Lilo & Stitch arrived in 2002 as the second of three Disney animated features made mainly at the Florida studio in Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, near Orlando. It runs 85 minutes. It is a science fiction comedy-drama about an orphaned Hawaiian girl and the genetically engineered alien she adopts as a dog.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
Experiment 626 Lands on Kauaʻi
The setup is brisk. On the planet Turo, the United Galactic Federation convicts Dr. Jumba Jookiba of illegal genetic experimentation. He built Experiment 626: aggressive, near-indestructible, with advanced learning capabilities. Captain Gantu is assigned to escort 626 into exile. 626 escapes, hijacks a space cruiser, and crash-lands on Kauaʻi, Hawaii.
Three passing trucks run him over. He is taken to an animal shelter. The Grand Councilwoman offers Jumba early release if he retrieves 626, with Agent Pleakley assisting.
Meanwhile, orphaned teenager Nani Pelekai is raising her younger sister Lilo after their parents died in a car crash. Social worker Cobra Bubbles doubts Nani can serve as guardian and threatens foster care if things do not improve within three days. Lilo, lonely and rambunctious, wishes for a friend. Nani takes her to the shelter. Lilo adopts 626 and names him Stitch.
A Three-Day Deadline and a Fired Sister
Stitch’s destructive behavior keeps wrecking Nani’s attempts to hold a job. At the lūʻau where she works, he attacks Pleakley, Nani is blamed, and she is fired. Bubbles orders her to find new work and tells Lilo to teach Stitch to be a “model citizen.”
Jumba and Pleakley, disguised as tourists, keep trying to capture him. A surfing trip with Nani’s friend David Kawena brings another attempt. Stitch pulls Lilo underwater; Nani rescues Lilo, David rescues Stitch.
The film’s engine is that deadline, and it works because the movie never treats Lilo as cute. She is grieving, odd, and difficult, and the script lets her be all three.
Voices Behind the Experiment
Daveigh Chase won Lilo in fall 1998 against 150 other candidates. Stitch was meant to be nonverbal, but Sanders said, “he’d have to say a few things, so we made sure that we kept it to a minimum.” DeBlois suggested Sanders voice him rather than hire an actor, and Sanders used the voice he deployed “just to bother people at the studio.”
Tia Carrere voices Nani and spent two years recording in Los Angeles, Paris, and Toronto. Jason Scott Lee came in as David on Carrere’s recommendation. Kevin McDonald was suggested for Pleakley by storyboard artist Chris Williams. Ving Rhames voices Cobra Bubbles, a part first imagined as nebbish with Jeff Goldblum in mind before Goldblum declined and the character was reconceived as more intimidating.
There’s one in every family.
What Holds and What Slips
The ʻohana idea — extended family — is the film’s whole argument, and it earns the ending rather than announcing it. Stitch is designed to cause chaos and destruction, and initially uses Lilo to avoid recapture. The turn toward loyalty and friendship is gradual, which is why it lands.
The weakness is the machinery around it. The Federation plot, Jumba and Pleakley’s repeated capture attempts, and the three-day countdown all compete for room in 85 minutes. Pleakley is comic relief that mostly relieves nothing. The villains were cut down during development — Ricardo Montalbán recorded lines as a villain whose character was removed, with the role eventually going to Gantu, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson — and the thinning shows in a threat that never quite threatens.
Where Lilo & Stitch is strongest is its setting. Kauaʻi is not wallpaper. The water, the lūʻau, the shelter, the house — the film is specific about where these people live, and that specificity is what makes the family story credible instead of generic.
It is not the studio’s most ambitious film of that period, and it does not try to be. It is a small story with an alien in it, and it knows the alien is the least interesting thing on screen.
Key facts
– Release: 2002
– Runtime: 85 minutes
– Directors/writers: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
– Score: 7.3/10 (Metacritic 73/100)
– Cast: Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Zoe Caldwell, Jason Scott Lee, Kevin Michael Richardson
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