Did Steven Universe Go on Hiatus Again

Paradigm: Cartoon Network

The reason Rebecca Sugar fabricated Steven Universe Futurity, and why information technology'due south the actual end

She knows what comes side by side for the characters, just she might want to 'give them their privacy'

Past Mar 27, 2020, viii:09pm EDT

When Cartoon Network's animated series Steven Universe launched in 2013, information technology didn't look like something that was going to change the way American blitheness handled storytelling. Creator Rebecca Sugar and her team started off with a deceptively simple story: in the first episode, kid protagonist Steven Universe is upset because the company behind his favorite ice-foam sandwich brand is pulling it off the marketplace. The series opener is so hyper-focused on the frozen care for that information technology barely even registers that Steven is the first-ever hybrid between a homo and a race of all-female crystal-based aliens.

Later on episodes often foregrounded the struggles between that alien race and Earth, but simply as oft, they continued to focus on smaller things — by and large Steven's relationships with the other people in his small beachside town. At its most expansive, Steven Universe was a series near the next evolution of an alien race trying to banker peace betwixt a vast, expansionist alien empire and the weird little bluish-green planet that seduced a few of that empire'south rebel soldiers. At its smallest, though, the series was near mindfulness and meditation, almost a kid finding his own identity and separating himself from his parents, and about whether some of his friends managed to get their ring off the ground.

Only it was always about compassion and connexion. Over the course of 160 episodes, Steven Universe taught its audience lessons about tolerance and credence, about the importance of talking through conflicts and acknowledging emotions. Sugar and her coiffure as well built up a huge science-fiction mythos stretching back millennia. They capped that with a characteristic moving picture, Steven Universe: The Movie. And and then the 20-episode finale miniseries, Steven Universe Future, addressed some of the show'southward pocket-sized loose ends, while acknowledging the lasting furnishings of the series' action on Steven, who is, after all, notwithstanding just a teenager. The series wraps with Steven headed off on a road trip, only information technology feels similar there'due south still a lot of story to tell, most how he continues to process his grief, about what happens to his many alien friends as they settle into their new life on Earth, and how the entire planet deals with its peaceful merging with a new species.

Image: Cartoon Network

Simply Sugar says she has no plans to go along the series from hither. "Equally of at present, I haven't approved whatever official continuation, and bated from the upcoming End of an Era artbook, I am non involved in, and accept not approved, any upcoming comics or books or video games," she tells Polygon via email. "There is no official continuation in development at this time."

Given how the serial has progressed — often with little discussion between seasons, and abrupt reveals when a new "Steven bomb" was about to drop a bunch of new episodes on the fandom — it's no wonder fans are wondering if there's secretly more than Steven Universe on the horizon. But Sugar says the sense that at that place's more story left to come was part of the plan all along.

"I always wanted this earth and these characters to feel sublime, as if it'southward always going on earlier and afterwards the episodes, and continues to exist outside the frame of what y'all see," she says.

Has she thought about what might happen side by side? Is there whatever promise of the story continuing in other forms, similar in books or movies? "The story is standing off screen and I practise know what happens next, at least in certain timelines, for the characters," Sugar says. "Only I would have to determine how and when I'd want to dig into that, or if information technology's best to requite them their privacy."

So why split the concluding part of Steven Universe off into its own miniseries? Why tell the story this style in detail? Saccharide says it's an artifact of the green-lighting and production procedure. "While I was working on the original series, around 2016, I was told with a fair amount of certainty that we would not be picked upward for more episodes," she says. "I was asked if the remaining episodes from our electric current pickup would be enough to finish the story we'd planned."

She didn't feel she could wrap up what she intended as the story, so she "started fighting" for another six additional episodes. She says she eventually did go those episodes, which became the "Diamond Days" arc, culminating in the iii-episode arc "Change Your Mind." Simply initially, she was told that no, she had to finish the story without that terminal arc.

"Immediately after this meeting, when I was told there wouldn't be more than, I went up to my office and wrote the song 'I Could Never Be Ready,' which got folded into an episode nosotros were working on at the fourth dimension," Sugar says. "I wasn't ready for the show to end."

Instead, she asked for a movie finale, "then we could all spend a piffling more time together as a coiffure, and in this earth with these characters." Oddly enough, Cartoon Network approved of the idea of a movie — merely then wanted the show to go on afterward. "I was told that there was no signal to a movie unless information technology existed to promote more show," Carbohydrate says. "So all of the sudden, I had 20 additional episodes to work on while working on the movie. I was overjoyed, and tried to conceptualize a mode to put the pieces of the story we'd intended to include in the original run across these boosted episodes. But everything had to exist different afterwards the events of the movie, so I needed to approach these stories from a new angle."

She as well says she'd personally "changed a lot, and learned a lot," since she first laid out the plan for the serial back in 2012. And the new order for a flick and a series continuation had to limited that growth, past letting Steven grow up a little scrap too. At the aforementioned time, "the testify had been an emotional rollercoaster for us, and crew members were moving on. So that became function of the story of Steven Universe Future."

And then when Carbohydrate looked at how to revise the final miniseries arc, she realized she wanted information technology to be about the procedure of closure and accepting endings. "Those of us who stayed through all of it needed to discover a fashion to let go," she says. "I wanted that to be part of the story, as well, I wanted moving on to be something we could share with our audience."

Ultimately, Steven Universe in all its forms — the original serial, the film, and the spin-off finale — are an expression of Sugar's own life. In particular, the show's overtly queer themes, its visual and storytelling underpinnings, and its exploration of emotion and catharsis are personal.

Image: Drawing Network

"My dear of anime and my own experience equally a non-binary person are both inexorable parts of the show's foundation," Saccharide says. "The prove is a pastiche, but I always try to go on information technology rooted in something existent and personal. There were big visuals nosotros wanted, like a Jasper preparation montage, and a kaiju boxing. We were too inspired by the interpersonal conflict and catharsis in the finale of [the 1990s magical-girl series] Ojamajo Doremi."

"I wanted to tell a story based on my ain mental-health experience, and inspired by a volume I was reading at the fourth dimension chosen The Deepest Well, by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, about healing the effects of childhood trauma. I don't retrieve it'south a affair of anime tropes complementing or challenging, [but] staying truthful to our personal stories on the crew."

Sugar says the show has been a labor of love and a method of personal expression for her writing and production team as well. "I'd say that the 1 personal experience nosotros truly all share is a dear of cartoons and cartooning. It's why nosotros all devoted our lives to this art form. That's how I call up of it. It'due south all personal and true, including the cartoony stuff, and the anime stuff. It'south what nosotros honey, and the linguistic communication we use to express ourselves."

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/27/21197679/steven-universe-future-ending-finale-new-seasons-rebecca-sugar-interview

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