millenia. When she hears of Steven's heroic accomplishments, she heads to Earth to confront Steven and the Gems, using the injector to destroy all organic life on Earth.
• Broken Pedestal: Ends up happening two-fold when it comes to Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond. Spinel's entire vendetta against Steven is due to the fact that Pink Diamond chose Earth over her 6,000 years ago. When Steven learns the entire truth and finally manages to have a heart-to-heart with Spinel, he confesses that he totally can believe his mother would do that to her.
• Brought Down to Normal: Thanks to Spinel's rejuvenator, Steven's Gem powers are reset, making them very weakened and unreliable until he's back to full strength.

C-D

• Call-and-Response Song: Steven and Amethyst's song, "No Matter What", makes heavy use of call-and-response, since Amethyst has been reset to a Blank Slate who mostly mimics what other people do and say.
• Call-Back:
  • Steven's new design, with its visible neck and pink jacket, evokes his "aged up" form from "Steven's Birthday", where he wore a pink button-down shirt over his normal one.
  • A few notes from "We Are the Crystal Gems" and "Stronger Than You" play during Steven's and Garnet's sections of "Happily Ever After", respectively.
  • At one point, the Crystal Gems run in a line, with Steven in the lead.
  • While trying to jog Pearl's memories, Steven and Greg give Amethyst the go-ahead to shapeshift into Rose.
  • Mr. Fryman forcibly pulls a frantic Peedee away from the fry shop, referencing him attempting to yank an utterly resistant Peedee off the shop's windowsill while the town was evacuating during "The Return".
  • Steven gets slammed into something so hard it breaks, while he's pretty much fine.
  • Despite her Seer abilities, Sapphire is unable to see her fusion with Ruby coming, just like when they fused the first time.
  • If you pay attention to the part where every Crystal Gem recovers their memories, you can see the silhouettes of all the appearances they had throughout the series, including those from the pilot episode.
• The Cameo: Many, many, many minor characters from the TV show, friend and foe alike, get small appearances throughout the movie.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Peridot nonchalantly announces that if the injector succeeds, it will wipe out all life on Earth, including humans.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: After Steven learns how Spinel's injector is poisoning the planet and can't be removed, he and the others realize that Spinel is the only one who knows how to turn it off. Problem is though, that she was reset by the rejuvenator the same as the Crystal Gems and doesn't remember what it is, much less how to operate it. This leads to another problem, when Steven realizes if he restores Spinel's memories it will mean she will go from being the "cute and harmless" Gem she is now to the violent and psychotic Gem that wants to kill them all. But Peridot points out Steven will die anyway if he doesn't get Spinel to turn off the injector.
• Cat Up a Tree: During the evacuation, Alexandrite runs into Cat Steven in a tree and takes the entire tree with her before handing the cat off to Kiki.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late:
  • Connie comes back from space camp riding Lion with her sword in hand, but by that point, they're long past a physical confrontation and are instead working to reverse the injector.
  • Blue, White, and Yellow Diamond (coincidentally) arrive on Earth right after Spinel destroyed the injector and decided to stop fighting.
• Central Theme: Willingness to change is necessary to become a better person. Happily Ever After does not exist because things will always change, and that's okay.
• Character Development: Naturally, given the movie's Central Theme. The song "Happily Ever After" contains each of the Crystal Gems reflecting on their character arcs, and the key to reversing the effects of the rejuvenator is to find a "missing piece" that serves as the focal point of their growth.
  • Amethyst's missing piece was family, which gives her love and belonging where she originally was all alone without a purpose.
  • Pearl's missing piece was freedom, specifically the freedom to be her own Gem, no longer beholden to anything or subservient to anyone.
  • Garnet's missing piece was the truth, as the willingness to face and embrace it, good and bad, is ultimately what proves The Power of Love.
  • Steven's missing piece was change, being able to change for the better and inspire the same in the source of all his hardships. The lesson to be learned here is that change won't simply stop at a point where he's content.
  • It's also joked about when Peridot worries that the rejuvenator will revoke all her canon character development.
  • The Diamonds are trying to change and become better people, showing much more affection towards Steven and Spinel than they did for Pink, even if they're still struggling with it. Whether they're doing it genuinely or for their own selfish reasons remains to be seen.
• Cheated Angle: In her original form, the hearts on Spinel's head retain their shape no matter which way her head turns, which is no doubt inspired by Mickey Mouse's ears.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • After the reset Ruby and Sapphire meet, Sapphire fatalistically says Ruby won't live to the end of the day. A few scenes later, attempting to reenact their initial fusion leads to Ruby nearly crushed under falling debris until Sapphire knocks her out of the way and they fuse.
  • Once Steven shows Bismuth the rejuvenator to find out what it is, he stores it in his jacket as his malfunctioning powers prevent him from accessing the pocket dimension in Lion's mane. Later on, after Spinel chooses to keep helping Steven after recovering her memories, she finds the rejuvenator still on his person, and thinks he's going to use it on her again as soon as she undoes the injector's damage.
  • When Steven attempts to lift the injector out of the Earth, Peridot warns that if disturbed, the injector might explode. Sure enough, when Spinel and Steven end up fighting on top of the injector at the climax of the movie, it does just that.
• Colossus Climb: Steven climbs up Spinel's giant injector by himself to confront her.
• Comically Missing the Point: After Peridot gives Steven a gigantic, spiked pizza cutter-like weapon so that he can use it to put an amnesic Ruby and Sapphire into a dangerous situation so that they'll hopefully fuse into Garnet, Steven refuses to use such a threatening weapon on his friend. Peridot misinterprets his statement as feeling the weapon isn't threatening enough and pushes a button that rotates the spiked wheel like a buzzsaw.
• The Compliance Game: To prevent Spinel from following her to Earth, Pink Diamond tells her that they're going to play a game in which Spinel stands very still. Spinel, who was created for the sole purpose of amusing Pink, stands in that spot for millennia after Pink leaves, only stopping when she learns Pink is dead.
• Continuity Cavalcade: During the Previously on… opening, we get a "Greatest Hits" style collection of various villains and monsters the Crystal Gems have fought so far, ranging from recurring enemies such as Jasper and Centipeetle to one-shot threats like the ice monster or Holly Blue Agate.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Several items in Steven's house are keepsakes from previous adventures:
    • The moon idol statue Steven was put in charge of in "Cheeseburger Backpack" is sitting on a shelf above his bed, resting in the "World's Best Stephen" mug he was seen using in "Catch and Release".
    • On the same shelf you can see the "Explorer Gal" Onion gave him in "Onion Friend".
    • The "Cheeseburger Backpack" is resting at the bottom of the stairs
    • The painting Vidalia made at the end of "Pool Hopping" can be seen in Steven's bedroom.
    • The picture of Rose and Greg from "Laser Light Cannon" is on a dresser, in the frame Amethyst got for it in "Maximum Capacity".
    • The hilt of Rose's sword, destroyed in "Reunited", is now kept on a shelf in the living room.
  • Lars is now publicly baking ube rolls.
  • Among the things Steven tries to do to jog Amethyst's memories is to cheat at skee-ball in the way Amethyst did in "Arcade Mania".
  • When Amethyst cycles through her past forms upon regaining her memories, her various ill-thought-out forms from "Reformed" are among them.
  • Just like in "Catch and Release", Amethyst decides to joke about something traumatic that recently happened, prompting a "too soon" reaction from another.invoked She does this by pretending to still have amnesia in a manner similar to Steven's turn pretending to be a robot with a voice modulator in "The Message".
  • When Spinel reveals her backstory, she speaks all of Pink/Rose's lines.
  • In "Reunited", Steven's house was partially destroyed and Bismuth said she could fix it. Later on in "Escapism", the house had a tarp on the damaged side and Bismuth was sawing wood. Here the house is finished: it has an extra floor, a porch, a side extension, and Steven now has a real bedroom.
• Conveniently Empty Building: Beach City is mostly evacuated before being directly damaged by the Injector. When Spinel has the Injector smash into the ground and spill its poison, Alexandrite, Greg, Connie, and Lion are able to get all the stragglers out. Later, after the Injector bursts and covers the whole town in poison, Garnet announces that everyone is accounted.
• Costume Evolution: Steven, in addition to being physically older, sports a blue shirt with a yellow star on it and a pink jacket with white details, incorporating the whole Color Motif of the Diamonds.
• Creator Cameo: The Crewniverse can be seen as a part of the crowd watching Sadie Killer.
• Creepy Jazz Music: The Villain Song "Other Friends" is in this style, in keeping with Spinel's old-timey cartoon motif.
• Cruel Mercy: An unintentional example; the other Diamonds would at best be upfront with an order to be left alone and at worst poof if not shatter a Gem that's getting on their nerves. Pink instead tries to spare Spinel's feelings by lying to her that they're still playing a game, just one with the result of her being left alone.
• Cue the Sun: The film progresses from midday to late night. When Spinel destroys the Injector, it clears away the clouds and shows day has just broken.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Spinel, reduced to her playful, innocent nature by the Rejuvenator, suggests that getting everyone else's memories back is like a puzzle; once they have all the pieces (everything they experienced that made them who they are), they'll see the full picture.
  Steven: Spinel... You might be onto something!
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Spinel curbstomps the Crystal Gems early in the film, easily taking them all out and draining Steven's powers.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • When Greg sees all the Gems poofed, he says "Holy sh— She really got everybody!"
  • Bismuth similarly comes close to saying the same word when three vases are about to fall.
• Darker and Edgier: While not drastically so, the movie allows Spinel to specifically threaten to kill Steven and other humans, and manages to hurt him badly enough to make him bleed, things that have never happened on the show.
• Dark Reprise: "Happily Ever After" gets one during "Who We Are", with Steven lamenting how everything was going so well until Spinel came and ruined everything.
• Decon-Recon Switch:
  • The movie goes to great lengths to challenge the show's thesis that all problems can ultimately be solved with The Power of Friendship. It gets deconstructed when, after Spinel's memories are restored without her accompanying aggression, she snaps again once she sees that Steven still has the Rejuvenator and assumes he kept it so he could use it to reset her after getting her to stop the injector. Friendship doesn't prevail because there's no trust in the relationship. But, after destroying the Rejuvenator and consistently holding back fighting her, Steven manages to build enough trust that eventually she realizes that Steven was telling the truth that he wanted to be her friend, and she relents. Even then, Spinel feels that she's done too much to alienate Steven and the other Crystal Gems to remain on Earth, and willingly leaves with the Diamonds in the finale.
  • The main takeaway of the movie is that a traditional "Happily Ever After" cannot last in an ever-changing world, but just because change will never end doesn't mean that peace, love, and all other good things the Crystal Gems strive for has to end in return. So long as they're ready and willing to face change as it comes, they can always change it for the better.
    So happily we'll face
    Whatever comes our way
    And after, we might do it all again
• Delayed Reaction:
  • When Amethyst regains her memories Steven promptly glomps her followed by Spinel. It takes Amethyst several seconds before she realizes that Spinel is hugging her and promptly asks what's going on.
  • When Steven, Amethyst and Spinel head over to see what Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth have found out about the super-injector, Peridot fails to notice that Amethyst is back to normal until the latter deadpans that she's back and calls Peridot a "dip", even as Peri had made a dramatic declaration that she didn't want a Blank Slate Amethyst near her in response to Amethyst asking her a question.
• Demon Head: After Spinel unloads her backstory on Steven at the Garden she snaps at him using her shapeshifting powers to grow huge and Steven vaults back in surprise and submission.
• De-power: Because he’s a Half-Human Hybrid, the rejuvenator can't wipe Steven's mind like it does the Crystal Gems, but it can sap his powers, reducing him to what he was like in season one.
• Deadly Forcefield: In addition to replicating Pink Steven's ability to make his bubble shield explode, Steven also puts a pair around his fist to act as boxing gloves (though he was using both to fight Spinel defensively).
• Death Glare: During Spinel's introduction, Steven has no idea who she is and is astonished that Pearl does. Upon hearing this, Spinel delivers a hateful glare.
• Did You Get a New Haircut?: When Steven brings Spinel back to the Beach House after the latter regains her memories, while Pearl and Amethyst understandably freak out and get on the defensive, Cotton Candy Garnet cheerfully welcomes her back and asks her if she changed her hair. (She has changed her hair, but only as part of resuming her Madness Makeover "evil" outfit.)
• Die Laughing: Spinel still grins and laughs maniacally after being hit with the Rejuvenator, just before poofing. This overlaps with Dying Smirk, since her poofing via Rejuvenator and subsequent memory loss guarantees there's no way to stop the destruction of life on Earth.
• Disney Acid Sequence: "Isn't It Love?" is a short song performed by Garnet as Ruby and Sapphire fuse again. It symbolizes the feelings Ruby and Sapphire felt the first time they fused with color-coded clones of "Cotton Candy" Garnet from "The Answer" dancing with each other to jazz music.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • In hindsight, while Pink Diamond discarding her friendship with Spinel is a cruel and thoughtless thing to do, attempting to slowly kill the planet and everyone Pink loved and fought so hard for in retaliation was just too far.
  • Played for Laughs with Amethyst, Pearl, and Connie drawing their weapons when Steven brings Spinel downstairs to the living room. At that moment, Greg steps out of the bathroom, and the three turn to him with angry expressions. He assumes they're going to attack him for not washing his hands and goes back into the bathroom.
• Dissonant Serenity: Rejuvenated Pearl barely reacts to the events going on around her. And the entire time "Disobedient" is sung, Pearl only continuously stares at Greg with a blank expression on her smiling face; and when Amethyst shapeshifts to look like Rose and even holds Pearl's chin up to make eye contact, Pearl just moves her vision back to Greg.
• Diving Save: Ruby is about to be shattered by a falling anvil and accepts what will happen to her. Sapphire refuses to allow that to come to pass and knocks Ruby out of the way, fusing with her as a result.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Spinel's backstory of Pink Diamond leaving her behind under a very much false promise of returning someday is clearly meant to parallel a case of Parental Abandonment.
• Doomsday Device: Spinel plants a super-sized injector into the ground that, according to Peridot, will destroy all organic life on the planet in less than two days if not stopped.

E-F

• Earn Your Happy Ending: Given the ol' Decon-Recon with Steven's character arc. Steven felt that after all of the struggles he went through in the show, he had earned his "happily-ever-after" with his friends and family on Earth. However, this sense of entitlement is what keeps him locked out of his gem powers when Spinel takes them away, as it stopped him from growing and changing as a person. After realizing this, Steven acknowledges that there's no such thing as an unchanging "happily-ever-after" and that he'll "always have more work to do".
• The Echoer: After being rebooted by Spinel's Rejuvenator, Amethyst reverts back to what she was when she emerged and parrots everything everyone says - and mimics them by shapeshifting, too. She eventually turns back to normal.
• Electro Swing: "Other Friends", Spinel's Villain Song, is jaunty and fast-paced, with jazzy instrumentation.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number: "True Kinda Love", the song Garnet starts to sing as she regains her memory, as well as Steven during his climb up the Mega Injector before he and Spinel fight.
  • "Change" could also be considered one. It involves Steven realizing his "missing piece", after which he regains his powers and starts to No-Sell Spinel's attacks.
• Empty Nest: White, Blue, and Yellow have developed a powerful attachment to Steven since "Change Your Mind". When he announces that he is declining Pink's throne, they beg him to stay. Only a day later, they show up unannounced to move in with Steven on Earth before he provides Spinel as a Replacement Goldfish.
• Epiphany Comeback: Steven fights Spinel solo again, losing because his powers still won't come back and he doesn't have the rejuvenator to fall back on. As she prepares to drop him to his death, Steven asks himself why he still hasn't found his "missing pieces" when he's once again fighting to save the Earth from someone who wants to kill him for something his mother did. Spinel can't believe someone so Famed In-Story was ever so "pathetic", which makes Steven realize he was neglecting his own ability to change by wishing for things to stay the same, restoring Steven's power and turning the tide of the battle.
• "Everybody Helps Out" Denouement: At the end of the movie, a montage is shown of the citizens helping to restore Beach City after Spinel's injector destroyed it.
• Evil Costume Switch: Spinel's new form is far more menacing than she had before becoming a villain. According to Rebecca Sugar, this was because Spinel had the equal of broken heart syndrome that poofed her and resulted in the reformation. She even rotates her gem upside-down to emphasize it.
• Evil Overlooker: As seen on the promotional poster above, Spinel is looming over the Crystal Gems while partially shadowed and looking down on them sinisterly.
• Exact Words: When Ruby finds out that Sapphire can see the future, she excitedly asks what will happen to her. Sapphire replies that Ruby "won't last the day". Ruby assumes this means she's going to die protecting Sapphire (which is her function), but what ends up happening is they fuse back into Garnet when Sapphire saves Ruby's life.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Ruby is impressed by how Sapphire's predictions of the future are right and asks her what she predicts will happen next, Sapphire starts explaining events just before they happen as "hijinks ensue". She maintains her usual stoic tone throughout this, only to gain a panicked tone towards the end as she explains the saw will continue until it causes an anvil to fall... and Ruby will be shattered.
• Extremely Short Timespan: There's a time jump in the end as Beach City is being rebuilt, but the rest of the movie takes place within a single day.
• Face Death with Dignity: When the giant anvil begins to break through Steven's shield and is about to shatter Ruby, she just says that she is glad she got to meet Sapphire. Subverted since Sapphire performs a Diving Save, pushing Ruby out of the way and fusing with her in the process.
• Fantastic Nuke: Spinel accidentally smashing the Injector manages to trigger a very large explosion that everybody watching from afar just assumes killed Steven and Spinel until they see Steven's bubble flying out of the mushroom cloud.
• Fertile Feet: In the wreckage after the Injector explodes, Steven starts kissing the ground to repair the damage, and flowers and grass pop up around where he does.
• Finale Movie: The film simultaneously serves as this and a Pilot Movie by bridging the gap between the original series and the Sequel Series Steven Universe: Future.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Garnet never asks questions in the present, but did when she was first formed. As Ruby and Sapphire fuse, the accompanying song is called "Isn't It Love?" The title line and several others are questions, which are an early giveaway that fusing did not restore Garnet's memory.
  • While Steven, Lion, and Spinel are hunting for Amethyst, Onion can be seen in every scene. Where do they end up finding her? In Onion's house.
  • A big, bright four-pronged star appears on the ground, right before the Gems fuse into Alexandrite (the only character associated with a four-pronged star) appears.
• Fluffy the Terrible: "Rejuvenator" is a fairly cozy name for a Sinister Scythe that annihilates Gems' personalities.
• Foreshadowing:
  • One of the lines in the opening song "The Tale of Steven" is "A Gem that loves and grows!" Steven's final piece is remembering that, as a human, he's meant to change and grow.
  • During Steven's broadcast at the beginning, one of the places it's shown reaching is someplace dark and abandoned. It's later revealed to be Pink Diamond's garden, and that's how Spinel learned about Pink's fate. What the viewer may mistake as part of the scenery is actually Spinel's grass-overrun foot.
  • During the song “Happily Ever After”, each of the four core Crystal Gems states how they've changed from how they originally were; guess what the rejuvenator ends up revoking.
  • Also during the song "Happily Ever After," Steven sings about how he "began to hone a power all [his] own," one that was different from his mother's. He never specifies what that power is. It's not until the climax that we find out - the power to change.
  • During Spinel's Villain Song, "Other Friends", when she tells Steven who she is, she tells him, "I'm the loser of the game you didn't know you were playing!" - and then refers to her attack as "another game [she] gets to win." We learn that Pink Diamond abandoned her by pretending to play a game with her where she told her to stay in her garden and left her there for 6000 years.
    • When Steven asks Pearl who Spinel is, Spinel instantly gives a completely furious and hateful Death Glare. It later turns out that her motive is fury at being abandoned and forgotten by Pink Diamond.
    • In the same song, when she mentions "Pink Diamond's Pearl", she adds "Wow! She took you with her!" Later, we learn that her anger and insanity come from Pink leaving Spinel alone in the Garden instead of taking her to Earth with her.
    • Pearl also recognizes her, saying in disbelief that Spinel “can’t be serious!” On the first pass, it seems she’s shocked that Spinel is serious about fighting them, but later it turns out Spinel being serious about anything is alarming — Spinel was supposed to be Pink Diamond’s goofy playmate, not this vengeful Monster Clown.
    • Really, every single thing revealed about Spinel's backstory and motivations later on in the film is foreshadowed in this one song.
  • Steven, unable to store anything in Lion's mane with his powers on the fritz, puts the rejuvenator in his pocket. Later, it falls out at just the right moment to kick Spinel's paranoia into high gear.
  • When Steven tried to get the temporarily reverted Spinel to stay in Little Homeworld with the other Gems, she lashes out, making him change his mind. Turns out to be almost a repeat of what happened with Pink Diamond.
  • The lyrics to the song "Disobedient" mirror what happened to Spinel awfully closely.
  I've been good, sir, so very very good, for what?
  And I've given you ev'ry single thing I've got
  It's feeling strange, man
  This whole arrangement
  Is gonna end with me totally deranged
  When I think about all the wasted time I spent
  I wanna be...disobedient.
  I shoot awake wond'ring where my summer's went
  I wanna be...disobedient.
  • Spinel's facial expressions during their fight at the Mega-Injector shows that she isn't entirely angry; she's just really hurt, and trying to push that hurt onto others in an attempt to make it go away(which she contemplates near the end).
  • When the rejuvinated Spinel sees the Mega-Injector for the first time, she asks Steven if he wants to climb it. He ends up doing so at the end of the movie to get to the top in order to get to her.
• Fountain of Youth: The rejuvenator physically and mentally turns rebellious Gems back to the way they were when they first emerged, essentially turning them into the Gem equivalent of babies.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Peridot's junk bin in Little Homeworld has one piece of heavy machinery labelled "Property of Beach City Public Works".
  • When the amnesiac Crystal Gems' memories are restored, all of them flash through brief glimpses of past forms.
    • In Pearl's case, one of them seems to be her original pilot form.
    • Going frame-by-frame during Garnet's restoration, it is possible to catch a glimpse of Ruby and Sapphire dancing together.
  • Peridot has a game of SkiFree and an episode of Camp Pining Hearts paused on her monitor.
  • Outside the warehouse where Sadie Killer and the Suspects play, a poster indicates the movie takes place on May 21st^note Though the one who drew the poster admitted she just wrote down the current date. Steven's birthday is in August and he's still referred to as a sixteen after winter passes, so the movie is more likely to be set in the fall..
  • If you look at the flowers near Spinel while she is waiting for Pink Diamond, you'll recognize them as Myosotis, also known as forget-me-nots. Spinel was abandoned and forgotten by Pink Diamond.
  • As Alexandrite is standing in a poison-filled crevice◊, a car the same model that Kevin drives can be seen crushed by an electrical pole. The bonus features on the DVD confirmed that it was his car.
• Friendly Local Chinatown: The Gems that remained on Earth have built what Steven calls "Little Homeworld", a fusion of Gem and Earth design aesthetics.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Spinel was Pink Diamond's plaything, essentially a Gem made to be a doll for her. 6,000 years and completely going insane later and she's one of the biggest threats Steven's faced to date.
• Fun with Homophones: Before Greg and Steven fuse while playing guitar, Steven shouts out "Let's duet (do it)!"
• Funny Background Event: When Steven brings Spinel back to the beach house after she's regained her memories, the still-amnesiac Garnet is pretty thrilled about discovering a spork◊ (a "fusion" of a spoon and a fork, in a sense) in the foreground (which is not the focal point of the scene).

G-H

• Genre Throwback:
  • To Animated Musicals of the 1990s, particularly those by Disney and their imitators.
  • Spinel herself is one, to the black and white 1930s squash-and-stretch animation.
• Giggling Villain: Both the teaser and trailer feature Spinel giving a manic, high-pitched laugh. The trailer, in particular, has this as her only dialogue.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Spinel went completely insane upon finding out Pink Diamond is dead and thus she'd spent 6,000 years waiting for her to come back for nothing.
• Go Out with a Smile: Ruby grins as she's about to be shattered by an anvil landing on her, happy that, even if Sapphire foresaw that she wouldn't last a day, fate still allowed them to meet. Sapphire ends up pushing her out of the way regardless.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Spinel poofs Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl after simultaneously bisecting them with her rejuvenator.
• Happily Ever After: This trope is frequently mentioned by name, since Steven is at first convinced that things are finally perfect now that he's dealt with the Diamonds and dismantled the Gem Empire. In the end, he realizes that there's no such thing as a "Happily Ever After", since no matter how much better things get there will always be more conflict to deal with.
• Hard Truth Aesop:
  • Happily ever after doesn't exist, there will always be challenges and hardships in your life that you'll have to overcome, no matter how much you don't want them to happen.
  • Sometimes, even when you try your hardest, even with the best intentions, you can't change people, or how people feel. Some people will only change when they put in the effort to make themselves change.
  • No one owes you their friendship. You may crave a deep emotional bond with someone, and they might sympathize with you for having a terrible past, but you can't force a genuine connection between two people where there isn't one, especially after you've already hurt them (or tried to kill them).
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Spinel quickly befriends Steven because she loses her memory, but he eventually manages to restore her memory without making her hostile. However, once Spinel reverses the injector, she concludes Steven was just using her for that and attacks him again over it. However, Steven eventually convinces Spinel he was being honest, and she decides to find her own friends by becoming the other Diamonds' Replacement Goldfish for Pink.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: When Pearl reboots, Greg accidentally imprints as her new master. Since he introduced himself as "Um, Greg Universe", Pearl ends up calling him "Um Greg Universe" up until she gets her memories back.
• He's Back!: During the Final Battle, Steven finally finds "all his pieces" and regains his full power, promptly revealing he's continued to improve and grow stronger over the Time Skip and fighting Spinel on even footing. Among other things, he's learned not only to generate his bubble shield and the Morningstar variant, but fractal shapes, as well as increasing the force of it 'breaking' enough to knock Spinel some distance away.
• Hide and No Seek: Played for Drama. After finding out she could get her own colony, Pink Diamond pretended to play a game where Spinel stands in place because she was too clingy, and left her waiting 6,000 years for her to return.
• Hilarity Ensues: When the amnesiac Spinel grabs the giant pizza cutter, Sapphire says that the next thing to happen is "Hijinks will ensue" (which is the title of the track that starts playing). Cue Spinel activating it and comical destruction ensuing.
• History Repeats: When Spinel is holding Steven over the edge of her injector in the climax, he wonders why he still can't get his powers to work again, despite what Spinel is doing basically being a rehash the various traumatic events he's experienced throughout the series.
  Steven: I don't get it! Why aren't my powers back?! Aren't I reliving every horrible thing that's ever happened to me?! A Gem I barely know is trying to kill me! I'm paying for stuff my mom did that had nothing to do with me! I'm struggling with my powers! The world's about to end! What piece could I be missing?! THIS IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE!
• Hope Spot: Steven manages to talk Spinel into deactivating the injector... but a misunderstanding makes Spinel think Steven was just using her and causes her to become hostile again.
• Hourglass Plot: Back in "The Answer", Ruby and Sapphire fused because Ruby refused to let Sapphire accept that being poofed was her fate. Here, Ruby accepts being shattered because at least she got to spend time with Sapphire, and now it's Sapphire who refuses to let the future she predicted come to pass.
• Hypocritical Humor: At the end, White Diamond makes a disparaging comment about Beach City's thoroughly devastated state. She's one to talk, considering Homeworld is cracked in half.

I-M

• Identity Amnesia: Spinel's Sinister Scythe is a rejuvenator that the Diamonds used to use on Gems that stepped out of line, basically restoring them to "factory default settings" — in Amethyst's case it was even more complete, as she emerged from her Kindergarten hole later than other Quartzes meant she had no identity upon emergence, and was a literal blank slate. Steven is unaffected mentally, but it screws up his powers to the point that he's basically back at the start of the series. They can be restored by making them think of the significant life experiences they've forgotten — as Spinel says, "putting the missing pieces together".
• Imprinting: It's shown that after a Pearl is created, she'll ask for a username and any alterations to her appearance, form a body and then start treating whoever answered as her master — even if they weren't even a Gem. The Crystal Gem Pearl rebooting due to the rejuvenator causes her to imprint on Greg, to his extreme discomfort.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • During "Independent Together", the Crystal Gems all gather in the sky as part of the song, leaving Spinel alone on the ground. This serves as the trigger for Spinel to remember her abandonment issues.
  • Spinel relapses after her memories are restored in part because Steven admits to mostly needing her to stop the injector and then tells her to just forget about everything that happened, not realizing that Spinel might take that the wrong way due to her abandonment issues.
• Interface Spoiler: Averted on the movie's website; Spinel's section in the character page lists her name as a set of question marks and uses her silhouette from the original teaser instead of a proper character render. Her image is also the only unselectable one, and attempting to find the url for it by going through the source code will only grant you "gem_question" in lieu of an actual name.
• Irony:
  • When the antagonist drops in, Amethyst claims that her fighting skills are "rusty". Spinel, who had spent 6,000 years without moving and with zero battle experience, beats the Crystal Gems by just toying with them, and then poofs them with only one hit of her Rejuvenator.
  • It is discussed how when Ruby and Sapphire first fused together, Sapphire had accepted her fate but Ruby refused too, rushing in to save her and fusing in the process. When everyone tries to recreate this scenario to get them to fuse into Garnet again, they end up swapping roles, with Ruby as the one accepting her fate and Sapphire being the one to dive in and save her.
  • By the end of the movie, the other Diamonds prove to be better caring parents to Spinel than Pink Diamond ever was to her for 6,000 years, because they were willing to give as much attention and companionship to her, and then some. Especially since their abuse of Pink Diamond back in the day helped make her the way she was — a neglectful parent.
• I Was Just Joking: After Steven gets his healing powers back, Amethyst jokes that he should kiss the whole planet. Steven proceeds to kiss some soil and makes the plants grow back, much to Amethyst's shock.
• I Will Wait for You: After getting her own colony, Pink Diamond couldn't play with Spinel anymore until she finished it, and asked her to wait for her until she came back. Spinel obliged, and she stood on the same spot in her garden for 6,000 years before hearing Steven's message and finding out what had become of her friend.
• Juggling Loaded Guns: Peridot does the classic "looking down the barrel" maneuver with the rejuvenator (in this case with an extendable shaft), though Bismuth luckily takes it away before she accidentally activates it.
• Kiai: As Spinel hits Steven with Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs by spinning in a tornado, her blows are accompanied by a vocalization that sounds like "YIYIYIYI".
• Lampshade Hanging: One complaint Steven has about his friends being reset is that they aren't even joining his song.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Upon seeing Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst all poofed and laid out on a table, Greg is so shocked he nearly lets an S-bomb slip out before catching himself and turning it into "Holy shhh— She got everybody!"
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: While the movie does its best to reintroduce the main characters for people, it does focus heavily on the fact that Steven is the son of Pink Diamond, who had been masquerading as Rose Quartz for the last 5,000 years or so. This is kept a secret for most of the show's first five seasons.
• Lethal Joke Character: Spinel, literally.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • The refrain of "Happily Ever After" (which is reprised several times) focuses on the line "Here we are in the future", which is ostensibly Steven's relief to finally be done reforming Homeworld, but also reflects the Time Skip preceding the movie.
  • When Bismuth explains what the rejuvenator is and does, Peridot, who had been looking at it somewhat carelessly just moments before, freaks that she could have lost all of her Character Development, using that exact phrase.
• Literal-Minded:
  • Amethyst calls Spinel a monster, with her reply being that she doesn't see a monster. After being told that "you're it!", she presumes they are playing tag.
  • Part of what caused Spinel's Start of Darkness. Pink Diamond told her to stay put in the Garden until she returned from working on her colony. Because Spinel was designed expressly to follow Pink's commands and make her happy by playing with her, she proceeded to literally stand completely still and alone in the Garden for thousands of years, uselessly waiting for Pink to return and never even trying to leave or find her. No wonder she went crazy when she learns Pink is never coming back.
• Loophole Abuse: After she's been reset, Pearl is programmed to serve Greg "as long as he exists". To snap her out of it, Steven and Greg fuse into Steg, which Pearl sees as Greg no longer existing. This allows them to start breaking through to her.
• Lyric Swap: In the last refrain of "Other Friends", as Spinel stops toying with the Crystal Gems and draws her Sinister Scythe, she switches "Gee, it's swell to finally meet her other friends!" with "Gee, it's swell to finally beat her other friends!"
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Other Friends", Spinel's Villain Song, is a jaunty Electro Swing tune about her rage at the new friends Pink made without her.
• Madness Makeover: Spinel's new form after learning Pink Diamond abandoned her, is essentially deceased, and resolving to revenge herself on her son fits this. She shifts from child- and doll-like to menacing and mature; her heart-shaped gem rotates upside down and her eyelashes shift downward into marks resembling trails of mascara-stained tears.
• Make Them Rot: The poison in the injector decays organic matter. When some is splashed on Greg's arm, it goes a dull black and he is unable to move it until Steven heals it.
• Meaningful Name: Spinel is often used as a cheaper alternative to diamond in jewelry. Spinel was a former playmate of Pink Diamond that becomes a Replacement Goldfish of her for the other Diamonds. Additionally, spinels are said to bring positivity to their owners. Spinel's sole purpose was to entertain Pink Diamond.
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • Steven uses the Pocket Dimension linking the portals in Lars and Lion's heads to get across town. In the background when he first enters, you can see the mysterious chest was already opened sometime during the Time Skip.
  • We see the formerly-corrupted Gems throughout the background of Beach City, showing how they've integrated into the population.
• Memory Gambit: Spinel may have deliberately let herself get hit with her own rejuvenator so Steven would have a harder time stopping her injector, since she's the only one who can stop it.
• Memory-Restoring Melody: After Spinel and all three of the main Crystal Gems get all their memories removed via the Rejuvenator, the problem is fixed through various songs for each character. Amethyst gets "No Matter What," Pearl gets "Disobedient," which doesn't work, and "Independent Together," which does. Spinel gets "Drift Away," and Garnet gets "Isn't It Love?" when Ruby and Sapphire fuse for the "first" time and "True Kinda Love" to regain the rest of her memories and individuality.
• Monster Clown: Spinel's present appearance, between her cartoonish gloves, baggy pants, jester-esque boots, and makeup-like markings on her face, along with her joking demeanor and laughter evoke this trope very strongly, and it works well in making her far more intimidating. This becomes rather tragic after seeing her past self in comparison.
• Mood Whiplash: Steven and the Crystal Gems happily sing about how perfect everything is, and Steven asks Garnet whether it will stay like this forever. Cue Spinel arriving on top of a giant injector, singing her Villain Song and poofing the three Crystal Gems with her Rejuvenator.
• Morton's Fork: The Crystal Gems can't leave the injector where it is, but any attempt at moving or destroying it will only result in it releasing the poison faster. Thus, their only viable plan is to restore Spinel's memories and get her to remove it.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Steven uses the magical dimension linking Lion and Lars to make a quick trip across town.
  • Steven uses a bubble to save a slice of Lars' ube roll.
• Musical Exposition: The movie has several songs like this. "Happily Ever After" summarizes the backstory of each of the four main characters (basically a five-minute recap of the Character Development each of them went through during the series), and "System/BOOT.pearl_final(3).Info" explains each gem type's role in the Hive Caste System of Homeworld.
• Musical Nod: The song "Let's Duet" features Greg and Steven playing instrumental snippets of several songs from previous episodes, including "We Are The Crystal Gems", "Let Me Drive My Van (Into Your Heart)", "Lapis Lazuli", "Comet", "I Could Never Be (Ready)", and "Love Like You".
• Musical Number Annoyance: Spinel furiously tells Steven that he "can't make everything better by singing some stupid song".
• Music for Courage: The bridge of "True Kinda Love" is Steven singing to himself to stay encouraged as he climbs the Injector to fight Spinel.
• My Beloved Smother: The other Diamonds have developed a particular attachment to Steven in-between "Change Your Mind" and the film, begging Steven to stay with them after he announces that he was going back to Earth. It gets so bad that only a day later, right after Spinel's Evil Plan fails, they show up unannounced with the intention of moving to Earth to be with him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Both times Steven talks Spinel down, she's ashamed at the destruction she's caused. Unfortunately, the first time this happens, it feeds into her abandonment complex and she can't imagine that Steven would really forgive her for what she's done, leading into the Third-Act Misunderstanding. The second time, she feels really awkward about sticking around with Steven after having caused even more devastation, and elects to start over fresh with the Diamonds.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Amongst the forms Pearl cycles through when she regains her memories is her original design from the pilot. Not the first time she's done that, either.
  • One new portrait in Vidalia's gallery is Amethyst wearing boots, tiger-striped pants, a puffy fur-trim jacket, and hoop earrings, recreating a development drawing by Hellen Jo that was included in the show's artbook.
  • Greg nearly loses an arm after getting bio-poison splashed on it, before Steven heals him. His broken leg from "Ocean Gem" was originally conceived as him losing it altogether, which would have resulted in him gaining a robotic prosthetic.
  • In the closing musical number, the four main Crystal Gems, Connie, and Greg wear their outfits from the San Diego Comic-Con 2016 signing poster.◊

N-O

• Never Say "Die": Averted. Compared to the series there's far less mention of "shattering", because it's mostly human lives that are endangered. Spinel straight-up tells Steven she wants to kill him, and Steven repeatedly says that the injector would kill all life on Earth.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • The entire plot is set off by, once again, Steven having to clean up one of his mother's messes. Pink abandoned Spinel to go rule Earth, with the combination of Spinel's devotion to Pink and millennia-long solitude causing her to feel abandoned and betrayed by her best friend (which she was) and then Go Mad from the Isolation.
  • Zig-Zagged with Steven. His "message to the universe" sets off the plot, as seeing it and realizing its meaning drives Spinel insane which causes her to try and destroy Earth. However, it also freed her from the waiting she had to endure for 6,000 years, which would've never happened if he hadn't transmitted that message.
  • When he learns what the injector is doing, Steven actually tries to physically move it with his bare hands, which, to be fair, looked like it would have worked if the rejuvenator hadn't put his powers on the fritz. All this ends up accomplishing is accelerating the rate of poison dispersal so they only have 37 hours left, not 41.
  • Steven letting the rejuvenator fall out of his pocket at exactly the wrong moment sets Spinel on the warpath again.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • It's Spinel, the main villain of the movie, that suggests to Steven that the Crystal Gems' memories can be restored by giving them "pieces of the puzzle" in the form of their key life experiences. Spinel is only this helpful because her own memories have been wiped.
  • After regaining her memories, she not only prompts Steven into saying just the right words to restore Garnet's memories, and gets Steven to realize that he'd been neglecting his own ability to change, which restores his powers, but her fight with Steven destroys her own injector.
• No Endor Holocaust: Despite the contents of the Injector being potent enough to kill everything on Earth if pumped deep into the ground, all of it flooding shallow channels smashed into Beach City doesn't affect anything outside. Even the poison that spilled into the ocean is shown in the end montage to have somehow stayed in place instead of getting washed away.
• No-Harm Requirement: As soon as Steven learns about what The Injector will do to all organic life on Earth, he immediately tries to use his gem-powered Super-Strength to remove it. His effort only makes it worse however, and Peridot quickly tells Steven that if they're to save the Earth, they'll have to remove the device without dealing it any harm. This in turn spurns the urgency to restore Spinel's memory along with the Crystal Gems as the horn she makes with her arm can dislodge the device without touching it.
• Non-Ironic Clown: In stark contrast to how she appears when she shows up on earth, Spinel's original role and personality are that of a goofy, energetic jokester who loves to entertain others and make them laugh, and her cartoony gloves, baggy pants, and boots all fit the image in both of her forms. Naturally, seeing this after she was hit by the rejuvenator is incredibly jarring and confuses Steven greatly, up until her Dark and Troubled Past is revealed. It's clear from how she enjoys the Diamonds' laugh at the end of the movie that her original passion for the role never fully left.
• No Ontological Inertia: Averted with the Injector poison. When Spinel destroys the injector by accident, it stops the poison from spreading any further. However, since she had already instructed it to dump its entire tank on the town, all that poison remains where it is, leaving a big mess for Steven to clean up.
• No Reprise, Please: After "Who We Are" ends, Spinel starts repeating its Dark Reprise of "Happily Ever After" (in absurdly-overdramatic fashion) before Steven tells her they're done.
• No-Sell: As with previously seen Gem-tech-like destabilizers or security force fields, the "rejuvenator" seems to have no major effect on Half-Human Hybrid Steven in spite of multiple direct hits... at first. The trope is subverted; while Steven is immune to being poofed or memory-wiped like the other Crystal Gems, his own Gem powers are reduced to nearly nothing by the rejuvenator. A straighter example is during Steven & Spinel's battle atop the injector; while she's initially able to smack him around and even bloody his nose because his abilities are still malfunctioning, once he gets his powers back, she's totally outclassed; he literally never even budges, even when she's hitting him with all her strength.
• No Sense of Personal Space: When Spinel lacks her memories, she's often very close to Steven, at one point even literally wrapping herself around him, and was presumably similarly clingy to Pink, which might be part of why she left her behind. Even in her present state, she gets rather close to Steven and the others several times, and one of her tactics in combat is to wrap her arms around her foe.
• Obliviously Evil: Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz; she didn't mean to leave Spinel trapped and alone in her garden for thousands upon thousands of years. She just told Spinel to stay put until she returned, not realizing that she would never go back there because of the war for Earth, nor that Spinel would seriously just stand there for centuries waiting instead of leaving.
• Offscreen Inertia: Adding to the tragedy of Spinel's stay in the garden is that it lasted until the very beginning of the movie. Thus she wasn't just staying there during most of the show's background, but the entirety of the series' present.
• Offscreen Teleportation: As Steven is using Lion to teleport around town looking for a missing Amethyst, in every one of the four locations he visits, Onion is somehow always there ahead of him.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: It's not explained how Spinel got her Rejuvenator or enormous poison-filled injector (whose top is shaped like her gemstone, suggesting it was custom-made for her). It's especially odd considering the broadcast that showed her what happened to Pink Diamond and her attack apparently happened on the same day.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Garnet, when Steven asks what the future has in store and if things will always be like this (peaceful), goes "No!" when she sees Spinel's arrival, followed by it actually happening.
  • Pearl, upon recognizing Spinel and that she's acting very out of character compared to the goofy court jester Pearl once knew.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Pearl's strange start-up procedure after her poofing, and her return to her prior loyal servant state, are the first signs Steven and Greg have that something's wrong with any of the three (or technically four) main Crystal Gems. There's also the fact that she's the first to reform when she usually takes much longer than the other Gems.
• Out of Focus:
  • Connie is absent for most of the movie, going off to "space camp" at the beginning and returning for the big confrontation at the end.
  • The Crystal Gems are present, but having been reset to their factory default, are functionally different characters for most of the movie. Peridot and Lapis step up to help Steven, but Bismuth plays the greatest support role, inspiring Steven to keep fighting.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: Spinel curb-stomps the Crystal Gems because she is an Deranged Animation Rubber-Hose Limbs character out from the 20' and 30's.

P-R

• Painting the Medium: Promotional material for the movie went out of its way to conceal Spinel's identity and motivations. That means when she shows up on Earth with a planet-killing Injector and an equally huge grudge against Pink Diamond, the audience is just as mystified by her as Steven is.
• Parent Never Came Back from the Store: Pink Diamond pulled a variant of this on Spinel; she told her they were going to play a game in which Spinel must stand still in one spot and wait for her to come back. She then proceeded to leave and never returned. Poor Spinel was left standing there for literally thousands of years waiting for her master to come back, until she eventually saw a broadcast revealing the truth, causing her to snap and become evil. Heaven knows how long she would have waited had it not been for that convenient broadcast...
• Pep-Talk Song: "Who We Are" is sung by Bismuth to encourage Steven even after Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl reboot. It heavily remixes lyrics and elements from the show's theme song (mixed with Bismuth's own instrumentation), and is intercut with Steven singing a Dark Reprise of "Happily Ever After". As she finally gets to Steven, both of them as well as Peridot and Lapis sing the refrain one last time together.
• Personal Horror: Spinel's Heel Realization. She was literally made to be Pink Diamond's friend. She enjoys being Steven's friend. And then she reactivates the injector when she thinks he is going to use the rejuvenator on her.
• Pilot Movie: In addition to serving as a Finale Movie to the original series, the movie also serves as a beginning of sorts for the epilogue series Steven Universe: Future.
• Planetary Core Manipulation: The Big Bad arrives with an injector filled with a toxic fluid she plans to slow drip into the Earth's core, killing everything along the way. Near the end of the movie she orders the tanker to drop the rest of its load to cause as much damage as she can, which wrecks Beach City but leaves the rest of the planet unharmed.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: The Diamonds try to convince Steven to move in with them on Homeworld at the beginning of the movie when he tells them he has to go back to Earth, prompting them to sing "Let Us Adore You".
• Politically Correct History: White Diamond’s storybook, implied to be the main source in-universe for Gems to understand the events of the show as it pertains to the new Era, leaves a lot of messy details out. It only mentions that Pink Diamond left Homeworld to start a new life on Earth, that the Diamonds were heartbroken over this development, and that Steven returned to share his mother’s cultural revolution with Gemkind when he learned that he was the son of one of the Gem leaders. There is no explicit mention of Pink Diamond leading a civil war against herself, faking her death in order to get Homeworld to retreat, the Diamonds’ subsequent counterattack and attempted murder of every Gem on Earth, or that Steven was originally only coming to Homeworld to find a cure for the corruption caused by said attack.
• Portmanteau: Steg, Steven and Greg's fusion that they form to get Pearl to regain her memories.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: Steven briefly freezes up and blushes when Connie gives him a kiss on the cheek.
• Power Born of Madness: Spinel was never made for combat, as she was essentially created to be Pink Diamond's plaything, but going completely insane due to being left abandoned on an asteroid for 6,000 years has given her the ruthlessness and murderous intent to hold her own with the entire Crystal Gem team at once and win the first fight.
• Power Nullifier: Spinel's Sinister Scythe can't poof Steven's organic body, but it does disrupt Steven's powers.
• The Power of Rock: Steg is basically the embodiment of this concept in both mannerisms and actual power displayed.
• Previously on…: The movie begins with a brief recap of the series so far narrated by White Diamond, as well as two songs which provide more personal recaps for Steven and the individual Crystal Gems, respectively.
• Prophecy Twist: The reset Sapphire tells Ruby that she predicts she "won't last more than a day". Initially, the prediction was seeing Ruby get shattered as a result of "hijinks", before Sapphire decides to Screw Destiny as Ruby had before. But the prediction still comes true, in that she doesn't last a day as Ruby.
• Psychological Projection: Spinel's Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred! moment towards Steven using the Rejuvenator on her — despite her paranoid reaction to him still having it earlier — seems to come from her own desire to forget her pain at Pink's betrayal.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Spinel is very child-like, but also completely insane and homicidal. Justified, as it seems she was created to be child-like as part of being Pink Diamond's playmate.
• Race Against the Clock: Peridot tells Steven that he has forty-one hours to deal with the new threat before all organic life on Earth is gone. Steven's attempt to remove Spinel's Super-Injector by hand drops it to thirty-seven hours, according to Peridot's tablet screen.
• Racist Grandma: Played for Laughs; White Diamond is trying to be more tolerant towards "lower lifeforms" thanks to Steven but keeps slipping up and being chided by the other Diamonds.
• Relationship Upgrade: Seems to finally be happening with Steven and Connie, albeit in a fairly restrained way. When she leaves for Space Camp, she kisses him on the cheek (leading to them both blushing), and when he lies down on his bed it's shown that hers are the only photos he keeps in the in-wall storage area above it: one is how she looked in Season 1, the other is fairly recent.
• Remember the New Guy?: Used to heartbreaking effect. Spinel was never mentioned because no one other than Pink Diamond knew where she was or even that she had been abandoned for 6,000 years. Pearl knew of her, but did not know where she was after they reached Earth and was forbidden from mentioning anything of Rose's past as Pink Diamond. This trope being brought up is Spinel's Berserk Button.
• Replacement Goldfish:
  • Although the Diamonds have accepted that Pink is gone, they're still rather attached to Steven at the beginning of the movie, even trying to get him to permanently move into the palace on Homeworld because he reminds them of Pink, and trying to move in with him near the end.
  • At the end of the film, Spinel, ironically enough, becomes this to the Diamonds in Steven's place.
• Retractable Weapon: The rejuvenator's shaft can collapse back into its handle for easy carrying, while the blade is made of energy and projected from the shaft.
• Retraux: Much of the movie's style harkens back to animated films from the 60s and 70s. The opening credits, for example, contain nearly all of the cast details (a feature typical of movies from the 1960s) and are prefaced with White Diamond reading out of a book of fables, similar to early Disney films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Spinel herself is drawn to resemble old timey cartoon characters like the original Mickey Mouse, with squash-and-stretch, bouncy movements and moldable limbs.
• Retirony: Steven and the gems spend the opening of the movie singing about the hardships they've faced and how they have grown and are now in the future experiencing their happily ever after. It takes roughly a minute afterwards for Spinel and her planet killing device to show up for the stated purpose of ruining said happily ever after.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • On second viewing, the shot of Pink's garden◊ that appears during the broadcast of Steven's message blatantly has Spinel's root-covered foot in the middle of it.
  • Easily missable the first time watching, when Steven travels through Lion's mane to get to Lars, the chest in the background is wide open.
  • The first time one hears "Other Friends", Spinel's lyrics sound like a bunch of odd game analogies and threats. Upon a rewatch, they lay out all the ways Pink Diamond hurt her by leaving her behind.
  • During the brief montage where Steven and Spinel look for Amethyst, Onion appears in each visited area.
• Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Spinel announces she's had Steven's recording playing on loop, which is how she recognizes Steven and family. It's also helped her work up a proper rage to attack them in lieu of Pink Diamond.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Steven repeats Peridot's statement that all organic life will be destroyed by the super injector, she nonchalantly confirms it and clarifies the myriad species that will be destroyed, people included.

• Rubber-Hose Limbs: Spinel's design is a deliberate homage to this early animation style, befitting her Rubber Man abilities.
• Rubber Man: Spinel has bendy, stretchy limbs she can mold into anything she pleases. Unlike normal Gem shapeshifting, it's almost instantaneous and her body isn't enveloped in light when she does it.
• Running Gag:
  • Greg being weirded out by Pearl acting subservient to him.
  • Amethyst's Blank Slate behavior results in her not just repeating what everyone says, but mimicking them with her shapeshifting as well.

S

• Sad Clown: Even as an antagonist, Spinel keeps up a hammy demeanor and near-constant Slasher Smile, up to and including when asking what Pink's "other friends" about all the things they've said about her and all the games they've played without her during her Villain Song. It becomes painfully clear both later on and in retrospect after knowing what exactly happened to her that her bombastic act is masking a lot of pain.
• Screw Destiny: Upon foreseeing an accident will result in Ruby being shattered, Sapphire dives in to save her, changing her fate. This results in them fusing into Garnet again.
• Screw the War, We're Partying: When Spinel's attack comes the day of a Sadie Killer and the Suspects concert, Greg drops the cover charge and Beach City uses the warehouse they're performing in as a shelter. Steven complains Greg has more important things to do than manage a band but then realizes a rock concert may be a good place to bring Pearl's rebellious side, and thus memories, back.
• Sensational Staircase Sequence: The movie ends with Steven and his friends dancing in elaborate suits down a staircase as they sing the finale verse of "Finale".
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: Inverted. When Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet (well, Ruby and Sapphire) reform after being hit with the Rejuvenator, they start in the forms they were in when they first emerged; In the case of the latter, once they fuse, the result is Garnet's first form. Once they regain their memories, they shift through all the forms they ever reformed as before landing on the newest ones.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Steven spends much of the final battle defending himself from Spinel despite her clear intent to kill him. Spinel eventually stops attacking entirely when she realizes that Steven genuinely wants to be her friend.
• Shipper on Deck: It's subtle, but when Garnet talks about the importance of hydration when smooching, she's looking at Connie.
• Shout-Out: List can be found here.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: At the end of an attempted redemption song, Spinel spikes Steven about a thousand yards into the top of the injector, declaring that "singing a stupid song" can't fix all her problems... which, fair enough, it can't.
• Sigil Spam:
  • The Wicked Heart Symbol isn't just in Spinel's gemstone, but on the top of her injector as well.
  • Peridot's new robonoids all have a version of her new shades on them.
• Sinister Scythe: Spinel's weapon is a rejuvenator, a scythe-like weapon with an energy blade that causes Identity Amnesia in Gems that it poofs.
• Sinister Silhouettes: The teaser for the movie shows a silhouette of Spinel looking straight at the screen and cackling. This is continued in the promotional poster, which shows the partially shadowed Spinel evilly overlooking the Crystal Gems. It's continued yet again in a scene in the trailer, which shows Spinel on top of her injector, completely black except for her white eyes.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: The trailers were careful to cut around any shots of the Gems in their rejuvenated forms, Spinel especially, to avoid giving away the plot twist in the first act.
• Small Role, Big Impact: A minor one involving Connie. Although she is not present for most of the movie, Connie does appear at the beginning saying goodbye to Steven as she heads for space camp. Just before she leaves, she kisses Steven on the cheek much to his surprise. Only once she is gone, Steven then begins to sing "Happily Ever After", implying that Connie and her developing romance with Steven, was the catalyst that made Steven realize and appreciate just how good his new life of peace really is, before everything comes undone by Spinel’s arrival.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Garnet sings "True Kinda Love", a soft, smooth song, over the Crystal Gems' second fight with Spinel. Shortly after, the instrumental break plays over the destruction of Beach City.
• Spiritual Successor: The plot of the movie can be traced back to the song "Everything Stays" from Adventure Time, which was written by Rebecca Sugar.
• Stand-In Portrait: After Amethyst goes missing, Steven, Lion and Spinel track her down in Vidalia's garage, shapeshifted to mimic an abstract portrait of herself and given away when her eyes move.
• Stealth Pun: "system/BOOT.pearl_final(3).Info" is a giant computer joke. The first interface the new Pearl summons while asking for the user's name and preferred appearance for the Pearl? It's a shell, which is the name for a computer interface (granted, it's also where real-life pearls actually come from, but still). The song even starts with a computer-boot-up chime, and the rest of the song even has a general computery theme to it.
• Stop Copying Me: Steven and Greg are distinctly unnerved by Amethyst repeating what they say and even shapeshifting into them when she's been reverted into a Blank Slate.
• Stop Worshipping Me: When Pearl is reset, she imprints on Greg as her owner and begins acting like his servant. Greg, quite understandably, finds the concept creepy and most of her attempts at helping annoying.
• Storybook Opening: The film opens with White Diamond telling the story of Pink, complete with a book opening and pages turning.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Spinel tries to goad Steven into using the rejuvenator on her again when she's grabbed an amnesiac Garnet, likely hoping that she won't be able to restore her memories again in time to stop the injector.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Steven reluctantly considers asking the Diamonds to help stop Spinel's plan to destroy Earth, but Lapis shoots the idea down since she's convinced that the auxiliary Crystal Gems would be enough to save the day. Ironically enough, once Spinel is defeated and recovers some of her sanity, she cowers under the Diamonds' presence when they arrive.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Spinel angrily lampshades that Steven can't make everything better by singing, especially since she suffered for thousands of years.
  • Spinel wins the first fight with the Crystal Gems thanks to catching them off-guard and having a weapon they don't understand. The second fight, when she no longer has it and they're on guard, things go very differently.
  • Steven gets the idea to cure the damage caused by the injector by using his healing powers. He kisses the ground, the plants and grass return... and then the camera pans out to show he's only healed one small patch. A little bit of spit will only go so far, after all.
  • Steven seemingly talks down and redeems Spinel... only for a misunderstanding to trigger another psychotic break. Just because you've talked down someone with a serious mental illness that makes them legitimately dangerous to themselves and others doesn't mean they might not relapse or are instantly no longer dangerous.
  • Spinel is redeemed and helped through her pain... but is still clearly having issues, especially when it comes to befriending Steven and the Gems. As with Lapis, the amount of suffering and trauma she went through doesn't just disappear instantly.
  • While the Diamonds have come to accept that Steven is not Pink Diamond, they still want him to stay on Homeworld with them since he's still a living reminder of their lost sister.
  • Steven's breakthrough with the Diamonds did stick, but since they've been stuck in their dysfunctional ways for so long, change doesn't come easy for them. They have to actively work at being better people and frequently screw up (White makes a Freudian Slip about "lower lifeforms", Yellow makes a subtle insult about the destroyed Beach City's smell, and Blue makes a Suspiciously Specific Denial to cover for their obvious distaste with the city's destroyed state).

T-V

• Talking the Monster to Death: How Steven "fights" in the final battle against Spinel, alternating between blocking her attacks and trying to convince her to change and let go of her anger. She's visibly moved by his sincerity twice, but both times she rejects him and launches another attack. Steven does get to Spinel in the end, though, and she has a My God, What Have I Done? moment realizing what her hatred of Pink Diamond has turned her into and made her do.
• Technobabble: Peridot, when analyzing the giant injector.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Steven is laying on the grass by the lighthouse with Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst, saying how he wants things to always stay the way they are and never change, something that Pearl agrees with, with Steven then asking Garnet to use her future vision to check and see if they stay like that forever. Then Spinel shows up.
  • In the flashback showing how Pink Diamond abandoned Spinel, upon being told how to play a game where she'd have to stand still until Pink returned, Spinel exclaims "This'll be so much fun!" It wasn't.
• "They've Come So Far" Song: "Happily Ever After" consists mostly of the Crystal Gems reminiscing on just how they've grown from where they started out. One of the lyrics in the song outright states, "I can't believe we've come so far."
• The Thing That Would Not Leave:
  • Spinel after being reset insists on hanging around Steven, and rarely contributes constructively. Pink Diamond seemed to also feel this way about Spinel just as she got her first colony.
  • After Steven declines moving into the palace with the Diamonds so he can return to his life on Earth, the Diamonds show up on Earth declaring they have come to live with him instead. Steven is not amused by this, though it is subverted when the Diamonds are disgusted by the destruction they see and decide to take Spinel back with them to Homeworld instead.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Steven convinces Spinel to stop her injector, then says all that is left to do is get Garnet back to normal and get his powers back. Spinel begins to question if he only needed her to stop her injector, and asks what will happen to her next. Steven tries to assure her they can forget about the whole thing when they are done, but when this agitates Spinel due to his poor choice of words he drops her rejuvenator, which he was keeping in his pocket, and Spinel believes he was going to double-cross her and erase her memories when he didn't need her anymore.
• Time Abyss: Highlighted with the Diamonds. Spinel jokes to them that 6,000 years isolated was "nothing". Yellow laughs and states that it's true, at least from the Diamonds' point of view.
• Time-Passes Montage:
  • During "Drift Away", the 6000 years Spinel spent waiting for Pink Diamond pass by rapidly, with the grass she was standing up gradually growing until it's up to her waist.
  • There's a montage of Beach City going through various phases of recovery once the conflict has passed, eventually ending up mostly back to normal.
• Time Skip: The film takes place two years after the end of season 5. Steven, now sixteen, has finally dismantled the Diamonds' empire, and freedom for all Gemkind has extended to a colony forming next door to Beach City called "Little Homeworld", and the formerly corrupted Gems integrating with the inhabitants of Beach City.
• Tired After the Song: Steven and Greg fuse into Steg and he sings a musical number, but when he finishes and unfuses, Steven is tired, has used up nearly all his power, and he collapses to the ground.
• Title: The Adaptation: Steven Universe: The Movie.
• Tragic Abandoned Toy: Spinel isn't a toy, but was designed to be Pink Diamond's playmate. The two used to play in Pink's garden, until Pink eventually grew tired of Spinel. When Spinel tried to follow Pink after she was granted her own colony, Pink told her to stand in the garden as part of a new game. Spinel complied and stood waiting alone for six thousand years, even when the other Gem passed away. In the present, hearing of Pink's death via Steven's broadcast and realizing her lies sends Spinel over the edge.
• Trash the Set: Outside of the Crystal Temple, Beach City is almost totally wrecked by the finale, though the Crystal Gems and townsfolk immediately set to work rebuilding it afterward.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: During Steven's address, Spinel is still entangled in the overgrowth of the garden. Even taking narrative time compression into account, Spinel escaped the garden, stole the Rejuvenator and the injector, and travelled physically across the galaxy to Earth incredibly quickly. According to Rebecca Sugar at a book signing, she accomplished this thanks to having access to Pink's resources and personal galaxy warp, letting her quickly get literally anywhere she wanted to.
• Triumphant Reprise: "Finale" serves as this to "Happily Ever After". The reprise of "Let Us Adore You" becomes this when Spinel accepts the offer and mixes in her own reprise of "Found".
• Twitchy Eye: Spinel, already furious about being abandoned, gets this when she realizes that Pink never even mentioned her to any of her new friends and they don't know who she is.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz, yet again. After getting Earth as a colony and not wanting to bring Spinel with her, she told her to stay in her garden until she got back from Earth. Obviously, she ended up never going back because she couldn't, resulting in her former playmate spending thousands of years alone and going insane.
• The Unreveal: The mysterious chest in Lion's mane is shown to have been opened during the Time Skip... but nobody mentions it and we're given no indication of what, if anything, was inside.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Spinel, who poofs the other Gems with her scythe when she arrives on Earth, is poofed when Steven uses her own scythe against her.
• Vengeful Abandoned Toy: The vicious Spinel turns out to have once been the cheerful playmate of Rose Quartz, until Rose grew tired of her and abandoned her on an empty world. Spinel waited there for thousands of years expecting Rose to return, only to eventually learn that she had been ditched, and so headed to Earth seeking revenge. The plot was inspired by a real incident where showrunner Rebecca Sugar discovered her old toy bunny in the garden and wondered what it would've have felt about being forgotten.
• Verbal Backspace:
  • White Diamond uses the term "lower lifeforms", and tries to do this to "equal lifeforms" instead.
  • Ruby says that she and Sapphire aren't going to follow Steven to Little Homeworld... until Sapphire says that her future vision shows them doing just that.
  Ruby: Never mind! We're going.
  • Steven's reaction to his mother abandoning Spinel:
    Steven: I can't believe Mom did that to you... [looks aside] Actually, I can totally believe it.
• Victory by Endurance: Once he gets his powers back, Steven delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle to Spinel without even really fighting back. His shield and overall durability allow him to easily weather her attacks until she inadvertently causes her injector to explode with her frenzied attempts to kill him.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: In a more sympathetic variant, the second verse of "True Kinda Love" is basically Garnet pitying Spinel for feeling she needs to take her anger at Pink Diamond out on others. Spinel even gets disturbed by her own reflection in Garnet's glasses during the first line.
  Stuck in the middle of fear and shame
  Everybody's looking for someone to blame
  Like it's a game
  Like it's a game
• Villainous Breakdown: Spinel is finally defeated by a Heel Realization. First Spinel rages at Steven that he might sing about changing for the better, but she changed for the worse, and that she wasn't good enough for Pink Diamond and is now "not good at all", and ends up breaking down Cry Laughing after realizing that her vendetta against Pink has driven her to try to kill someone who really does care about her.
  Spinel: What am I doing? Why do I want to hurt you so bad? I'm supposed to be a friend... I just want to be a friend.
• Villainous Lament: "Drift Away", during which Spinel explains her Start of Darkness and reveals that underneath the psychotic Monster Clown is an utterly broken Gem.
• Villain Song: "Other Friends", a playful but venomous song Spinel sings at the Crystal Gems upon arriving on Earth, expressing her rage at being discarded and replaced in her role as Pink Diamond’s best friend.
• Visual Pun:
  • While the Crystal Gems are waiting in the house for Steven after he'd gone after Spinel, Garnet, still amnesiac, is fascinated by a spork — a cutlery fusion.
  • While Spinel is waiting for Pink to come back, some blue flowers can be seen. Namely forget-me-nots.
• Vocal Evolution: Zach Callison finally gets to use his natural speaking voice for Steven, after years of having to pitch his voice up to mimic how he sounded pre-puberty.
• The Voiceless: Most of the citizens of Beach City and Little Homeworld have no dialogue, even if they appear in the foreground. Oddly, Lars is silent even when Steven is visiting him, but has one audible line at Sadie's concert and sings one line with Sadie and Nanefua in the last song.

W-Y

• Wake-Up Call: Steven has gotten comfortable with his Happily Ever After and doesn't want anything to change. Then Spinel comes crashing in threatening to take that happy ending away, forcing him to jump back into the fight and save the world again while learning a lesson about change.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Though they've been trying their hardest to learn empathy from Steven, and he appreciates the effort, the Diamonds' attempts to be kinder people are still this by normal standards — Yellow hasn't declared war or enslaved anyone, Blue doesn't order that her subjects be shattered or make anyone cry anymore, and White is attempting to be cordially polite, "even to lower lifeforms".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Pumpkin is nowhere to be seen, even though Cat Steven appears several times in the movie. After a screening of the film, co-director Joe Johnston heavily implied she died during the timeskip of old age.
• What Other Galaxies?: In the series, the Gems' Empire is mentioned as having colonies in multiple galaxies. However, The Movie uses "galaxy" and "universe" pretty interchangeably. For instance, the prologue states that the Diamonds "conquered many worlds across the galaxy", but a signal to all their colonies is referred to as a "message to the universe".
• "Where? Where?": When Amethyst's memory is restored and she and Steven hug, a still-amnesic Spinel (who had their memories wiped in the first place) also hugs them, prompting Amethyst to panic:
  Amethyst: YOU! Wha- W-What are you doing here?!
  Steven: So, l-let me explain-
  Amethyst: Get away from him, you monster! Huh...?
  Spinel: A monster? (scans the horizon) Where is it? No, I don't see it.
  Amethyst: Aah! (jumps back) You're it!
  Spinel: ...Ooh! Ready or not, here I come! Boop!
• Wicked Heart Symbol: Spinel's gemstone is shaped like an upside-down heart, which was rightside-up before her Evil Makeover. She also has an upside-down heart on top of her Doomsday Device. This is evident in the teaser trailer, which is framed with Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven reflected in Spinel's gem. It somehow turns upside-down and rightside-up as it rotates horizontally, each time switching to another Crystal Gem, before flipping to a silhouetted Spinel as wicked laughter is heard.
• Win-Win Ending: After two years of working with the other Diamonds, they want Steven to stay, because even if they understand he isn't Pink Diamond, they still treasure how he reminds them of her. Steven insists on moving back to Earth, and clearly finds them pretty overbearing. After Spinel pulls a real Heel–Face Turn but isn't comfortable looking for friends on Earth, Steven convinces them to have Spinel (who was also made for and acts similarly to how they remember Pink Diamond) move in instead. There's even a Triumphant Reprise of their invitation to Steven that's changed to be about Spinel.
• Wistful Amnesia: All of the rejuvenated Gems have some degree of connection with their true personalities, which is one of the keys to jogging their memories. For instance:
  • Sapphire, who was The Fatalist prior to fusing with Ruby, takes action to save her from being crushed by Bismuth's anvil despite having foreseen such an event — that fate is not inevitable is something she learned from Ruby.
  • Amethyst, despite having been reduced to a Blank Slate, still constantly uses her shapeshifting powers, and after she goes missing, Steven finds her in Vidalia's garage, where she often comes to pose for portraits.
  • Pearl goes back to being an obedient servant, doting on "Um Greg Universe" 24/7. It's only when her master disappears — however briefly — that she realizes her own freedom. She also retains her driving skills.
  • Even Steven had his own form of wistful amnesia. At the start of the movie, he's content with the world, and most of the galaxy, being at peace. Even when he relives the worst parts of his maturing years, it's only when he accepts that change will and must happen that his powers return.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Spinel was left alone for 6,000 years, having only realized that Pink wasn't coming back for her when Steven sent out his "message to the universe", which caused her to snap and seek revenge.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • The Crystal Gems lose their first fight with Spinel because they're explicitly out of practice due to peacetime, being caught off-guard by Spinel and having no idea what she can do, and her having a powerful weapon they don't understand. During the second fight with her later in the film, these factors aren't at play and they fare far better against her.
  • Steven spends most of the movie severely weakened by having his Gem "reset" by Spinel's rejuvenator. This results in the Final Battle initially being a Curb-Stomp Battle in Spinel's favor. However, he manages to "find all his pieces" and regain his full strength, at which point he reveals he's gotten even stronger during the time skip and is able to fight her on even footing.
• Wrecked Weapon: Steven destroys the rejuvenator to prove he wasn't going to use it on Spinel again.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: At one point, Peridot says that at an injection rate of 5 cubic meters per hour, the Earth has 41 hours before all life is destroyed, which is definitely a few orders of magnitude from adding up.^note Granted, the potency of the poison is never specified, but for this to add up, each cubic meter of poison would have to be enough to destroy 2.5 million cubic kilometers of the Earth, assuming a depth of 1 kilometer across the Earth's surface area.
• Xanatos Gambit: When she appears on Earth, Spinel was able to overpower the Crystal Gems and poof them with her rejuvenator quickly and efficiently. When she tries it out on Steven and sees that it doesn't effect him like regular gems, she hits him a bunch more times and robs him of his powers, rendering him weak and without his allies. She then lets him cut her down with the rejuvenator so that he would have no way of getting her to deactivate her injector. By the time she would have remembered (initially), her injector would have killed all life on the planet Pink Diamond replaced her with and the weakened, fully-human Steven would have died along with the rest of the Earth.
• Yandere: Spinel seems to be this even before going off the deep end, given the way her rejuvenated self suddenly snaps "NO!!!" when Steven suggests leaving her behind for a moment, but it turns out to be her repressed memory of being abandoned bubbling through. She doesn't seem to mind Steven having other friends as long as she's still included; it's specifically being left behind or forgotten that seems to be the trigger for her, but anyone would be sore in her situation.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • After thinking Steven's attempt to get to her were just a trick, Spinel mocks the idea of Steven being able to make people better. Steven replies that he can't change her, but she can change herself. He then spends the second half of "Change" applying the first half’s speech to Spinel herself.
  • Bismuth does this herself with the song "Who We Are", Telling Steven he isn’t truly defeated as long as one Crystal Gem is left standing and that she believes in him to pull him back from the Despair Event Horizon.
• "You!" Exclamation: Steven lets out a deliciously hammy "YOOOOOUUUU!!" when he sees the rejuvenated Spinel.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Sapphire predicts that Ruby won't last the day when both are reset, which she later clarifies to mean that Ruby will be shattered by some falling debris. Thankfully, Sapphire refuses to let this happen and saves Ruby herself.
• Your Makeup Is Running: Spinel's second form shifts her eyelashes downward to resemble trails of mascara-tears.
• Your Worst Memory: To regain her memories, Spinel has to be reminded of the worst experience in her life: being abandoned by Pink Diamond.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Steven attempts to recreate the incident that caused Ruby and Sapphire to fuse for the first time, but it fails because Sapphire knows that Steven doesn't have the heart to actually attack her, even if he believes she won't actually be harmed.

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I'll be ready every day
for as long as I can say
Here I am in the future with my friends
That's why
happily ever after never... ends.

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