My Thoughts on “Lilo & Stitch” (2002)

 

(This is the poster of Lilo & Stitch.) 

You might be wondering why I’m posting this a week after I posted my Predator: Badlands trailer post, well, it’s because I needed a break from writing and I wanted to avoid posting this on either Star Wars Day (May the Fourth) or Cinco de Mayo. Plus, I was busy on those two days away, I went to a feast (the one at McCartys) on Sunday May 4, 2025, and then on Monday May 5, 2025, I went with grandma to talk my dad to his eye appointment 👁️ with Eye Associates of New Mexico 👁️. But, I’m posting it today, so that I can have something for this week, and so that I can get this review out before the live action Lilo & Stitch movie comes out on May 23, 2025. 

 

I still don’t intend on watching it, in fact, I specifically decided to rewatch and review Lilo & Stitch (2002) in protest of the live action movie, because I’m generally against these Disney live action remakes and I didn’t think Lilo & Stitch needed to be remade. It’s sort of the same mindset behind my decision to rewatch and review Man of Steel, in protest of the upcoming Superman movie by James Gunn, with David Corenswet as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor for some reason (I know a lot of people said that Jessie Eisenberg being cast as Lex Luthor was weird casting, but Nicholas Hoult being cast as Lex Luthor just takes the cake 😂). 

 

I need to watch the bad taste of that out of my mouth with some Zack Snyder directing and Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El. Except with Man of Steel, I reviewed that movie two or three months in advance before Superman (2025) comes out since that movie comes out in July, the same month as The Fantastic Four: Next Steps, meaning they’ll be directly competing with one another. Marvel vs. DC, a rivalry as old as time, or at least as old as comic books have been around. 

 

BTW, I do intend on reviewing Fantastic Four (2015) AKA FANT4STIC (or I guess, Fant4stic if you wanted to write it lower case but Wikipedia has it in all caps) in protest of The Fantastic Four: Next Steps, and I may even review the earlier Fantastic Four movies from the 2000s by director Tim Story and starring Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch 🔥…and also Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom, and Laurence Fishburne as the voice of the Silver Surfer. Funny how Laurence Fishburne was in both Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Man of Steel (as well as in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice)…as well as in Ant-Man and the Wasp 🐜. 

 

But anyway, even after seeing the trailer for Lilo & Stitch (2025), I am still skeptical of it, and I don’t really have any interest in watching it on the big screen or otherwise, because it looks like it dulls one of the core messages of themes, changes a character to appeal to international markets, and it just seems like the movie was made for some very cynical corporate reasons rather than as an artistic expression. Like, someone just had an amazing idea for a live action version of Lilo & Stitch, a new angle to approach the material that had never been seen before, and just had to make it and ask Disney to fund it and market it. That’s not what this is. 

 

It’s purely meant to just be a cash grab 🤑 to bank on people’s nostalgia and also because all of their recent releases have either been box office disappointments or outright bombs 💣 and have received mixed-to-negative reviews and are in desperate need of a hit. And also because they have an actual resort in Hawaii that they want to promote. I did write a post about the trailer though if you’re interested in reading it, it’ll probably the only thing I write about it for a while, unless I hear good things about it from my fellow skeptics, the people were not suckered in by the good CGI effects on Stitch or any of the nostalgic callbacks. 

 

 

 

 

(This is the logo for Lilo & Stitch.)

 

 

 

 

 

But, what about this movie? What about the 2002 original? How does it hold up? It holds pretty good. I still like it even after these years, and rewatching it again reaffirmed my sentiment that it didn’t need to be remade and especially remade in live action. Now, I don’t own it on Blu-Ray 💿 and I don’t have my old DVD copy 📀 currently in my possession, so I had to watch the altered version of the movie Disney+, the one where they changed the dryer to a pizza box because they thought kids would emulate that scene and crawl into their dryer or washer at home to hide from their parents or their siblings or just for fun, for pretend play. I still remember the original version of that scene with the dryer, I will always prefer the original version of that scene, you can’t erase history, Disney 😑. All you needed to do was add a disclaimer before the movie telling parents to not let their imitate that scene, it’s that simple. You didn’t need to change the scene, you should’ve left it as is. I’ll talk more about alternate scenes and deleted scenes later on in the review, when I talk about my proposed idea for an alternate cut of this movie with all of the deleted scenes and original unaltered scenes restored and put back in. 

Unlike the live action version, this version was a genuine passion project from co-director and co-writer, Chris Sanders. It even says so in the opening credits, “Based on an idea by Chris Sanders.” Basically, he conceived of Stitch as a character for a children’s book in the 1980s, but after that didn’t work, he decided to turn it into movie. He was working at Disney at that point, so he had the resources to do so. The design of Stitch in that proposed children’s book though differs from the design he has in the finished film. The first Disney animated film he worked on was The Rescuers Down Under, another childhood favorite of mine. Figures he had a hand in the better of the two Rescuers movies. 

 

 

 

 

(This is a photo of the original design of Stitch as he was intended to appear in the proposed children’s book.)

 

 

 

 

 

Then he worked on Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) as a storyboard artist. He even worked on Mulan (1998), which probably explains that Easter egg in the movie. I never noticed it before until I watched the movie again for this review, and I don’t know if anyone else has noticed it or pointed out. But, after the scene where Lilo adopts Stitch, they pass by a building that says “Mulan Wok,” which is a clear and obvious reference to Mulan (1998). It’s not even the only one since there’s another Easter egg to Mulan (1998) in the scene where Lilo shows Nani Stitch’s ability to play music 🎶 out of his mouth by placing his finger on a vinyl record. Nani actually has a poster for Mulan (1998) displayed on her wall. The fact that he worked on that movie gives these Easter eggs a lot more meaning. It too bad they didn’t do one of those crossover trailers where Stitch crashes other Disney movies with Mulan (1998), it would’ve been so funny to see Mulan interact with Stitch. They had a real missed opportunity there. 

After gaining enough experience and credibility working at the company, Disney decided to give him his own movie to helm as a director since they wanted a movie that would be like Dumbo for the 21st century. Jokes on them, they ended up just remaking Dumbo in live action anyway, making Stitch’s role as a 21st century equivalent to Dumbo redundant. But hey, at least Stitch became an iconic character in his own right, one that the company merchandises to death, ironically more than Dumbo since that character has pretty much faded into irrelevancy despite that live action remake by Tim Burton. Guess people like a blue koala alien 🐨 more than they do a baby elephant 🐘 with big floppy ears. 

Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia, they were originally think of setting the movie in Kansas and have Stitch interact with woodland animals on a farm since the original idea for the movie was to have him crash land in forest and interact and grow attached to a bunch of animals, and then end up on a farm in rural Kansas. Meaning, Kansas, just like New Mexico, is just another place that aliens 👽 like to land in. But, Thomas Schumacher, the executive vice president of Disney Feature Animation at the time, suggested having Stitch interact with humans instead of with animals as it would be a better contrast since Stitch is an alien 👽 and the animal world, in Schumacher’s words, is already pretty alien to us. 

 

So better to have him interact with something that audiences would be all too familiar with us, humans. But, at the same time though, because they chose to set the movie in Hawaii and feature mainly Native Hawaiian characters, it meant that you had an alien 👽 interact with something most people are unfamiliar with. Hawaiian culture is pretty alien (for lack of a better word) to a lot of people, especially to those who live in the contiguous United States 🇺🇸 and have lived there their entire lives, so really, how much of a contrast was there? Some of these ideas would get reworked into the hit 2024 DreamsWorks Animation movie, The Wild Robot, another project that I had no idea Chris Sanders had a hand in until now.

This idea of contrasts even extends to the characters themselves since Chris Sanders created the character of Lilo as a way to contrast with Stitch since Stitch already represented a male character ♂︎, so pairing him up with a little girl ♀︎ would provide a nice balance. If they paired him up with a little boy ♂︎, then they’d be instant pals because Stitch is everything a boy ♂︎ could ever want, and a boy ♂︎ would probably be able to relate Stitch a lot more than a girl ♀︎ could, and Sanders wanted there to be conflict between the two main leads. So, having him be paired up with a little girl ♀︎ would be a great way to create some conflict since they’d already be opposites by the time they met. Although, Lilo is pretty a wild girl ♀︎ by the time she meets Stitch, a problem child if you will, so they aren’t that opposite of each other. But, now I’ve mentioned, there aren’t any boys ♂︎ in this movie. All of the kids that we see in this movie, as well as in most of the franchise are girls ♀︎. So, perhaps Chris Sanders overcorrected a little bit. 

Speaking of which, Sanders came up with the idea of setting the movie in Hawaii after he saw a map of Hawaii on his wall, and remembered a time he vacationed there and figured that would be the better location to set the movie. Of course, being a white guy ♂︎ from Colorado, he wasn’t well versed in Hawaiian culture, and had to do a ton of research to get maximum authenticity. He did come up with the names for Lilo and Nani after seeing them in a vacation roadmap though, which were both street names (as in names of street, not nicknames they earned while living on the streets), so not everything relating to Hawaii stuff was conceived through extensive research. But, I’m glad because setting the movie in Hawaii instead of Kansas was definitely the right call.

For a lot of people, this was their first and probably only exposure to Native Hawaiian culture and the modern Native Hawaiian struggle, which, much like struggle of Native American tribes living in both Alaska and the contiguous United States 🇺🇸 often goes ignored. It almost makes me kind of wish that there was a dub of this movie in the Hawaiian language. Kind of like how they did a dub for Prey (2022) that was in the Comanche language since that movie featured predominantly Comanche characters and highlighted Comanche culture. 

 

It’s a great way of showing respect for the culture and giving the members of that group who don’t speak English a chance to watch the movie that honors their culture, as well as give the members of that group who do speak English a chance to learn the language in a way that’s entertaining and accessible to them. At least the theme song to Lilo & Stitch: The Series was in Hawaiian. And that scene where Nani sings to Lilo in Hawaiian is also pretty nice, and apparently, that song is the same one that the deposed queen of Hawaii, Queen Lili‘uokalani sung after the Hawaiian Kingdom (already a republic called the Republic of Hawaii after a successful coup d’état by pro-American elements 🇺🇸 within the country overthrew the monarchy) was officially annexed by the United States 🇺🇸. It’s to Native Hawaiians, what Once Were Warriors was to Māori, except way more family friendly than that movie was and featuring aliens 👽 and other sci-fi elements.

 

 

 

 

(These are the flags of the United States 🇺🇸, Hawaii, and Native Hawaiians.) 

 

 

 

Of course, Chris Sanders didn’t direct the movie himself, he had help from Dean DeBlois. Most Disney animated movies, especially back then, had two directors because I guess the stress and work load of making these movies was usually too much for one director to handle, so they needed two. They also treated these productions as more collaborative team efforts rather than being the work of one auteur, the sum total of one vision, one voice. And since I said voices, I guess I should also take this time to quickly mention that Chris Sanders voiced Stitch in the movie and has remained the main voice of Stitch in most Stitch related media, including the upcoming live action movie. Given how much many projects he’s been involved in, it’s amazing how he’s been able to find time to voice this character whenever called upon to do so. 

When it comes to the art style and animation, He purposefully tried to avoid as many sharp and pointy edges as he could, in favor of making everything more rounded and curvy. And it works, it totally works. It gives this movie (and really this whole franchise a unique look). Not even the other franchise that Chris Sanders is known for, How to Train Your Dragon, doesn’t use as many round and curvy lines and edges. Really, the only characters that is super rounded off like that is Toothless, and the white palette swapped female version ♀︎ of him, who’s just called the Light Fury. They didn’t bother to give that character a name. As for the use of watercolor backgrounds, Chris Sanders claims that it was meant to harken back to Disney’s earlier productions, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The plot of Lilo & Stitch is essentially E.T., which was ironically re-released the same year that this movie was released, albeit in an altered form, which has remained contentious to this day. Mainly because of the guns being replaced with walkie-talkies in one scene, but also the CGI effects added to a lot of scenes, including deleted scenes that were added back in for that specific re-release. It’s essentially a story about an alien 👽 who gets stranded on Earth 🌎, and befriends a human child, who then tries to keep him a secret from the rest of the world so that the government doesn’t find them and take the alien 👽 away. Even the fact that the kid starts as a problem child and the family dysfunctional is also very similar to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. 

 

The difference being of course that Lilo & Stitch takes place in Hawaii and features mostly Native Hawaiian characters, instead of in California with mostly white people like E.T. does. And the kid the alien 👽 befriends is a little girl ♀︎ instead of a young boy ♂︎, and the kid doesn’t know that the alien 👽 is an alien 👽 until the last third of the movie, and is convinced that he’s a dog 🐶 for most of the movie. He disguises himself as a dog 🐶 by concealing his two extra arms (Stitch naturally has four arms, kind of like Goro from Mortal Kombat, or Dexter Jettster from Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, or the Cop Bot 🚨 from the future episode of Jimmy Neutron, or Machamp from Pokémon) antennae, and back spikes, which were conspicuously missing in the animated series, even when does go full alien 👽. Even though, as Nani herself points out, he looks more like a koala 🐨, a demented, mutated koala 🐨. 

 

Oh, and unlike in E.T., the human child isn’t trying to help the alien 👽 back to his home since the alien 👽 in this case has no real desire to go back to home. He doesn’t even have a home to go back to since he was a genetic experiment 🧬 created by a mad scientist bent on galactic domination. He was just meant to be a weapon to destroy things. So, he’d rather stay on Earth 🌎 with his new human friend, or rather, human family. ‘Ohana means family and all that. But, while the US government 🇺🇸 may not be after them, the galactic government is after them, the United Galactic Federation. 

 

Yes, this is yet another science fiction story that has a Galactic Federation. This has a Galactic Federation, The Fifth Element has a Galactic Federation called the Federated Territories or just the Federation, Metroid has a Galactic Federation, Rick and Morty has a Galactic Federation, Doctor Who has a Galactic Federation. Why are Galactic Federations so common in science fiction? Science fiction was never quite the same again after Star Trek, although the galactic federation in that franchise is called the United Federation of Planets. At least, Star Wars changed things up by having a Galactic Empire and a Galactic Republic that preceded it and succeeded it since there were two republics. There was the Old Republic, which came before the Empire, and the New Republic, which came after the Empire. It should be noted however that a republic can also be a federation. The United States of America 🇺🇸 (which is partially what the Galactic Republic was inspired by) is both a federation and a republic, or it’s a republic with aspects of a federation. That’s why the central government of the United States 🇺🇸 is called the federal government. It even had a confederation (sort of), the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS). I can’t wait till we get another science fiction story with a galactic government that’s a confederation rather than a federation, since that’d probably make more logistical sense. Who knows? Maybe I might be the one to write it 😉. 

The live action movie seems to have changed this a little bit if the trailer was anything to go back, since it seems that the social worker, Cobra Bubbles is more actively pursuing Stitch and the other aliens 👽 on behalf of the US government 🇺🇸. So, he’s now an active duty CIA agent rather than a retired one like in this movie, and he’s simply posing as a social worker to get close to Stitch, rather than that being his current job. The idea with Cobra Bubbles in this movie was that he was a former CIA agent who encountered the Grand Councilwoman ♀︎ in Roswell, New Mexico in the 1970s (which is why she recognized him at the end of the movie), and he helped ward off an alien invasion 👽 (possibly by the Federation itself or by an alien world 👽 that was apart of the Federation) by claiming that the Earth 🌎 was a protected nature reserve and that mosquitoes 🦟 were an endangered species. That’s why Pleakley is going on about mosquitoes 🦟 for the first third of the movie, you know until he gets bit by a whole bunch of mosquitoes 🦟. Finally realizing that mosquitoes 🦟 suck just like the rest of us. But, after that, Bubbles left that life behind and decided to become a social worker afterwards. And he is a genuine social worker for the entirety of the film, he just used his knowledge of aliens 👽 and his previous connections to the CIA to save the day and prevent Stitch from being taken away. 

 

But, in the live action remake, it seems that Cobra Bubbles is still an active member of the CIA tracking down Stitch and the other aliens 👽 who landed on Earth 🌎 (mainly Jumba and Pleakley, but also probably Gantu later on in the movie), and if he is a social worker, it’s only a cover for that he can get close to the Pelekai family so he can catch the aliens 👽 he was sent after. I guess that’s one way to differentiate the remake from the original. But it does change the nature of Cobra’s character and his role within the story, as well as the story as a whole, since unlike the original, it is a story about an alien 👽 being on the run from the government and his human companion trying to hide and protect him so that the government can’t take him away and experiment on him or do whatever government does whenever it finds an alien 👽 in these type of science fiction stories. 

 

Though I’m sure for the sake of the story remaining close to the original in some way, Lilo and Nani and the other human characters besides Cobra Bubble are still unaware that Stitch is an alien 👽 and are fully convinced that he’s a dog 🐶, or at least a messed up rabbit-eared koala 🐨. It’s a change that I can’t imagine will be too popular with fans of the original, along with Pleakley not wearing drag and disguising himself as a full on human using a hologram along with Jumba (rather than just wearing human clothes and hoping the actual humans will fall for it, which they do for some reason). It’s so weird to have to call this movie, “the original.” I remember a time when this was only movie called Lilo & Stitch, now there’s two, and you have to differentiate by writing the year they were released in parentheses. 

I should note that, according to the Wikipedia page, Stitch was originally going to be the leader of an intergalactic gang and Jumba was one of his former cronies who turned on him and is then called upon to capture him by the Federation Council, the legislature of the Galactic Federation. But, after some poor test screenings, they decided to make Stitch a genetic experiment 🧬 instead, and have Jumba be his creator. Creating a Frankenstein type relationship between the two rather than former criminal associates like in a mobster movie. Although, despite being heavily reworked into a Victor Frankenstein type of character and fitting into that archetype of the mad scientist, Jumba has a Russian accent 🇷🇺 rather a German one 🇩🇪. That was a nice of them. 

 

While I do think that dynamic of the creator going after his creation or the creation going against his creator Frankenstein-style works for this film, I would’ve interested to see the version of this film where Stitch was a crime boss on the loose and Jumba was one of his associates. It would’ve changed the whole direction of this franchise if that version would’ve even been successful enough to spawn a franchise. I could see someone taking that idea and making a pretty cool science fiction story out of it. Again, I could be one to do it 😉. They did expand upon the genetic experiment angle 🧬 in the sequels, and it allowed them to adopt a monster-of-the-week format for the animated series. 

 

 

 

 

 (This is the logo for the Stitch franchise as a whole.)

 

 

 

 

 

They optimized this movie, and changed so many things, so that it would have as big of an audience as possible to make the most money 💵 as possible. This was the post-Renaissance era, and a lot of the animated films Disney was putting out at the time weren’t doing too well financially. So, much now with this live action movie, they were in desperate need of a hit, and they got one since this movie was a smash hit, grossing over $273.1 million 💵 against a $80 million budget 💵. Which Chris Sanders and everyone who worked on this film, as well as who have talked about and reviewed considers a low budget. Seriously, in interviews talking about the movie, Chris Sanders makes it seem like they were working with a limited budget and couldn’t do all the things they wanted to do (even if the “lower budget” allowed them to have more creative freedom from the prying eyes of Disney executives), and then YouTube cartoon reviewer, Saberspark literally said the movie had a “minuscule budget” in his video talking about the Stitch anime. 

 

Even though $80 million 💵 is definitely nothing to sneeze at, it’s not what I call a low budget. They make it seem liked the movie had $20 million budget 💵 or a $15 million budget 💵, or even a $10 million budget 💵. Those are actual low budgets, not $80 million 💵, that’s a pretty big budget. It’s more than what Jurassic Park and The Matrix cost, both costing $63 million 💵. Wait until the sequels come out and then talk to me about “low budget.” Sorry about that mini rant, but it just drove me nuts that everyone, even the people who worked on the movie, made it seem like it was low budget when it definitely wasn’t 😤. I guess these people were used to working on movies with budgets in the $100 million 💵 range, that a movie with an $80 million budget 💵 looks small by comparison. I mean, Home on the Range cost $110 million 💵, and that movie was a box office bomb 💣. And considering how much Disney movies cost now (both animated and live action), $80 million 💵 is still pretty modest by comparison. I mean, Lilo & Stitch (2025) has $150 million budget 💵, several times what this one cost, and Snow White (2025) had a budget in the range of $240 million 💵 and $270 million 💵. 

 

It grew into a franchise, spawning three sequels, though none of them were released theatrically. They were all released straight-to-DVD 📀 or were made-for-TV. So, up until this live action remake, Lilo & Stitch (2002) was the only theatrically released Stitch movie. The initial DVD release 📀 of Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch also came with a short film called The Origin of Stitch, which serves to give us insights into Stitch’s origin as the title suggests, showing us how he was made. It’s okay, but I do have one issue with it. Like, it is cool to learn how Stitch was made, and which alien creatures 👽 Jumba used to create him, but then it’s like, why is Stitch all shocked and surprised by all this? I thought he already knew all this about himself, that he was designed to be a weapon. But, his reaction to seeing all this on screen in that short makes it seem like this is a new revelation for him. It shouldn’t be. Even if he didn’t know all the specific creatures that made up his genetic makeup 🧬, he would at least know that Jumba designed him to be an engine of destruction. That’s he decides to change and be good because he doesn’t want to an engine of destruction and be a weapon. 

 

So, the way Stitch acts in this short is pretty nonsensical given what we see him go through and the decisions he makes in the films and in the series. The animation is also way off, you can tell this short was made on minuscule budget (an actual minuscule budget), even lower than the budget for Stitch Has a Glitch, and Stitch’s voice sounds a bit off. I don’t know if it is still Chris Sanders doing the voice or if they got someone else to do the voice given that it was just a short for the DVD extras 📀, but Stitch doesn’t sound the same. It’s okay for worldbuilding and learning more about Stitch’s backstory, but it is otherwise poorly made. Like you can tell no one who was in charge of making of this gave a single fuck. It’s not entirely worth your time unless you’re curious enough or if you just have to consume anything and everything Stitch.

 

 

 

 

(These are the cover arts for the animated Lilo & Stitch movies after the 2002 original.) 

 

 

 

 

There was a ride at the Disney Parks called Stitch’s Great Escape! AKA Stitch Encounter, which was created to replace the Alien Encounter 👽 attraction which was deemed too scary 😰 for kids during its time. The attraction in Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World Resort), the one that replaced Alien Encounter 👽 was shut down in 2018, and that was the sole Stitch Encounter ride (as well as the sole permanent Lilo & Stitch ride) in the US 🇺🇸. So, all of the other ones that are still operating are in Disney Parks in other countries, most of which are in Asia, like Walt Disney Studios Park (located in Disneyland Paris) in Paris, France 🇫🇷, Tokyo Disneyland in Tokyo, Japan 🇯🇵, and Shanghai Disneyland in Shanghai, China 🇨🇳. There was in Hong Kong 🇭🇰, in Hong Kong Disneyland 🇭🇰, but like with the one in Magic Kingdom, it closed down in 2019, a year after the one in Magic Kingdom closed down. 

 

 

 

(This is the logo for Stitch’s Great Escape as well as a photo from the attraction.) 

 

 

 

 

There have been a few video games here and there, mostly on the portable systems like the GameBoy Advance and the Nintendo DS, although there was one made for PC (for Microsoft Windows), and one made for the PS1 called Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise (or just Disney’s Lilo & Stitch in the US 🇺🇸), which a lot of people have said is a Crash Bandicoot clone. The most notable game of them all was definitely Disney’s Stitch! Experiment 626 on the PS2, which serves a prequel to the film, showing what Stitch and Jumba were up to before they were arrested by the Galactic Federation and put on trial before the Federation Council. Though, the game is no longer considered canon, if it was ever considered canon, after the release of Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, which despite the title, is actually the third film in the series rather than the second. It does feature a villain called Dr. Habbitrale, who is very similar to Dr. Hämsterviel, which is probably another reason why the game is no longer considered canon since they essentially created a replacement for Habbitrale in the form of Hämsterviel. But, it is cool to see what Stitch was like before he met Lilo, and was reformed and turned good. 

 

 

 

 

(This is the cover art for Disney’s Stitch: Experiment 626, on PlayStation 2.)

 

 

 

 

 

He probably wouldn’t have turned good at all if he didn’t happen to land on Kaua‘i, since as Lilo says in the movie, Kaua‘i has no big cities. Meaning, nothing for Stitch to destroy, leaving him without a purpose and allowing to Lilo to fill that void and give him a new purpose. One that doesn’t involve destruction, disorder, and chaos. If he had landed in O‘ahu instead of Kaua‘i, then he would’ve really had a field day since Honolulu is on O‘ahu, and that’s the largest city in the Hawaiian Islands as well as being the state capital for Hawaii. Just like Godzilla and the male MUTO ♂︎ did in Godzilla (2014).

 

 

 

 

(This is the logo for Lilo & Stitch: The Series.)

 

 

 

 

It even got an animated series, which I’ve already mentioned before. Not every Disney animated movies does, Lilo & Stitch is the only post-Renaissance movie to get an animated series. Atlantis: The Lost Empire didn’t get an animated series, neither did Treasure Planet. Home on the Range definitely didn’t get one. Not even Brother Bear 🐻 got one, and people actually like that one and it was pretty successful despite narratives after the fact saying that it was a box office bomb 💣. It did make money 💵, it grossed over $250.4 million 💵 worldwide against a $46 million budget 💵, which is less than what Lilo & Stitch cost to make. It did get a direct-to-DVD 📀 sequel though, in the form of Brother Bear 2 🐻. So did Atlantis BTW, called Atlantis: Milo’s Return, but hardly anyone remembers or acknowledges that one. Treasure Planet got nothing though, no sequel (theatrical, direct-to-DVD 📀, or made-for-TV) and no tie-in animated series. It’s in the same camp as Home on the Range (2004) in that regard. And before you ask, sure, I’ll review Brother Bear 🐻 if I feel so inclined. If I do, then expect a review of Brother Bear 2 🐻 as well.

The series was actually pretty popular and successful, despite only lasting two seasons and having 65 episodes. I thought it was a lot more than that, but whatever. Maybe, it felt like it had more seasons because they stretched those seasons out for pretty long since Season 1 began airing in 2003 and didn’t end until 2004, and then Season 2 didn’t start airing until 2004 and lasted until 2006. Sort of like Jimmy Neutron or Back at the Barnyard, the series was started by a movie, with the direct-to-DVD 📀 sequel, Stitch! the Movie acting as a pilot for the series. Stitch! The Movie BTW was the second film in the original Lilo & Stitch series, I know it can be confusing with how they titled them, but it is. But, unlike Jimmy Neutron or Barnyard, the series was concluded by a movie as well as being started by one. The series ended with the made-for-TV film, Leroy & Stitch, where Stitch faced off against an evil clone of himself created by Hämsterviel who happened to be red named Leroy. Hence the name, Leroy & Stitch. I’m surprised no one’s made any “Leroy Jenkins!” jokes about this movie after it came out and when they first heard that title. It’s one of the easiest jokes imaginable. 

As mentioned before, the show had a monster-of-the-week format, with Lilo and Stitch trying to capture one of Jumba’s escaped experiments every episode before they do any real harm and keep them from falling into the wrong hands, such as Hämsterviel, who acts as a recurring villain for the series. He’s the main villain in fact, since the whole movie, Leroy & Stitch involves one last confrontation with him. Lilo, Stitch, Jumba, Pleakley, and all of the experiments they encountered before in the series all team to fight Hämsterviel and his army of exclusively Leroy clones one last time. Wanna bet that the live action movie is going to have an after credit scene or a mid credit scene where Hämsterviel shows up and is teased as the next main villain for the sequel, if the movie is even successful enough to get a sequel? 

 

The show also had some of the weirdest, most out of pocket crossovers you can imagine. They did a crossover with Kim Possible, a crossover with American Dragon: Jake Long 🇺🇸, a crossover with The Proud Family (the original, not the reboot/revival, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder), and a crossover with Recess, which is probably the weirdest one of them all. If it was still airing, they would’ve definitely done a crossover with Pepper Ann, even if that one would’ve made about as much as one for Recess. A lot of people have said that Lilo & Stitch should’ve done a crossover with Lloyd in Space as that would’ve made way more sense than any of the other shows they actually did crossovers with, since they’re both science fiction shows and they both involve aliens 👽. It would’ve made sense for them to exist in the same universe unlike with Kim Possible, The Proud Family, Recess, or American Dragon: Jake Long 🇺🇸. 

 

If they were to do another animated series with Lilo & Stitch, they’d probably just do a crossover with Moana, since hey, they’re both based around Polynesian culture and feature Polynesian characters in the lead roles, we gotta put them together. Plus, they’ve already included some Moana references in the live action remake by having Stitch biting a toy of one of the coconut people 🥥 from Moana like a chew toy (even though it’s probably not a chew toy). But, fuck that, that’s way too obvious and safe, I want to see a crossover with The Ghost and Molly McGee, even if that show already ended 2 years ago. There aren’t that many other cool animated shows to crossover with Lilo & Stitch with if they were do a new animated show. I don’t keep up with any Disney’s animated shows like I do with Nickelodeon’s.

 

 

 

 

(This is another poster for Lilo & Stitch (2002).)

 

 

 

 

But, the fact that they did so many crossovers with so many other shows in the animated series they did make isn’t too out of left field considering how the first movie (this one) was marketed. They were having Stitch crossover and interact with all of the classic Disney animated characters, at least the Renaissance era ones, in the first few teaser trailers for the 2002 movie. He met Belle and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast (1991) (he quite literally crashed their famous dance scene), he met Ariel from The Little Mermaid 🧜‍♀️ (1989), he met Jasmine and Aladdin from Aladdin (1992), and he met Rafiki as well as Timon and Pumba indirectly from The Lion King 🦁 (1994) (ruining Simba’s birth ceremony, the one set to that “Circle of Life” song). So, if any Disney property was going to do crossovers, it was definitely Lilo & Stitch. It’s pretty much the Billy & Mandy of Disney. 

 

 

 

 

(This is the logo for the anime series, Stitch!.)

 

 

 

 

But, Lilo & Stitch didn’t just have a cartoon show on Disney Channel and a few direct-to-DVD 📀 and made-for-TV movies, it also had an anime series. A couple actually. There was Stitch!, which involves Lilo pawning Stitch off to some Japanese girl 🇯🇵♀︎ who lives on a fictional island called Izayoi Island in the Ryukyu Island archipelago, off the shore of Okinawa, because she got too old for him I guess and she goes off to college. It had three seasons, 26 episodes, and then two post-series specials. While the first two seasons took place on Izayoi, the third season moves to Okinawa proper, in a fictional city called New Town (real creative name there fellas 🙄). Even Jumba and Pleakley join the party and start living with Stitch and this new Japanese girl 🇯🇵♀︎, Yuna Kamihara in the Ryukyus, because I guess Nani kicked them out after Lilo and Stitch left, or they didn’t want to live a house without Stitch because they’re aliens 👽 and aliens 👽 living on Earth 🌎 gotta stick together I guess. They’re all they’ve got.

 

Oh, and Gantu and Hämsterviel are also in the show are once again the main villains of the show. Or I guess, Gantu’s more of just an antagonist rather than a true villain, Hämsterviel is the real villain here, the real evil guy. Guess, Hämsterviel wasn’t truly defeated at the end of Leroy & Stitch if he’s still at large and is still hunting down Stitch and Jumba’s other experiments. Unless this show isn’t considered canon to the Lilo & Stitch series from the 2000s. From what it seems like, it ignores the events of Lilo & Stitch: The Series as well as the direct-to-DVD 📀 and made-for-TV movies, and just acknowledges the events of Lilo & Stitch (2002). It’s in its own separate continuity. 

 

This particular series was popular enough I guess, but it certainly rubbed a lot of older fans the wrong way, especially with how it depicted Lilo. She just abandoned Stitch, her best friend and sort of brother figure, just because she grew up and Stitch went off to go with an entirely different family in Japan 🇯🇵 as if nothing ever happened. Forgetting all about Lilo. Lilo doesn’t seem the kind of person who’d just leave Stitch behind, even when she grew up to be a young adult and was going to college. She seems like the kind of person who’d take Stitch with her, even if it was against the rules at her college for anyone staying in the dorm rooms. Plus, seeing a grown up Lilo hanging her old pal Stitch in a sort of Ted 🧸-style set up would be way more interesting than having Stitch hang out with a random Japanese girl 🇯🇵♀︎ that we don’t care about. 

 

But, I get it (sort of), it’s a Japanese series 🇯🇵, there was no way they were going to have the show still take place in Hawaii and feature the same human characters, and they needed to get Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakley into Japan 🇯🇵, or at least Okinawa, which is part of Japan 🇯🇵, yes, but is also sort of its own distinct place. Sort of like Hawaii is to the United States 🇺🇸 in a lot ways actually. Even if it did undermine Lilo’s character. Maybe they could’ve just had Lilo move to Okinawa with Stitch, and it’s her and Stitch getting to know the local community. That way, you keep that same dynamic between Lilo and Stitch, without undermining Lilo’s character and you keep it in Japan 🇯🇵 and have mostly Japanese characters 🇯🇵 in a Japanese setting 🇯🇵. 

 

 

 

 

(This is the flag of Okinawa Prefecture.)

 

 

 

 

 

Not a distinctly Japanese setting 🇯🇵 since the Ryukyu Islands were not always apart of Japan 🇯🇵 and the Ryukyu people are not Japanese 🇯🇵, but a distinct ethnic group with their own culture, customs, history, and language. Though Ryukyu language is not as widely spoken as it used to be, most Ryukyu people do speak Japanese and Japanese is probably their only language for some of them. Speaking of which, they missed a perfect opportunity to have a Ryukyu character in the lead role rather than an ethnic Yamato Japanese character 🇯🇵 to maintain the same spirit as the original Lilo & Stitch since that movie was about Native Hawaiians and featured mostly Native Hawaiians and hardly any white people. If Samurai Champloo could have a Ryukyu main character, I don’t see why this show couldn’t have. 

 

 

 

 

(This is the logo for Stitch & Ai.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then after that series, we got another Stitch series that’s sort of an anime, but also kind of not. I say sort of because this show is Chinese 🇨🇳, and I don’t know if it would actually count as anime since it’s from China 🇨🇳, and the art style, while being similar to anime, is distinct enough for it to be its own thing. It’s called Stitch & Ai, and it’s pretty much the same as Stitch! except it’s in China 🇨🇳 rather than Japan 🇯🇵. Huangshan, Anhui, China 🇨🇳 to be exact. All of this talk of China 🇨🇳 and Japan 🇯🇵 just makes me think of that one lyric in the Teriyaki Boyz song, “Tokyo Drift” for the Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift soundtrack, 🎶not a Chinaman 🇨🇳♂︎, I ain’t from China 🇨🇳, man, I am Japan 🇯🇵, man 🎶. The way Stitch (as well as Jumba and Pleakley) ends up in China 🇨🇳 and meets a Chinese girl 🇨🇳♀︎ to be his new friend is a lot different and more convoluted compared to how Stitch gets to Japan 🇯🇵 in Stitch!, especially since unlike Stitch!, Stitch & Ai does actually follow the same continuity as the original Lilo & Stitch animated series and the direct-to-DVD 📀 and made-for-TV movies. 

 

 

 

 

(These are the flags of Japan 🇯🇵 and China 🇨🇳.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basically, it’s set around 2016, Stitch gets kidnapped by an alien criminal gang 👽 called the Jaboodies (sounds a little bit like Jabronis), who try to use him to win a space war that they started against the United Galactic Federation after hacking into their database, and discovering a “metamorphosis program” that was encoded into Stitch’s DNA 🧬.  They activate this program and it causes Stitch to transform into a giant monster capable of destroying an entire city Godzilla-style (or I guess kaiju style in general since Godzilla is not the only kaiju out there, far from it). But, a rival faction called the Woolagongs steal the data from the Jaboodies and try to kidnap Stitch themselves, only for Stitch to escape and get back to Earth 🌎, where he then lands in China 🇨🇳, in the Huangshan mountains ⛰️, and meets a Chinese family 🇨🇳. 😧 That is a lot to take in 😵‍💫.   

 

Stitch!’s set up was a lot simpler by comparison, even if it did ruin Lilo’s character in the process 😒. Lilo isn’t even mentioned in the synopsis on Wikipedia, where is she? How does she feel about this? Why doesn’t Stitch miss her and why isn’t he trying to immediately get back to Hawaii after landing in an unfamiliar place with complete strangers? Unless it’s like Stitch! where Lilo’s all grown up now and just abandons Stitch, and he gets kidnapped just as he’s left with no where else to go. I hope that’s not the case. Not that’ll probably watch either of these two shows, not that I’d be able to even if I wanted to since  they’re probably not available in the US 🇺🇸. Stitch! might be available, but I doubt Stitch & Ai is. But hey, at least they got to work the whole alien criminal gang 👽 angle back in somehow. Stitch may not be a gangster anymore, but he was sure kidnapped and mutated by some.

 

(This is a promotional poster for Stitch & Ai. It looks very cheaply made.)

 

 

 

 

There was also apparently an anime crossover short between Stitch and High School Musical of all things called Stitch Meets High School Musical, which was aired on Disney Channel Japan 🇯🇵 in 2007 and then got released internationally in 2008 on the 2-disc High School Musical 2: Deluxe Dance Edition DVD release 📀. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, it involved Stitch and a few other Lilo & Stitch characters (mostly just experiments, Jumba, Pleakley, and Gantu, no human characters are featured) challenging each other to a friendly game of basketball 🏀 and then dancing to the song, “We’re All in This Together,” which was from the first High School Musical and not the second one funnily enough. No actual High School Musical characters are featured in this short whatsoever, as far as I know. It would’ve been nice if Lilo was at least included, just so that this short wasn’t all just aliens 👽. What is it with these Stitch spinoff shows and tossing Lilo aside and treating her as though she’s unimportant. She’s the second main character of the first movie, her name was in the title, I’d say she’s pretty damn important. But, these creators in Asia don’t seem to think so. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is the cover art of the first book 📖 in the Agent Stitch series, Agent Stitch: A Study in Slime.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

And even if Chris Sanders didn’t get to make a children’s book out of Lilo & Stitch the first time, the franchise did spawn plenty of children’s books over the years, such as novelizations, one-off children’s books that retell the story of the film as well as tell new stories, and a series called Agent Stitch, which involves Stitch becoming a detective 🕵️‍♂️ for the Galactic Federation, and traveling around the world, solving cases 🔎, and saving the world from invasions from hostile alien species 👽 such as in the first book 📖, Agent Stitch: A Study of Slime, where he thwarts an Snailien invasion in Paris. I recently stumbled upon the third book 📖 in the series, Agent Stitch: The Menace at the Mall, at Walmart, which involves him, Lilo, Jumba, and Pleakley traveling to South Korea 🇰🇷 to save it from being menaced by some hostile aliens 👽, and end teaming up with a KPop girl group 🇰🇷♀︎ to stop them…I guess 🤷‍♂️. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is the cover art of the third book 📖 in the Agent Stitch series, Agent Stitch: The Menace at the Mall. This is the one that I saw at Walmart recently.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, even if I don’t like most of the changes they made to this movie, it certainly worked out for them in the end since Stitch is now a multibillion dollar franchise 💵 and a merchandising juggernaut that isn’t letting up anytime soon. And it’s not hard to see why, Stitch is a character who appeals to people of both genders. He appeals to boys and men ♂︎ because he’s funny and cool, very rowdy and aggressive (especially in the first movie), and kind of gross, and he appeals to girls and women ♀︎ because he’s cute. When you have a character who appeals to both genders, you know you have something, and Disney did indeed have something with Stitch. They struck gold 🤑. The live action remake has only renewed and boosted interest in the franchise and therefore boosted sales of the merchandise. Especially as the people who grew up with this movie are adults now, and some of them have their own kids to show this movie and get hooked on Stitch and buy merchandise for. Or they might buy the merchandise themselves if they don’t have kids, or even if they do have kids, they’d be still be willing to buy themselves Stitch merch. Can’t get enough of the little blue guy ♂︎. I guess I should start talking about the changes made to this movie. I’ve delayed it long enough. 

This movie has a whole treasure trove of deleted scenes and alternate scenes. That’s why I said in my post about the trailer to Lilo & Stitch (2025) that Lilo & Stitch (2002) had enough deleted scenes and alternate scenes to rival that of The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Iron Man 2. Everyone knows about the infamous airplane scene ✈️ which was changed to a spaceship after the events of September 11, 2001. Yes, Lilo & Stitch was one of the many films that was negatively affected by 9/11, and were changed to accommodate for that horrific event, which was still fresh in people’s minds when this came out. Along with Monsters, Inc., Spider-Man (2002), and some movies that I’ve never heard of, yet alone seen called Sidewalks of New York and People I Know. 

But, there were other changes too. I originally mentioned how the plot changed pretty late into production to have Stitch be a genetic experiment 🧬 instead of a gang leader, but the scene where Jumba confronts Stitch in the Pelekei house was already heavily altered after test screenings. Those damn test screenings, always changing and ruining movies ✊😤. Basically, they changed the fight scene so that it would be less violent and more appropriate for kids. They changed that weapon that Jumba throws at the kitchen door so it would include less threatening weapons, and while the chainsaw is still in the movie, they removed a part where the chainsaw goes into the ground and chases Lilo, and lastly, the removed the scene where Stitch and Jumba blow up the house with a gas explosion 💥. 

 

Basically, Stitch rips out the gas line 🔥 to cause a gas leak 🔥 to fill the kitchen (and the whole house) and when Jumba fires his blaster, it ignites the gas 🔥 and the house explodes 💥. Instead, they changed it to where they cause the house to explode 💥 when Stitch sticks a carrot 🥕 into the barrel of Jumba’s blaster and they start playing hot potato 🥔 with it until it explodes 💥, destroying the whole house in the process. They even changed the color and sound of the explosion 💥 from orange to green to show that it was caused by the alien gun 👽 rather than by a gas explosion 💥. You can totally tell which scenes were changed since Jumba’s looks extra cutesy and pudgier than usual in the altered scenes. His eyes are bigger and rounder than they should be. It’s kind of funny how off-model Jumba is in these altered scenes. 

Another thing about that scene in particular that I noticed on this most recent rewatch, There’s a moment in that scene where Stitch and Jumba accidentally set off the record player, and the Elvis song, “Hound Dog” starts playing and Jumba says, “I love this song.” How does he know that song? Has he been to Earth 🌎 before? Did he hear that song in the radio waves that floated into space? This movie does use a lot of Elvis song. Elvis has a huge presence in this movie. They play a bunch of his songs, Lilo uses him as an example to try to teach Stitch how to be a “model citizen,” there’s a scene where Lilo wakes Nani up to show her that Stitch can play music out of his mouth when his finger is played on a record when it’s spinning in the record player, which would get overused in the marketing of this movie, particularly in the TV spots. And in the end credits, it’s shown that Lilo, Nani, Stitch, and David all visit Graceland. 

 

I don’t know what convinced Chris Sanders or any of the other people involved in this movie to include so many Elvis references. Is Elvis just really popular and culturally relevant amongst the Native Hawaiian community? Or did Chris Sanders just really like Elvis? Either way, I don’t really mind that there’s so much Elvis in this movie. I like some of his music. He’s probably not the best example of a model citizen considering he apparently dated an underage girl ♀︎, either 16 or 17, I’m not sure which 😬. 

 

There was also a scene removed pretty early on in the storyboard phase (it wasn’t even fully animated) where Stitch kills Pudge, that fish 🐠 that Lilo feeds every morning because she’s convinced that it can change the weather. And then another scene where Lilo scares away a bunch of tourists from the beach 🏖️ so that her and Stitch can have some privacy. There’s even a scene that was removed where we see Gantu get reprimanded by the Council for allowing Stitch to escape, and then he departs to Earth 🌎 despite not being approved to go after Stitch. And of course, more recently, they altered the scene where Lilo hides from Nani inside the dryer and after the visit from Cobra Bubbles goes horribly wrong, to have her hide under a table with a pizza box. Probably the stupidest change of all. 

 

This movie had some very poignant social commentary, a very strong anti-colonialist message, and that message was dulled and lessened by the removal of some of these scenes. And even like the airplane scene ✈️ or the original versions of the Jumba and Stitch fight and the Lilo and Nani chase scene with the dryer instead of the pizza box, I don’t they should’ve been removed or changed. And in the case of the airplane scene ✈️  specifically, I think enough time has passed to where no one would be particularly offended if you added that scene back in the way it was. This is why I propose an alternate cut of this movie, where all of the deleted scenes and original versions of scenes be completely restored. Fully animated and everything. You could even call it The Airplane Cut ✈️, that has a nice ring to it. That’s honestly what they’ve should’ve done instead of making a live action remake that won’t be anywhere near as good as the original. 

(This is the flag of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, a political movement within Hawaii, mostly among Native Hawaiians, who oppose the US annexation 🇺🇸 and either want the state to become independent again and the monarchy to be restored, or want it to have more autonomy and the Native Hawaiians to be fully in charge of the state’s internal affairs.)

But, even in its somewhat compromised state, the movie is still pretty effective. The science fiction elements are really not at the forefront, at least in this movie, and they’re mostly used as set to tell this really human story. A story of these two sisters who struggling to make ends meet, and under threat of being separated from each other by the State. There are certain characters in kid’s animated movies and shows that you relate to more as you get older, and Nani is one of those characters. As a kid, you relate more to Lilo (and even Stitch to a certain extent), but as an adult, you relate to Nani (and maybe even David). Like, I feel like my own sister could relate to Nani a bit since she basically had to fill the same role that she did, be a guardian to my younger sister. Maybe, not a legal guardian like Nani is to Lilo, but definitely a guardian since my mom is a drunk 🥴, struggles with depression and other mental health issues, and is completely unfit to take care of our little. 

Nani had this enormous responsibility placed upon her, and given that she’s only 19, she doesn’t entire know to how to handle that new responsibility. Her parents died, she now has to raise her little sister, who’s also having trouble coping with the death of their parents, and is also having trouble fitting in and making friends with the other kids around her. Probably giving up her own dreams and aspirations in the process. Nani also struggles with holding down a job, and has to constantly prove to Social Services that she is capable of taking care of her little sister and being her legal guardian. Of course, the anti-colonialist message, which was kind of nullified and de-emphasized in the finished film, plays a part into this too and is a large part of their characters since Hawaii was colonized by the United States 🇺🇸 in the 19th century and turned into a tourist destination, and the white people especially that visit there only see it as a fun vacation destination, rather than a real place where people live and work. 

Their presence, the presence of tourists, has a negative effect on the islands themselves as well as on the native inhabitants that live there and have lived there for generations. Combine that with a US military presence 🇺🇸 which has also done tremendous harm to the environment on the islands as well as the culture and living conditions of the local population, and you basically got the modern Native Hawaiian struggle. Though, it should be noted that this movie doesn’t delve into the US military 🇺🇸 presence in Hawaii, even though that has been a point of contention between the US government 🇺🇸 and Native Hawaiians for centuries now, and most Native Hawaiians (especially those in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement) strongly oppose the military presence there and see it as an illegal occupation. 

Again, the most blatant and sharpest criticisms of the US colonization of Hawaii 🇺🇸 were removed from the film to make this movie more accessible to audiences and not make people, especially white people, not feel bad about being complicit in the exploitation of Hawaii and continuing suffering of the Native Hawaiian people, but some of it is still there. Particularly in Lilo’s hobby of taking pictures of tourists visiting the beach 🏖️ and sticking them on her wall, and the fact that she feels alienated by her fellow hula dancers, who all happen to be white girls ♀︎, and is a bit insecure about the fact that they can do those dances better than she can despite her actually being Native Hawaiians. Which is why her being friends with Stitch is so ironic, she’s able to make friends with an actual alien 👽 from another planet than any of her fellow human beings. 

 

She’s also very confrontational with a girl ♀︎ with in that hula dancing class, Mertle, a white girl ♀︎, who is the kind of spoiled brat who comes from a privileged family that lives in Hawaii, not realizing the negative effect their presence has on the Native Hawaiian population. Always getting into fights with her, and beating her up every time she talks bad about her or makes a snide comment at her. A lot of people love the scenes where Lilo beats up Mertle when she says something really bitchy to her, like in Stitch Has a Glitch where tells her right to her face that she’ll never be as good of a hula dancer as her mother. It’s always satisfying in fiction, when you see a character beat up their bully, especially when the bully really deserves it and does something especially shitty, which Mertle did by being Lilo’s mom into this. It’s a good example of a kind-hearted character having a spine, having a backbone, and defending themselves when someone wrongs them. Lilo is a kind-hearted character, she always sees the best in everyone, and she’s very forgiving, and even she’s confronted with someone who is “bad,” she at least tries to help them improve and become better person. 

 

That’s the whole story of Lilo & Stitch, Stitch is an evil little jerk who only wants to destroy things and cause chaos (it’s literally what he was created to do), but because of Lilo’s influence and her efforts to make him a better person, he becomes a better person…or alien 👽 since he’s not human. But, Lilo does have her limits, and she will throw hands when she deems it necessary to do so, and Mertle gives her a reason to do on more than one occasion because she is just that awful. But, even still, Lilo does still want to be friends with her, she be wants to be friends with all the hula girls since they’re the only kids her age she interacts with on a regular basis it seems. It’s them that are the ones who push her away and exclude her, and Mertle is often the one that forces them to do. They all follow her lead, and ostracize Lilo with her. And I bet none of this will be in the live action remake. Lilo’s whole rivalry with Mertle, the scenes where she beats her up, and the scenes where Mertle and the hula girls are all mean to her like they’re all Regina George and the Plastics, none of it. Because this is a kid’s movie, we can’t show kids beating each up, or bullying each other in a kid’s movie, even though those things do happen in real life, and often outside of adults’ field of view 🙄😒.  

 

Mertle is kind of meant to represent wrong with how most Americans 🇺🇸 see Hawaii and its native inhabitants. Besides her, almost every white person in this movie is portrayed as being completely clueless, like the ice cream cone guy 🍦♂︎ who they for some reason decided to turn into an snow cone guy 🍧♂︎ and a Native Hawaiian instead of a white person for the remake. Completely missing the point of what that character was supposed to represent. Other white characters were shown being more overtly racist in a couple of scenes, but those scenes were removed and left out of the final cut.

 

One of those scenes was the one that sort of explained why Lilo likes taking pictures of tourists. She finds tourists annoying and mean, since a lot of them say racist things to her and try to take pictures of her as if she were an animal or an alien 👽 (get it? 😉), which is something that actually happens to a lot of Native Hawaiians. Tourists, especially white ones, try to take pictures of them whenever they spot them, and in the process dehumanize them and treat them as an object or as an otherworldly beast to be gawked at. So she started taking pictures of tourists to take some of that power back, and see how tourists like it when they’re dehumanized in that same way. Although, since Lilo’s a 6 year old, she probably didn’t think that deep into it, and did to just annoy tourists, the same way they annoy her, but that’s why that’s in the film, that’s why she does it. Without that scene adding context as to why she does it, it just makes her look like a weirdo who likes to taking pictures of random people. I mean, she is weird, but there was at least a deeper meaning behind one of the weird things she does. See what I mean when I say that the social commentary was lessened?

 

All of this combines together to make Lilo and Nani some of the most complex characters in any Disney animated movies, and some of the most tragic Disney characters of all time. Their family dynamic alone is one of the most unique of any Disney animated film, since it’s rare you see a Disney animated film where both parents are died, and the main character is raised by their big sister rather than have one parent survive and basically be a single parent (a widow or a widower), or by a grandparent, or aunt, or some other relative. Funny story about Lilo specifically though, I do sometimes get her mixed up with the character from The Fifth Element, Leeloo. Their names sound so similar and are even kind of spelt similarly, so it’s easy to get them mixed up sometimes, especially if you’re someone like me who likes both movies, Lilo & Stitch (2002) and The Fifth Element. One time, I accidentally called Lilo Leeloo when I was talking about this movie, and then I might’ve done the same but the other way around, calling Leeloo Lilo when I was talking about The Fifth Element. I reviewed that movie a few months ago if you’re interested, it’s my second popular post on this whole blog below my review of Ruby Gloom. 

 

It also made this one of the most poignant Disney films with its sharp social commentary. Even if a lot of it was minimized in the finished film by the removal of certain scenes, and a lot of it will probably be omitted entirely from the live action version. But, at least, this movie actually had something to say, and highlighted a societal issue that often goes ignored in American politics 🇺🇸 and in American society 🇺🇸. David’s a pretty cool character too, I know I haven’t really talked a lot about David in this review, but I like him. He’s the kind of guy ♂︎ that every girl ♀︎ would want to have as a boyfriend and every guy ♂︎ would want to hang out with. It’s a shame that he goes pretty underutilized in the rest of the franchise after this. 

 

And the actor who voices him in the film and in the sequels, Jason Scott Lee played Bruce Lee in the Bruce Lee biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story 🐉. He also played Mowgli in the first live action Jungle Book movie from 1994, which was also done by Disney. Don’t know why they decided to remake it in live action 22 years later in 2016, but they did, but Jason Scott Lee was in the first attempt from 1994. He also played the evil Replicant guy ♂︎ in Soldier (1998), Caine 607, and starred in the direct-to-DVD sequel 📀 to Timecop (1994) simply called Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision. So, Jason Scott Lee’s been in some cool stuff (as well as some no-so cool stuff, depending on your view of Soldier (1998) and Timecop 2), and David is one of his great, memorable roles. 

But, even if the movie doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on the sci-fi elements and the sci-fi elements are mostly in service of the human story they’re trying to tell, they’re still pretty cool. I like all of the alien technology 👽 that we see, and I like all the alien designs 👽. I like how a lot of the aliens 👽 in this movie look like sea creatures, like Gantu just looks like a big ol’ shark man 🦈♂︎. The only real exceptions to this are Jumba, Pleakley, and the Grand Councilwoman, who is designed to look more like a typical Grey alien 👽, only she has hooves instead feet like typical Grey aliens 👽 do. I mean, she did land in Roswell after all, and was one of the first aliens 👽 to meet humans, so it makes sense why she looks like that. 

Oh, and Stitch’s weakness is water 💦. He has the same weakness as the aliens 👽 in Signs. I wonder if that’s where Chris Sanders got the idea to make water 💦 Stitch’s weakness. Or maybe M. Night Shyamalan got the idea from this movie to give the aliens 👽 in his movie the same weakness, depending on when Signs came out. There is something that bothers me though, and it bothered me while I watching the movie again for this review. If Stitch’s weakness is water 💦, if it’s pretty much his Kryptonite, then how was he able to survive in the rain 🌧️ when he first arrived on Earth 🌎? This could’ve been something that the live action remake could’ve explored but probably didn’t: Really emphasize Stitch’s weakness to water 💦. Actually have the rain 🌧️ negatively affect Stitch, like it burn him when it touches him, sort of like the Martians in that one Jimmy Neutron episode where they go to Mars (called “King of Mars”), or at least have him become visibly weaker when the rain drops 🌧️ fall on him. That would explain why he didn’t react in time when those trucks hit him, it’s because his senses were dulled by the rain 🌧️. 

Also, another thing I noticed about Stitch is that he’s kind of like Venom. He starts out evil or mischievous, a malicious little jerk who just wants to cause chaos (or in Venom’s case, kill people and bite their heads off), but over time, gets softened up and mellowed out until he becomes a total goofball, willing to do good. The Venom comparison goes even further when you consider that Stitch has his own Carnage, in the form of Leroy. He even becomes Agent Stitch just like Venom becomes Agent Venom. The only real difference of course is that Venom is a sentient, parasitic, black goo monster who can take over other creatures’ bodies and enhance them with his own powers and abilities, while Stitch is a cute little blue koala 🐨 looking creature with black eyes, four arms, antennae, and three spikes on his back that is pretty much indestructible (except to water 💦) and is super strong and has heightened senses. You might say I only thought of this because I recently reviewed Venom: The Last Dance, and I still had Venom on the mind, but it still makes sense.