One of the reasons the Diamonds didn’t work is that you never got to see them. They just remained an enigma for most of the story, and their entire characters had to be shoved into one or two episodes. White Diamond is redeemed in the same episode that she’s actually characterized.
Yellow Diamond: First mentioned at the end of season 1, continuously mentioned in season 2, introduced in the middle of season 2 in a scene that tells us several things: She's blunt, she's authoritarian, and despite the characters and audience having just been told she's a being of pure logic, Yellow demonstrates an emotionally charged desire to destroy the Earth that the audience doesn't yet understand.
Blue Diamond: Introduced in a flashback where she's shown as equally tyrannical and intimidating as Yellow. Yet when she's introduced in the middle of season 4 she's a weeping mess, but nonetheless otherworldly and dangerous. The audience already knows it's Pink Diamond she's sorrowful over and only see glimpses of what she was like in her prime before indulging in her grief for thousands of years.
White Diamond: Not even mentioned until season 5, but there have been murals of her in ancient ruins that go unaddressed by the characters. The audience can only speculate about her existence up to this point. Her first introduction is haunting, showing her as cold and inhuman, her narcissistic tendencies on full display.
You could also argue all three of them are in different stages of grief: Yellow is anger, Blue is depression, and White is denial.
Yeah it would have been great to have more time with these characters, especially with White as the primary antagonist, but we already know this was a behind the scenes issue. With Cartoon Network telling them Season 5 was the last season while it was presumably already being developed. But these figures casting a long shadow over the plot while being eerily detached from it prevents a lot of power scaling issues, and helps the impression of them being god-like beings. And the show delivers you all the information you need to figure out their characters, mostly showing rather than telling.
His complaint is the show should have cut away to these characters. Except Steven Universe is, unsurprisingly, from Steven Universe's perspective. You won't see anything he isn't present for, that's why you have to piece together the details of so many events just like the protagonist has to. Jerry just can't understand why people find that engaging cause it trips him up at every turn if he's not being spoonfed exposition.
Let me make something very clear: Stories that have antagonists and keep them shrouded in mystery are making no forward progress with the character.
I'd bring up Fire Lord Ozai but he probably hates Avatar too.
But he's still a good example. We learn a lot about Ozai through Azula and Zuko's interactions before he's even on screen. You can have a mysterious villain who is still having an impact on the world and the characters. And gee, that's where, you know,
worldbuilding comes in handy.
Steven Universe forgot what a “B Plot” was for and just made literally every single thing its own episode. It also forgot that “11 Minute Episode” shows used to bundle two episodes together. Instead it got 11 minutes of content every three months. And because it’s written like Sugar fed an AI a thousand pages of Invader Zim fanfiction and told it to write the story for her, 80% of the episodes don’t need to be bothered with if you just want the story because everything else is just meandering around.
What the fuck is he talking about? The show has groups of 2 or 3 episodes that continue right into each other. The Return/Jailbreak are one complete story (and are also the episodes that got a huge amount of people into the show), and then the first episode of the next season literally picks up right at the end of Jailbreak. Beta/Earthlings are one complete story. Mirror Gem/Ocean Gem are one complete story. Sometimes they would straight up have 22 minute episodes. There were small story arcs and conflicts that continued throughout episodes even when it wasn't the focus of the episode. The 11 minute limitation is a network mandate and this was a creative team working with it as best they could and they often were successful. There's plenty of episodes even fans find fillery and tedious and tend to skip on a rewatch, but every episode at least does seed important information either about lore, characters, Steven's powers or foreshadowing.
Did he even watch the show? Like for real? Was his two hour monstrosity just him picking out clips and episodes he thought would be problematic enough and then he spent the rest of the time shrieking about Nazis?
And part of the reason it is disposable is because the mystery isn’t worth it. The Pink Diamond twist is unsatisfying, White’s motivations are unsatisfying, the resolution is unsatisfying
all the characters are flanderized to absurd degrees, it’s all just disappopinting. [sic]
Okay I'm gonna go complete fantard here but the show has some of the best character writing in animation. Full stop. By the end of the series each main character has gone through a journey and come out richer, and the audience has a better understanding of them.
If you wanna argue Steven Universe Future then yeah okay maybe. But the first series? Bullshit, Jerry.
R Leia had a slip of the tongue, said something incredibly unprofessional and in response Aliana electrocuted an old woman. describing her as "crumbled on the floor, smoking"
