Steven Universe: The Movie, 2019

March 10, 2022 | COLIN BOWER

The film Steven Universe a film set after the first seasons of the TV series with the same name. Essentially, there is another universe that is made up of gem people and there is a group that lives on Earth called the Crystal Gems. The Crystal Gems are made up of Garnet, Amamest, Pearl, and Steven. Steven is half-human half-gem and though his gem is actually a pink diamond, his mother called herself Rose Quarts, and Steven keeps his human name as a way to link both planets.

After several seasons, the Crystal Gems end the tyranny of Homeworld, where the gem people live. In this movie, Steven and Crystal Gems are teaching other gems from Homeworld what living on Earth is like until something goes wrong.

The movie starts with Steven telling White, Yellow, and Blue Diamond that he is not going to stay on Homeworld and wants to go back to Earth with his friends. Steven goes back to Earth and talks to Connie, his girlfriend before she goes off to space camp. Steven and the Crystal Gems then sing about the past experiences they have made over the course of time and talk about how they believe they are in the perfect future (Side Note: This is a musical, so there is a lot of music embedded into the movie).

Right when everything is going so well, a spike ship comes from space and a gem named Spinel pops out and uses her scepter to regress the other gems to their factory settings. The scepter does not work on Steven because of his half-human body type, but his gem no longer listens to him. Steven is able to regress Spinel as well, but a larger problem has arisen. Since Garnet, Amatemest, and Garnet are reset to factory settings, they no longer remember Steven or any of the adventures they have gone on prior. Luckily when Spinel comes back, she does not remember her being angry. Steven finds a way to get Garnet to fuse together again, but Garnet still doesn’t remember what being Garnet is like. While Steven leaves Garnet with his other gem friends, he finds Amethyst and sings a song together about playing, hanging out, and being by each other's side.

This song actually allows Amethyst to remember her past and she is back to her normal self. While the spike ship is still in the ground a liquid is being injected into the Earth that is killing the Earth slowly over time. Steven, getting all emotional, tries to lift up the ship, but his powers still won’t kick in completely and it makes the liquid inject faster. Amethyst and Sadie, one of Steven’s human friends, put on a rock concert to try to tap into Pearl by trying to remind her about the rebellion. After the concert doesn’t work, Steven tries to fuse with his dad, so his dad disappears. Pearl is being obedient to only Steven’s dad, so by fusing, Pearl doesn't know what to do with herself, making her remember her past self.

Spinel gets left behind again, which makes her remember her past self as well. Pearl is then able to tell Steven about Spinel and that Steven’s Mom and Spinel used to play in the garden together thousands of years ago. Steven goes to the garden to find Spinel and then Spinel finally sings a song about how Spinel was abandoned by his mom when she left for Earth. Steven’s mom told Spinel to stay put until she comes back, but she never did for thousands of years and when Steven was on the television, Spinel saw and was filled with rage, which caused her whole plan to unfold.

Steven is able to talk to Spinel one on one and finally tell her what she needed to hear, that Steven does not need for him to be her best friend and that there are so many other people out there that would love to be friends with her. Spinel is then taken to the injector to stop it, but Spinel sees that Steven still has the scepter and thinks that Steven just wanted to use her to get what he wanted and then reset her again. Of course, Spinel gets emotional again and then tries to kill everyone again. Steven breaks the scepter, which makes Garnet remember her past self. Without the scepter, Spinel is still very powerful and the spike ship finishes its injection process. While the Crystal Gems try to save as many people as possible, Steven tries to talk to Spinel one more time.

Spinel is not in the mood for talking and attempts to kill Steven, which reminds Steven that the thing he has forgotten is that he changes in every situation, which allows him to use his powers fully again. The power of music is not enough to make Spinel feel better, but Spinel herself becomes emotional and realizes that she just wants to be his friend because Steven never wanted to hurt her and actually liked her for the most part. The Diamonds ended up showing up and taking Spinel in as their own in replace for Steven being on Homeworld because Spinel reminds the Diamonds of Steven’s mom as well.

Though Care Ethics is typically geared towards women, Steven Universe as the movie and the character do not just exemplify the concept of Care Ethics, but the majority of supporting characters are identified as female. The main concept of Care Ethics is the use of emotions that influence decisions. Other ethical theories tend to leave out the ideas of emotion and relationship out and replace them for logic and reason, but Care Ethics believes that all actions are influenced by who and what surrounds you and how you feel during the time of making the decision. Having all the characters essentially get factory reset makes Steven very emotional, thus making all of his actions emotionally charged.

The only thing that Steven is thinking about during the entirety of this movie is how can I help my friends specifically and how can I help the world. Yes, Steven wants to help Spinel as well, but when it comes to his closest friends or a person he just met, he is going to choose his friends. Steven does end up apologizing to Spinel on behalf of his mother because he agrees with Spinel that what his mother did was unforgivable. A lot of this movie is based on the idea of reflecting on the past in order to create a better future, but also the idea that there is always work to be done and nothing is ever perfect.

Steven Universe does possess a lot of feminine traits but is still clearly a male and this is important because it shows that though he is a man, he grows up surrounded by mother-like characters, so he learns to think like a man and a women, which typically leads to many issues, but most of the time the best outcomes. Emotions are not just something that can be ignored, especially when it comes to making a decision because trying to make a choice impartially can sometimes have more disastrous outcomes than if it was with relationship influence.

March 10, 2022 | COLIN BOWER

When Steven fuses with his father to create Steg, he sings a song with Pearl to help her recover her memory. This song is called Independent Together and it represents well Carol Gilligan's post-conventional morality. Carol Gilligan proposed that In the final stage of moral development, women emphasize taking responsibility for the consequences of their choices and gaining control of their own lives. Caring for others is a strong component of this high stage of moral development, but so is taking care of one self and taking responsibility. The lyrics in this song represent this perfectly. Here they are:

There are several other aspects of Care Ethics that Steven represents. First, he is a man and shows just like Gilligan says, emotions and caring belong naturally to men and women. Gender construction has encouraged women to exaggerate these, and men to hide them, but both of them come out of this worse than they would have been with a more balanced toolkit of emotional and rational attitudes. Care Ethics is also used for conflict resolution, mothers it is said, are excellent at negotiating conflicts in their children, which becomes almost a daily activity. Care Ethics proposes that these skills could be used to solve more global phenomena as well, and Steven is a perfect example of a character trying to do just that. He tried to solve every conflict with compassion, understanding, and a lot of patience, never giving up on Spinel, understanding where she is coming from and what she needs, even though she is completely aggressive and out of control. In the end, Spinel comes around but recognizes that she has done too much to Steven to be real friends with him, however, she finds another way to love in Homeworld and everyone is happy. Steven recognizes there is always more to do, but the Earth will go through a good stage after this.

Additional Resources

Videos