Lilo & Stitch

When Lilo & Stitch first came out in 2002 (following Atlantis: The Lost Empire), I will admit I was not too interested in it as a kid, mainly due to its advertising campaign, however I was aware enough of it and its subsequent franchise that I knew who the character of Stitch was without knowing his full backstory. However, after seeing the character make appearances in the Kingdom Hearts series as well as positive word of mouth in recent years, I decided it was time I actually gave the film a chance. To my own surprise, the movie was far better than I initially expected it to be.

Facing the Galactic Federation, Dr. Jumba Jookiba (David Ogden Stiers) is under trial for his creation of a living superweapon he named Experiment 626 (Chris Sanders). After Jumba is imprisoned for this crime, Experiment 626 is chained up to be sentenced to exile on a barren asteroid, only for him to escape and hijack a police vessel and make his way towards Earth, namely Hawaii. Seeing no other option after being told Earth is a protected wildlife sanctuary for the supposedly-endangered mosquito population, the Grand Councilwoman (Zoe Caldwell) makes a deal with Jumba to recover Experiment 626 in exchange for his freedom, placing Earth expert Agent Wendell Pleakley in charge of keeping an eye on Jumba. On the island of Kaua’i, Hawaii, a girl named Lilo (Daveigh Chase) runs late to a hula class and ends up starting a fight with one of her classmates over her explanation, which involved giving a fish a peanut butter sandwich. Lilo’s sister Nani (Tia Carrere), who acts as her legal guardian, has been having a rocky relationship with her at home, to the point where she risks Lilo being taken away from her after a social worker named Cobra Bubbles (Ving Rhames) is sent to assess the situation. Things start to change, however as later that night, Experiment 626 crash lands in a forest and gets run over by multiple large trucks, waking up the next morning in a dog shelter where Lilo ends up adopting him and naming him “Stitch”.

Compared to some other animated Disney movies, including the preceding Atlantis, Lilo & Stitch presents a more grounded narrative, with the fantastical element of aliens to tie the story together. Things are easy to follow, however, since the bulk of the movie is spent on Lilo’s story on Hawaii with the subplot of capturing Experiment 626/Stitch more or less running in the background. The execution of this plot also allows Lilo and Nani to be more relatable characters for some viewers, though what makes the story more interesting is how Lilo and Stitch go through their own parallel story arcs. In Lilo’s case, she is treated as an outcast by the other children because she behaves differently from them, whereas Stitch doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere due to his nature. Early on in the movie, Stitch begins trying to grasp the meaning of family after reading The Ugly Duckling, a story that serves as a recurring motif for Stitch that leads to some genuinely poignant moments in the movie.

In contrast, one of the more humorous moments in the movie involves
Stitch (Chris Sanders, left) being able to use himself as the speaker for
a record player. (Right: Lilo (Daveigh Chase))

Something that’s been noted is that Lilo & Stitch is actually pretty groundbreaking for a Disney animated film in hindsight as it features certain plot elements that would be given greater focus in later Disney films, including one from Pixar. Such plot points that are noted include the focus on Hawaii and its culture (which became the entire focus of 2016’s Moana), Nani being a working-class female lead of color (much like Tanya’s character in 2009’s The Princess and the Frog), Lilo being a female lead without romantic attachment (which Pixar made Merida in 2012’s Brave), the heavy element of sci-fi (which plays a large part in 2014’s Big Hero 6) and the strong bond Nani and Lilo share as sisters (which is a major plot point of 2013’s Frozen, and presumably Frozen II later this year). While the movie does feature all these elements, the movie doesn’t call attention to or put a spotlight on any of these as the aforementioned films do, to the point where I didn’t consider any of these (aside from the Hawaiian aspect) on my first viewing, as the focus is instead placed on the relationship between the title characters, and thus I felt it handled some of the listed plot points more naturally. Lilo & Stitch’s contemporaries Atlantis and Treasure Planet also feature a touch of science fiction in their settings, though based on having watched the former and my own minor second-hand knowledge of the latter, one could argue they are more “steampunk” than they are “sci-fi”.

The art direction is unique for a Disney film, as it detracts from the normal Disney art style in favor of a more “soft” style that makes heavy use of rounded shapes. This, combined with it being produced on a smaller budget in a similar fashion to Dumbo (1941), allows whatever is animated to be extremely fluid. Of note is the water animation, which is some of the best that I’ve seen depicted in a traditionally animated feature; the water is especially animated very realistically during beach and surfing sequences, without detracting from the movie’s visual style.

Adding to the unique look of the movie is the exclusive use of watercolor backdrops, something that hadn’t been used in a Disney feature since the original Dumbo, giving the movie an atmosphere befitting its largely-Hawaiian setting. What’s interesting about the way watercolor is integrated in the scenery is how every object that is not meant to move in a given scene, including foreground objects, is rendered in watercolor, and any major change to a backdrop is replaced with another, unique watercolor backdrop.

The film's watercolor backdrops are particularly amazing to look at.

Like with the preceding film Atlantis, Lilo & Stitch makes use of CG alongside traditional animation, however the CG in this movie is integrated more naturally than in Atlantis. This may be owed to the fact the CG in the movie is stylized in a similar fashion to soft and rounded style used for the traditionally-animated characters, whereas it stood out more in Atlantis due to using Mike Mignola’s decidedly more angular art style. This allows the CG in Lilo & Stitch to be almost unnoticeable; even though you can tell when something is a 3D object, your mind doesn’t call too much attention to it.

A particularly interesting behind-the-scenes event involves a scene towards the climax of the movie that was altered during production in the wake of the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks. The scene in question is an aerial chase sequence involving two alien craft flying between Hawaiian mountains, which was originally to feature Stitch hijacking a Boeing 747 and the chase to involve weaving through tall buildings. The original scene was finalized mere days before the aforementioned attacks occurred, prompting the animators to hastily alter it to the arguably better version seen in the finished product. An additional scene was also added just before the chase sequence occurs, both to naturally work the new chase sequence into the movie and to explain how Jumba and Pleakley arrived on Earth, as the animators realized this oversight when revisiting that part of the movie.

The movie is also well-cast with some notable talent that perfectly suits their roles. Among the bigger names in the cast is Ving Rhames (better known to some as Luther Stickell in the Mission: Impossible movies) as Cobra Bubbles, whose voice gives his character a major presence in the story and is fitting for a social worker who takes his job very seriously. David Ogden Stiers, best known as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III in M*A*S*H and Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (1991) among other things, is good in the role of Jumba, his voice bringing out the character’s evil genius traits when needed without overplaying them. Kevin McDonald, best known to Invader Zim fans as Almighty Tallest Purple, puts his uniquely higher-pitched voice to good effect as Agent Pleakley, whose character makes for a good foil for Jumba.

Also featured in the movie is Kevin Michael Richardson, whose distinct baritone is used to make his role of Captain Gantu appropriately imposing at times, though the character is also shown to have a chuckle-worthy moment or two in the amount of screen time he has. Then-child actress Daveigh Chase is also perfectly cast as Lilo, who unlike a number of fictional child characters behaves just like a child, though she manages to do so without being overly annoying. Lilo & Stitch director and co-writer Chris Sanders provides the voice of Stitch, giving him sort of a nasally voice that still manages to have a wide emotional range. Rather notably, even though Sanders left Disney in 2007, he is still the official voice of the character in all related media and spin-offs, with some exceptions.

At the time of its release, Lilo & Stitch proved popular enough for it to become a multimedia franchise, beginning with the direct-to-video film Stitch! The Movie in 2003, which laid the groundwork for the television series appropriately named Lilo & Stitch: The Series, which ran from 2003-2006 and ended with the 2006 TV movie Leroy & Stitch. During this time, another direct-to-video feature titled Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch was released in 2005 that takes place between the original film and Stitch! The Movie, though the general quality of this movie is up to the viewer.

The spin-offs don't end here.

Following this is the long-running Japanese anime Stitch!, which aired between 2008 and 2015 and was produced by Madhouse of Hunter x Hunter fame for the first two Seasons and Shin-Ei Animation of Doraemon fame for the rest of its run; taking place after the main Lilo & Stitch franchise, this series moves Stitch from Hawaii to a fictional Japanese island and pairs him with a girl named Yuna Kamihara. Though an English dub was produced, this series notably aired in the US on Disney XD for only five episodes before disappearing from the airwaves for undisclosed reasons. Following the Stitch! anime, a 13-episode Chinese animated series was produced in 2017 called Stitch and Ai, set between the events of the American Lilo & Stitch timeline and the Japanese Stitch! anime that sees Stitch being moved to Huangshan, Anhui in China and paired with another girl named Wang Ai. The first 12 episodes were made available for American viewers via the DisneyNow service in late 2018, before being removed in mid-2019.

Despite being a decently lucrative franchise for Disney at the time, Lilo & Stitch has since seemed to have fallen somewhat under the radar for most people, which may have fallen further into relative obscurity if not for the references to it in the Kingdom Hearts video game franchise. Stitch himself appears as a Summon in Kingdom Hearts II and the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts III, however the game Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep would feature a dedicated world based on the events of the original movie, taking place during the first 10 minutes. In spite of director Tetsuya Nomura’s vison that the Kingdom Hearts version of events are canon, the Lilo & Stitch world (Deep Space) is handled in such a way as to be incompatible with the actual movie, fudging the events of the first 10 minutes a bit in order to shoehorn Terra, Ventus and Aqua into the story. Among these incongruities are recontextualizing aspects of Stitch’s character and throwing in a cameo appearance from Experiment 221 (aka Sparky) from Stitch! The Movie as a boss fight.

Having managed to survive this long as a franchise, the original Lilo & Stitch stands the test of time as one of Disney’s best animated films. The genuinely heartfelt story coupled with amazing animation and beautiful watercolor backgrounds make this an instant recommendation for animation fans, as well as people first exposed to the character of Stitch through Kingdom Hearts. As for whether I invest in any of the further adventures of Lilo and Stitch, I’m going to be playing that by ear.