I am definitely reminded of why I don't really watch "critique" videos on YouTube anymore; most of them are made by people who aren't really good at critiquing videos at all, and their videos are basically just them wonking unproductively.
Again, to paraphrase another user on this site, "people online tend to not be very media literate or good at critique."
I'm not saying that shows like Steven Universe can't be criticized, just that the really vocal people aren't exactly doing a very good job criticism-wise.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on Aug 24th 2023 at 11:53:11 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."![]()
~Zendervai Season 5's final set of episodes turned out the way they did due to Executive Meddling causing the show to be cancelled, forcing the Crewniverse to rush to finish the show and give it an actual ending. (That's right, you've heard this story over and over again.)
The problem is that it was already established that Steven and the Crystal Gems tried to fight Blue and Yellow Diamonds and got demolished for their troubles, forcing Steven to use a Deus ex Machina to save them. There simply weren't enough episodes to create a believable training arc for them to suddenly come back and defeat the Diamonds during the finale.
If anything, the final set of episodes dealing with the Diamonds should've had been an entire season which would've given the writers plenty of time to set up a proper conclusion instead of hastily trying to tie up everything.
"Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It's lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work."-Skulduggery PleasantJudge a finished product, empathize with outside factors.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Based on Sugar's intentions, it was always supposed to end with the Diamonds being talked down. That it was rushed was because of the background studio politics after Reunited aired, such that they were given the orders that they had 6 episodes, wrap it up, we're closing down. It was an unfortunate reality of the current media landscape at the time, that queer relationships are still not universally accepted among major international markets (example of Ruby being a boy in a lot of homophobic markets). That it received a movie and an epilogue series after the fact was a stroke of unexpected, but welcome good fortune to the creative team.
The thing is, this is supposed to be a cartoon for kids, which means a lot of the morals and implications get sanded down. Part of the implications have to be smoothed over or disregarded, based on the nature of the medium. And in the end, it's also meant to be a kind of fantasy that Sugar wanted to weave, based on theme and tone, that the major story conflicts are resolved by family, connections, and understanding. That the Diamonds were talked down because of Steven's familial connections, tenacity, and heart is a fantasy, but as much a fantasy as any super villain being taken down by a ragtag group of underpowered rebels in a major do-or-die single conflict, where they were put on the backfoot for all of it, except until the very end. It just feels weird to expect geopolitical reality from one fantasy, but not another.
Of course, you don't have to like it. If it doesn't emotionally resonate, it doesn't emotionally resonates. Doesn't mean it was bad or your tastes were bad, just means that the product they crafted, given their intentions and resources wasn't for you.
Edited by HeyMikey on Aug 24th 2023 at 12:11:08 PM
I still think they shouldn't have even touched the issue of "redemption" knowing they had so few episodes left. It should have been an And the Adventure Continues ending that wrapped up a few plot threads and left the rest open for a possible continuation later. What we got has become so contentious it poisoned the rest of the series.
As someone with an abusive family, the ending felt more insulting to me than anything (as was the Andy episode, which in hindsight was probably foreshadowing for the Diamonds but should have warned the crew what they were going to do would not be received well). But different strokes.
Edited by PhiSat on Aug 24th 2023 at 1:14:26 PM
Oissu!
IMO, that would have been an incredibly bad choice. Especially because the news about the extension and movie happened too late to alter the plans for the series ending.
An "and the adventure continues" ending would have just resulted in everyone going "what's the point?" Sugar and co were also told that either they ended the show with the wedding (so all the ending stuff would have come first) or they do the wedding and then get six more episodes. How do you do an "and the adventure continues" ending with either of those choices without it just completely sucking? Especially since the vibe was that CN was basically abandoning the show before they abruptly made a 180 too late to change the plans.
Just end with the wedding, then. Have some non-Diamond threat show up and Hand Wave the Diamond plot, saying they'd deal with it later. Or introduce some MacGuffin that can heal the corrupted gems and at least resolve that plot in the last six episodes, but don't go any further with the Diamonds.
There was no time left for the Diamonds to be resolved satisfactorily. There just wasn't.
Oissu!...Ya know, this is rarely ever asked.
Why did companies cancel shows, but then give creators the ability to do a sequel series?
That's only recently struck me as pretty weird. Is it like a 2nd chance type of thing?
What's the point in cancelling the show, if they're just gonna bring it back essentially?
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Speaking as someone who also had emotionally abusive family, I found a lot of comfort in the OG ending, mostly because I had emotionally connected with Steven's plight and the eventual resolution, rushed though it may be. It was at its end basically a fantasy I always wanted, but probably may never see in real life, but still talked to me, about how such a deep-rooted closely personal and traumatizing conflict gets resolved through words and the offending party gets better.
Not everyone will feel the same way about what was decided or how it turned out, as is their prerogative as a media consumer. Even people with similar life circumstances will view the scenes differently based on life philosophy and how real or fantastical the story interacts with them. But I had no qualms with the path they decided to take to reach their destination, only that it could have been longer, so I could better see everything, rather than it just coming in and finishing so abruptly. But such is the unfairness of life sometimes.
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From what Sugar recounts in her art book, the idea for a movie came after they received their cancellation orders, requesting one last project to celebrate their time together. That got greenlit. Then as the movie got underway, another executive thought, why do a movie just by itself? It can be used as an advertisement platform for another series, and that got Future greenlit.
If I had to guess, the movie got greenlit, because big show spectacle musicals seemed to be a hot seller with the brand according to some studio head. That's partially why they got the wedding episode. Sugar basically sold the episode as a gigantic extravaganza with singing and spectacle. The movie would basically be that over 75 minutes. Then another studio head didn't see the point of ending on a movie, thinking movies are only good if they can be used to advertise something else, so they gave permission to make Future. Studio politics are confusing to me.
Edited by HeyMikey on Aug 24th 2023 at 12:37:36 PM
Steven Universe is kind of unusual, and it’s a result of two different policies piling up.
Most of the time, there’s a significant gap between the cancellation and revival. With SU, it was “oh, we want a movie, by the way, and because we don’t do standalone movies, there needs to be more show to tie into it.”
randomness4 And for anyone asking "Why didn't the Crewniverse use the additional episodes and the movie to create a better finale" or "why didn't they use the additional episodes to fill in the gaps", maybe the Crewinverse felt that the original series was finished or maybe they were told they weren't allowed to go back and had to do something new.
Considering that the Executive Meddling resulted in the Stevenbombs, the show getting cancelled over a lesbian space rock wedding and the final arc being far shorter than it should've been, I wouldn't be surprised if it leaked into the Movie and Future as well.
"Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It's lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work."-Skulduggery PleasantThis, basically. A lot of the bad-faith criticism can either be traced back to or were popularized by Orchard's video (particularly "this Jewish enby is a neo nazi") that was then echo chambered into oblivion, and I really do wonder if SU's reputation would be as damaged as it is now if that video was never posted.
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢![]()
Future was technically just an extension of the show.
Like I said, it was because of two policies interacting with each other. CN doesn't really do standalone sequel movies, most of the movies they do come out shortly before the series as a whole ends because of that. Steven Universe got given a movie (I'm guessing by a different part of the company than the one cancelling it, this particular part is not that unusual, the money people likely greenlit the movie because the show did well, and the creative side execs who were leery about the gay wedding were the ones lobbying to cancel it) and because CN doesn't do standalone sequel movies, because you can't use the movie to advertise the show then, the money people handed them ten more episodes. Or at least, that's my theory.
I'm going to be very honest: I don't like this argument.
I'm not saying personal feelings are invalid or that it shouldn't affect how one responds to the series: I think it's perfectly fine to feel like this doesn't resonate personally.
But Sugar was channeling her own feelings, thoughts, and experiences into the series. The finale is essentially a power fantasy of queerness, self-love, self-acceptance, and confronting what is essentially a queerphobic family figure in White Diamond. Like, I dunno, it feels like the kind of Lily Orchard gatekeep-y stuff if a line has to be drawn between what kind of power fantasies queer writers are or are not allowed to have.
I think it's also worth noting that the "was abusive and is trying to do better but is bad at it, but has too much presence to fully cut out" thing is a real thing a lot of queer people deal with. Steven has literally no mechanism to stop the Diamonds from visiting Earth beyond that they don't like it much. They know where he lives, they don't have to use the teleporter system, etc etc etc.
Cutting the Diamonds out isn't an option. And sometimes fully cutting out abusive family members is likewise not an option. Combat and fighting doesn't work against the Diamonds. Only the emotional appeals did. And the show even makes a point out of Steven not forgiving them. He tolerates them and will talk to them when he has to, but he doesn't like it, he doesn't like them and he doesn't want anything to do with them...but he can't remove them because he literally doesn't have the ability to.
Like I said, this is a real dynamic a lot of people are stuck in, and it's a dynamic that is incredibly underrepresented in anything that takes it seriously. It's not universally applicable, but it wasn't trying to be and it shouldn't be blamed for not succeeding at that.
Edited by Zendervai on Aug 24th 2023 at 8:30:06 AM
On how Steven Universe Future got made as a seperate sequel show, keep in mind this isn't the first time Cartoon Network did this. Remember the Ben 10 franchise where they made Alien Force, Ultimate Alien, and Omniverse rather than just doing more episodes of the original 2005 series?
Heck, Adventure Time is down a similar path with its sequel show being with Distant Lands spin offs and the upcoming Fionna and Cake show.
I was under the impression that the writing teams tended to be noticeably different between shows there.
But yeah, with Steven Universe, Future really doesn't seem like it was actually a fully separate show. It was ten episodes that were produced immediately after the movie and everything Sugar and co talked about makes it sound like it was just added on to the original show order. They just called it Future to make it clear it was the part that happened after the movie. It seems to be analogous to how Adventure Time has a bunch of miniseries in the mix with a special name that are still part of the main show.
x5 When did I say Sugar's take was invalid or that she wasn't allowed to have it? I said it felt insulting to me personally as someone with an abusive family. I hate the take that it's on you to appeal to those kinds of people and make them change their ways. And I don't think that take is particularly rare in media to begin with. If anything most media goes the opposite way, that you have to forgive and reconcile with family no matter how awful because FAMILYYYYYY WANTS THE BEST FOR YOUUUUU (no, media, often they don't).
I think the queer power fantasy would have been Pink Diamond telling the Diamonds to their faces that she hated them and they were evil, awful people, then flourishing without them with her found family. But yeah, the show kept running into the issue of portraying the Diamonds as both abusive family and genocidal tyrants and realistically, you can't reason that way with genocidal tyrants, you have to forcibly depose them (and you can't really do that with family).
But my idea of a queer power fantasy doesn't have to be the same as Rebecca Sugar's. People have different viewpoints and opinions.
Edited by PhiSat on Aug 25th 2023 at 11:50:27 AM
Oissu!Arguing that Sugar shouldn't have pursued her artistic vision because of a personal (if valid) complaint kind of feels a little gatekeep-y to me, I guess?
To be clear, I had similar feelings about it for a while. I have my own issues with my family. But after a while I accepted that Sugar was speaking from a different place than my experiences and that's, y'know, fine. It's valid.
That's not a good argument. It's unquantifiable.
Edited by Diana1969 on Aug 25th 2023 at 6:53:39 AM
I do think the double-symbolism with the Diamonds was a big issue, but honestly, it's unique for a cartoon to show someone tolerating their abusive family out of necessity without fully forgiving them and being openly uncomfortable around them, and then show the mental toll that can take (i.e. Steven trying to kill White). Steven never forgave the Diamonds as people (at least not White, maybe Yellow and Blue since they were also implied to be under White's abuse), he just did his best to push them towards using their power for good because they were the only ones who had the resources he needed.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

IMO, the reality is that it's a pretty good show with some big flaws that has issues with the emotional metaphor taking over the stated reality of the series. The Diamonds represent two different things at the same time (abusive family members and interstellar dictators) and the answer to one is very different than the answer to the other. The answer the show went with (tolerate them because they're at least trying to make amends but keep them at arms length) is fine for abusive relatives trying to do better, but it's a weird response to interstellar dictators.
You have to balance the two sides of the show against each other, and that means it's going to fall short on one side when the other takes prominence. This is a flaw, but it doesn't mean it's a bad show or that the people behind the show had weird ulterior motives. It just means there were two separate sets of priorities that couldn't be kept equal, and they chose the emotional metaphor over the stated reality, which is a valid choice to make.