ANI-MOVIES, *Lilo & Stitch

Coming out the same year as their other outer space epic, Treasure Planet, Disney's Lilo And Stitch was more of a family comedy adventure in the vein of E.T. minus the extended bike chases. For their 42nd theatrical animation release, Disney came out with a largely original idea instead of yet another fairy tale adaptation. Animator Chris Sanders first came out with character of Stitch in the mid-80s when he was working on Muppet Babies, and then got work from Disney on Beauty And The Beast, The Lion King, and Aladdin. After a while, Sanders talked to the Disney bigwigs for using Stitch in his own movie, and then they localized it to Hawaii to give more exposure to Pacific Islander culture. Sanders also provided the voice of the bizarre alien critter in this movie and most of its various sequels. The movie was done largely in traditional animation with watercolor backgrounds and some CGI animation. It was a phenomenal success and spawned off a trinity of made-for-video movies, an animated series, and even a genuine anime spinoff created specifically for Japanese audiences. Of course, this found its way into the eternal library of animated movies that Disney insists on reproducing into live-action knockoffs. Although how it achieved this is still a quirk because the film isn't really a feature-length story but a script for a half-hour TV show plot for Disney Afternoon stretched out to 85 minutes. Chris Sander and collaborator from How To Train Your Dragon, Dean Deblois, are good writers, but this film takes what was supposed to be a kids book and adds in a warehouse load of cliches and overelaborate drama that seriously drag it into the mud.

Lilo is a recently orphaned Hawaiian girl who lives with her older sister Nani, and the story takes place sometime after their parents passed away, although Lilo doesn't seem to be mourning over it too much and is hampered down by not having a sturdy parental figure. There has been much speculation as to whether Lilo was neurodivergent, even though it's hard to tell with a child that young how they would process the grief of losing their parent. Lilo's behavior has gotten the attention of social worker "Cobra Bubbles" who looks like he just retired from the Men In Black and is concerned about Nani raising a girl on her own while having trouble keeping a job. To hopefully help calm Lilo down some, Nani takes Lilo to an animal shelter to find a pet, and she picks out a strange looking dog she names Stitch. The dog is in reality an alien created by a mad scientist from space that was engineered to be nearly indestructible, and the united alien worlds have sent Stitch's maker Dr. Jumba and the cycloptic Earth expert Pleakley to capture him, but after failing the alien higher-ups the large soldier Gantu to capture the runaway. Gantu finally gets Stitch along with Lilo, but Stitch escapes and talks Nani along with his first duo of hunters to help get her back. In the original cut of the movie, there was supposed to be a lengthy chase with Stitch and friends stealing a jet and chasing down Gantu in his ship in the middle of a city, but since this film was released after 911, the entire chase was recut with Lilo's rescuers using Jumba's ship instead. Stitch saves Lilo, the alien council concedes to allow Stitch to stay on Earth, and Mr. Bubbles turns out to be an ex-CIA agent who had already dealt with alien diplomacy and helps square Nani and Lilo's living arrangements with Jumba and Pleakley remaining on Earth to be their wacky neighbors.

Lilo And Stitch is moderately enjoyable, but it never really keeps the balance of two sisters struggling through a tough period in their lives and the wacky space monster antics. Lilo is an animated early example of an emotionally damaged child with her own way of doing things, even though the film never really gets around to addressing this, possibly to not have this family movie as a vehicle for trying to understand neurodivergence as many others have tried and failed. There are some standard boisterous hijinks you would expect from a Disney cartoon, but these can get in the way of attempting to have this be a feature film. Your children should find it charming, but most older animation fans might pass on because they've already seen material like this before and just because it's a Disney movie doesn't give it a free ticket.