Monday, 30 January 2017

Steven Universe Review: “Steven’s Dream”

Time for answers
(This review contains spoilers!)

          So full disclosure: I watched all the episodes in this StevenBomb a while back when they were leaked, and I’m rewatching them now to refresh my memory of them for review purposes. I’ll be uploading the reviews after each episode airs on Cartoon Network until the Bomb is over.

          One of the major gripes about Steven Universe I’ve seen around the internet is that Steven doesn’t ask many questions. He just sort of takes things as they come, not really wondering what else is out there or what’s going on. That’s why it’s nice to finally have a big question posed by the show earlier be answer, that being what the Palanquin in Buddy’s journal is and what significance it has.

          It’s also great to see Steven take a step forward and finally go against the Gems’ wishes for once. Although Garnet did everything in her power to stop him from leaving, Steven goes anyways through his own means, and I think that’s a fantastic bit of growth for his character.

          The episode also saw lots of great moments for Greg. While my personal favourite character on the show is still Peridot, it’s honestly hard to not say that Greg is the best character overall. He’s such a fantastic role model not only for Steven, but for the audience as a whole. The episode clearly knows what’s going to happen to him at the end, so it spends most of the episode focusing on Greg and reminding us why we love him. The montage of Steven and Greg exploring Korea was a lot of fun (plus with a surprising and hilarious bit of meta humour), and the emotional moment they spend together at the beginning of the episode was fantastic as well.

          Of course, I need to address the elephant in the room, that being Blue Diamond’s appearance at the end. This is our first time seeing Blue outside of Garnet’s flashback in The Answer, allowing us to get a good look at her character for the first time. Firstly, I love her design. Her more smooth and droopy elements both match with her character’s personality and contrast well to Yellow Diamond’s more angular and sharp edges.

          It turns out that Blue Diamond was very close to Pink Diamond, who the Palanquin on Earth belonged to. We also learned that Earth was Pink Diamond’s planet, and Blue was unaware that the Cluster has been bubbled. Still thinking Earth’s days are numbered, she took Greg to save him from destruction and preserve Pink’s legacy even further.

          While Steven’s Dream is mostly meant to serve as a beginning for the next story arc, it delivers an excellent episode that gives us lots of answers and character development for Steven. But this is only the beginning, as the Gems travel to space in hopes of getting Greg back.

FINAL SCORE
8/10

Great

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