Disney’s newest addition to their live-action crusade, Lilo & Stitch, smashed at the box office with numbers nearing the billions. This overwhelmingly positive reaction to the movie left me wondering—have our standards really fallen so low?
I won’t lie, I don’t tend to have particularly high expectations for movies riding the live-action remake wave. But when I heard Disney was redoing Lilo & Stitch—the movie that taught me how to accept and love myself as a weird Hawaiian kid—I wanted to have hope. Even as rumors swirled about the controversial casting, missing characters, and changed plot lines, I tried to hold out.
And then I saw the movie. And it was so much worse than I could have imagined.
Rushed writing, excessive pandering, nostalgia- and merchandising-baiting, and truly repulsive CGI are all on proud display in this 1hr and 40 minute shipwreck. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It was everything wrong with this new era of Disney. But with a handful of Hawaiian phrases and concepts thrown in for progressive points.
Although this movie may claim to depict a more realistic portrayal of Hawaiian life, the only reality I found was just how far Disney’s fallen.
Disney’s disturbing new design choices
Before I get to anything else, I’ve got to talk about the look of this movie, since no else seems to be mentioning it. These aliens are U-G-L-Y, they ain’t got no alibi, they’re ugly. And not ugly in a fun misfit way, they’re genuinely very uncomfortable to look at. These CGI monstrosities are all some strange mix of over-textured sweaty skin and hair.
This contrasts the original movie’s uniquely aquatic take on alien life with designs inspired by whales, mantas, octopi, and anemones. These decisions made even the strange aliens feel at home, and cohesive with the film as a whole. While the character design choices in the live-action feel at best distracting, and at worst really gross.
The only exception to this truly mind-boggling design choice, is the titular Stitch. Who looks… fine. Not bad, not great, really nothing to write home about. Oh, and an axolotl alien, which I’m sure Disney will be selling plushies of in a few months time.
Uninspired visuals lacking Aloha
Messy and cheap CGI aside, what I find more disturbing is the lack of artistic vision in the cinematography. One of the things that always stood out to me when watching the original was the time and effort put into showing off the beauty of the ʻāina—our land and sea—and its people.
“Aloha for the ʻāina is ingrained within us as Native Hawaiians and it is core to the Hawaiian worldview.” Office of Hawaiian Affairs
The original film is filled to the brim with these gorgeous watercolor backgrounds that bring the island to life. These artworks are sandwiched inside scenes that move the plot forward. But the shots are always composed in such a way that gives the island majesty and presence.
Chris Sanders’ unique art style, similarly, brings the people to life. There is weight and an attention to detail in the character design that draws a clear connection between the people of the island and their home.
None of that love and artistry is found in the live-action. It’s bad enough that they’ve swapped Kauai for the more touristy Oahu. But it also spends more time in hotels and luxury resorts than with the island itself. How do you get lucky enough to film one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and still miss the mark on visuals?
Rushed pacing for cheap gags
The original Lilo & Stitch was a masterclass in balancing pacing, plot, character, and heart. The film doesn’t waste a minute of its runtime. Even scenes that focus more on comedic or cute elements for the kids have important moments of character/plot development.
The live-action Lilo & Stitch has an additional 20 minutes of runtime, and somehow accomplishes a third of what the original could. In an interview with director Dean Fleischer, he claimed that the removal of beloved characters like Gantu was justified by a need to give the relationship between the sisters more emotional depth and breathing room.
However, that “breathing room” is nowhere to be found with the brain rot-esque breakneck speed this movie takes. But despite that, somehow there’s still a significantly weaker relationship between Lilo and Nani. It appears that what they really needed more room for was squeezing in “comedic” Stitch antics that they could use to sell more merchandise.
Patchwork plot
One of the most difficult aspects of adapting any kind of story to another medium, is choosing which scenes to keep and how to arrange them. It requires an in-depth knowledge of not only the source material’s content, but also the intention behind it. This adaptation demonstrates knowledge of neither of those things.
They do end up using a good number of lines and scenes from the original. However, they nonsensically “stitch” those elements together into a pale imitation devoid of meaning. By plucking out the context, they don’t consider the scene’s purpose. Creating the effect of actors going through the motions of a story, rather than people feeling and thinking real things.
A great example is why Lilo is late to Hula in the beginning. In the original, it is because they are out of peanut butter which she needs to make Pudge, the weather controlling fish, a sandwich. It’s important because it not only shows off the idiosyncrasies of Lilo’s character, but also alludes to how she’s processing her parents’ death. Her parents died in a car crash during stormy weather. Pudge is her way of taking control of that. So it’s understandable why she’d go to such lengths, despite Hula being so important to her.
But in the re-make, they throw in a montage of Lilo getting into kid antics after feeding Pudge. She hangs out in a hotel hot tub, frees chickens, and just generally causes mischief. It shifts her character from a misunderstood kid to a misbehaving kid doing things for the hell of it. So when she’s late to Hula, it feels like it’s because she doesn’t care.
Character assassination
If you’ve seen any of the critiques about this movie, you’ve probably seen the complaints about Jumba’s character. They turn the redemption of the lovable mad scientist into a straight-up egotistical villain. And it’s true, the writing choices there are lazy and Zach Galifianakis’s performance is lackluster at best. But I couldn’t even really focus on that, because Jumba isn’t the only one who gets this treatment.
It’s everyone. Every character has their worst traits caricatured to the point of being almost unrecognizable. David is a bumbling airhead. Pleakley is obsessed with being on vacation with humans—undermining any anti-tourism themes. Nani is constantly upset and treats Lilo like a burden. Lilo is a troublemaker. And Stitch is a feral, food-motivated animal.
It’s funny that the director claimed he was creating more emotional depth, because all the nuanced elements that made these characters interesting are missing. And the character dynamics and messaging suffer for it. There are no character arcs. Almost all of Stitch’s major turning points are either mishandled or missing.
He doesn’t struggle to adjust to having no purpose. The ugly duckling story that makes Stitch confront his sense of belonging is gone. The ohana speech loses all impact on him since Nani undermines it. The iconic “Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride” scene becomes more about Nani’s talents and the excitement of surfing, rather than connecting with family and the sea as an act of healing. And since Lilo and Nani’s relationship has taken such a hit, their bond doesn’t work as an effective example for Stitch to look up to.
The worst part about this is Stitch’s character development is half the point of the movie. It’s not just some arbitrary “power of family” that changes him, it’s about Hawaii and Hawaiian values.
American philosophy hiding behind Hawaiian values
With all that said, it’s time to finally talk about the movie’s biggest swing, and the change that’s got everybody up in arms. Nani chooses to give up guardianship of Lilo to the state, leave her in the care of the neighbors, and leaves Hawaii to study marine biology in California… Yeah, I know.
I want to start by saying, I see what they were trying to do.
It’s not crazy to acknowledge the need to rely on community in this type of situation. And “hānai” is a real Hawaiian practice with a lot of history in many Hawaiian families, including my own. It’s similar to adoption, but more complicated.
“…those involved in hānai, both traditionally and today, never saw it as ‘giving away,’ but rather as ‘sharing.’ The family didn’t get smaller, it expanded.” Maui Magazine
But it’s made abundantly clear that the movie cares less about expressing these traditional values, and more about Nani’s individual journey. If they cared about community they wouldn’t have left the supporting cast as shells in favor of developing Nani’s future. The philosophy is used as a means to an end, which is giving Nani the freedom to do whatever she wants.
If the goal was really exploring more modern/realistic takes on ohana, there were a million roads they could have gone down. A live-action would have been the perfect place to make comparisons to our real history, like with Queen Liliuokalani. Time could have been spent actually remembering the parents. Which could have opened up avenues to strengthen the relationship with the neighbors, or possibly even extended family. (It’s crazy they don’t have grandparents, cousins, or aunts and uncles.)
There was opportunity to connect Nani to the many Hawaiians that live on the mainland. Maybe even grounding her desire to study marine biology in a desire to protect the ‘āina.
But they didn’t do any of that, because they didn’t care about it. Because ohana means no one gets left behind or forgotten, until it’s inconvenient to one person’s future. That’s not Hawaiian, that’s American individualism (and lazy storytelling) hiding in a plastic lei.
The Reality of Ohana
I could go on about the things this movie got wrong—seriously, I can’t tell you how much I cut for time—but the real problem is the film’s fundamental misunderstanding of its source. The director and the film claim that the idea of ohana and the sisters on their own is unrealistic. Nani says:
“We were left behind. All that stuff sounds so nice, it sounds really nice to me too. But that is not reality. This is reality and I need you to start living in it. With me.”
But that misses the point.
It’s always been more complicated. The whole point of the original film was the girls couldn’t do it on their own. Instead of Lilo being a burden on Nani, they both struggled—together. They needed community just as much as they needed each other, and they got that in the form of Stitch, David, Jumba, Pleakley, and Bubbles. It’s a weird family, but it’s theirs nonetheless.
It’s a great idea to extend that to more neighbors, but to do so at the expense of the existing character relationships weakens the story. Add help from the neighbors, don’t take pivotal scenes that define Lilo and Nani’s relationship, like Stitch’s adoption.
Lilo & Stitch has never just been some silly alien monster flic about family sticking together. It’s about identity and its connection to a sense of belonging. It’s about those who do not fit in. There’s complicated themes of preconceived notions and the impacts of tourism. Take all of that away and there’s barely anything left.
Do yourself and Hawaiians a favor, and skip this one. Watch the original.
