Lilo and Stitch - The Live Action Thing

Happy 626 Day! (Last week)

I hope you all listened to some Elvis music while demolishing a home!

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the new Lilo and Stitch. 

                                                *SPOILERS*

A Quick Word on the Original

I'm a Lilo and Stitch fan, as many people know. I took a Stitch stuffed animal on my mission, my car is covered in Stitch decor, and I can pick my nose with my tongue, a feat that was not easy to master. However, this does not exclude the animated Lilo and Stitch from the nit-picky criticisms I have for every other movie, TV show, video game and book on the planet. 

My biggest issue was Gantu, the giant whale man that we see Stitch defeat in the first 10 minutes of the film and then later has to deal with when he shows up to Earth. My issue is this: We spend a majority of the film setting up the conflict between Lilo and Nani's want to keep their family together and Stitch's want to avoid Jamba by using Lilo as a human shield. Where this conflicts is when Stitch's destructive nature proves that Nani cannot provide a stable home for Lilo and climaxes when Stitch destroys their home and Lilo is taken away by a social worker. 

And then...

Gantu shows up and we're treated to a ten minute Tom and Jerry routine of Gantu and Stitch fighting on a space ship until they crash into the ocean, after which we have to quickly reestablish the emotional tension we had earlier and resolve the main plot. 

I hate this. 

What does the New Adaptation Bring?

Frankly where the live action Lilo and Stitch shines is whenever it's NOT trying to be the original. Whenever the movie does a frame-for-frame recreation the way the live action Lion King did the film falls flat, since we've already seen it. However, anywhere that new material is brought in, including new characters, preexisting characters becoming more fleshed out (Looking at you Nani) and just new antics with Lilo and Stitch, the film shines. The most obvious fact with this film and most of Disney's other live action remakes is that we don't need these films, we already have all of them. The only reason to recreate them would be to add something new or change things that didn't work in the original. For example...

NO GANTU

The film has been leveled with two major critiques (The other I'll address later), one of which is that Gantu is completely absent from the film, and thank whatever executive was responsible for that. What we have instead is Jamba taking on the role of villain, with him not giving half a regurgitated piece of cake about weather or not Lilo and Nani get to remain as a family. This isn't to say that it makes Jamba more interesting, in fact most of the new scenes of Jamba and Pleekly feel like a 90's kids movie with how bad the acting is, but he's still head and shoulders over a villain we see maybe three times throughout the course of the film. This also does change the climax, where instead of Gantu kidnapping Lilo and Stitch it's Jamba, who goes full on villain and uses the fact that Stitch was using Lilo as a human shield as a way to break them apart. This keeps the emotion in the climax instead of stopping it, giving it a far mor cohesive feeling. 

Nani's Choice

If you haven't seen the movie yet but are an avid reader of the internet you may have seen references to Nani abandoning Lilo. In the live action film, Nani is given more backstory. We find out she was an avid surfer and had a full-ride scholarship to become a marine biologist before their parents were killed, but now she has given up on her own dreams to take care of Lilo. A solution is presented though when, the new character David's grandma, offers to take care of Lilo while Nani goes to college. The critique over this is "What about ohana?!" Here's the issue: Nani is also a child. Nani lost her parents and is asked to take care of a 6 year old girl. She was willing to sacrifice everything to do so but an opportunity presented itself for her to better herself, have Lilo taken care of, and make a better future for the both of them. The original Nani's sacrifice was honorable, but if the animated Nani had a way for Lilo to be taken care of and her to get her dreams to come true I fully believe she would take it, as she should. It is not right to ask a child to take on the responsibility of an adult when they are not ready. 

Plus, to the internet critics, the movie gave them a portal gun so they can visit whenever they want so what's the issue? 

-JOE