If Disney live-action remakes were generally this good, they would still be making them
After the live-action Snow White bombed, Disney announced that it would be halting development on all future live-action remakes of its animated films. These live-action films were transparently cash grabs. Under capitalism, all commercially published art is a cash grab to somebody (not necessarily the artist); we know this, and for that reason, one of the greatest sins a film can make nowadays, in the age of digital reproduction à la Walter Benjamin, is to be an obvious cash grab. In that regard, the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch is something of a zombie, the last shambling remnant of something that was vaguely abhorrent to begin with, and is clearly about to die. Even so, we are tempted to gawk at its remains, and even so, we go to see Lilo & Stitch in theaters.
When watching the opening scene on the Galactic Federation’s capital ship, the whole thing feels like it was made on a sugar high. It feels cartoonish, more so than the rest of the movie, as it is almost totally CGI, and more gallingly, the editing is extremely rushed. As soon as a line of dialogue ends, with a quip more often than not, the film cuts to the next shot. This is a persistent problem throughout the film, but it is most pronounced in the opening sequence. The camera, and by extension, the viewer, is given very little opportunity to breathe. Later in the movie, some shots could have been allowed to bask in the Hawaiian scenery, or have a moment of intimacy with any number of its characters. The film runs about 01:45, but after seeing this cut, I feel like another 15 to 20 minutes would have been justified so as to not feel like the film is running a sprint.
The plot, in broad strokes, is similar enough to the original for most of its runtime; it is the characters where there have been more substantive tweaks. I really liked Maia Kealoha as Lilo. She has superb comedic timing, without which several jokes simply would have crashed and burned in a manner not unlike the pod Stitch arrived in. She is also capable of great pathos, giving gravitas to the more sensitive moments, while still being a hellion as all children her age are (indeed, the way she gets back at Mertle in this film’s version of the beginning at the hula performance is, if anything, far more vicious than the original). She is a very good foil for this three-dimensional version of Stitch (a returning Chris Sanders, who provided his voice in the original film), who if anything is even more of a walking agent of chaos than before. It reminded me of James Mowry, protagonist of Eric Frank Russell’s 1958 novel Wasp, who is dropped on an alien planet with the express order of being a terrorist. Stitch, designed as a weapon, is something of an unwilling Mowry, but his orders, encoded in his DNA, manifest in his behavior anyway. He is also, fortunately, far more entertaining and far less goddamn irritating than the version of him seen riding a roller coaster in the previews at Regal cinemas.
This film changes the bumbling alien sidekicks Jumba and Pleakley from being obvious extraterrestrials in human clothing hunting for Stitch into technologically aided shapeshifters who don’t exactly understand how human beings behave. This change, I think, was ultimately for the best. There are bits in this movie where antics that would be funny in animation just look cartoonish (and not in a good way) in live action, but making these two characters apparent humans allows a new comedy of manners to enter the picture. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the fact that Pleakley, a male alien, is no longer in drag for his disguise in this film; I’m not sure how it could have been done tastefully to begin with.
Sydney Elizebeth Agudong portrays this film's version of Nani, who of the main characters is perhaps the most faithful to the original. She has the right balance of sharp adolescent wit, caustic fury at injustice, and deep, deep anxiety over her own fate that the role needed. But if her character is much the same, her arc is tinkered with, first subtly, then massively. One very good example of this is when the social worker says that she needs a new job or she will lose custody of her sister; in this incarnation, she finds a job doing something she loves, which is a key bit of support for her broader arc. It also recontextualizes one of the songs from the original movie, and in the best way possible.
Some characters are either added or changed in a substantial manner that moves them out of the way. Gantu is, regrettably, gone. There is a new social worker (Tia Carrere), who gets some good lines and makes the authority of the state seem not quite so horribly bleak. Fortunately, a version of Cobra Bubbles is here (Courtney Vance doing a pretty good Leslie Nielsen impression). One of the great writing missteps was giving this film’s version of David (Kaipo Dudoit) not much to do beyond saying funny things at the designated times; the banter and flirting between him and Nani in the original is much reduced here. He is made up for, fortunately, by a new character: David’s grandmother Tūtū (Amy Hill), who is established as an old family friend and neighbor of Nani and Lilo.
Now, I am going to spoil the ending, because there has been a lot of discourse about it, and it is worth discussing in some depth. In the original movie, Nani succeeds in keeping custody of Lilo, and overall Nani’s arc is primarily about being a caregiver and secondly about David. Here, she is given more depth as to her aspirations for her future, such as initially turning down a full ride to a prominent university on the American mainland so she can take care of Lilo. This is what sets up the change that has ultimately been the most controversial, for at the end, Nani ends up forfeiting custody of Lilo to Tūtū, leaving Tūtū, Lilo, and David to share a house while Nani goes to the mainland for college to study marine biology.
This has understandably made many fans of the original upset. Much of the original’s thematic skeleton is the Hawaiian idea of 'ohana, where families stick together and nobody is left behind. The new sequence of events does, on its surface, look like an abandonment, but I think that is a simplistic reading. Much of the social media discourse around the ending frames it as the state government ‘taking’ Lilo away from Nani, but the film portrays it as a far more mutual process that is built up to, through a new thematic emphasis as well as through Nani’s new narrative arc.
Much of the new film’s thematic work is about the crushing weight of poverty. After their parents died, Nani and Lilo live in a dilapidated shack where the former has to work several dead-end, degrading jobs not just to survive, but to raise a child. You see near the beginning that their house does not have a lot of food, for one, and few luxuries, so nothing like tea (as a joke in that sequence calls attention to). To be poor in America is to have your life interfered with in a million small ways by society and the state; the social worker is consistently an irritant, but she rarely brings with her anything that could actually alleviate this family’s poverty. You can see the pain in Nani’s eyes as she throws her full-ride scholarship letter in the garbage, knowing that a potential way out of poverty will have to slip from her grasp because of the immediate demands of childcare.
This is where I will risk sounding callous: the ending of the original movie was essentially a sentence of lifelong poverty for both Lilo and Nani, if we are being realistic. As native Hawaiians, they are more likely to be impoverished by other inhabitants of that archipelago. The demands of childcare would mean Nani would not have many opportunities to upskill for several years at least, and any path to do so may risk crushing debt. Furthermore, it did what a lot of Disney animated films have unintentionally done by encouraging a sort of martyr complex among young girls, telling them that their only value is in the care they give to others. Care is good and valuable, yes, but girls and women can, and should be encouraged to, have their own passions and their own ambitions for their lives beyond the domestic.
Much of Nani’s new arc is about just how taxing her life is, having to deal with the travails of poverty, of raising a child, and of dealing with the new arrival in her life, namely a furry blue alien terror weapon (as well as those who would like to take him away, and will hurt her and those people she loves to do so). Her entire bearing through this film is one of exasperation and of downright exhaustion. She, rationally, wants a better life than this, and she is almost denied, quite cruelly, a way to a better life. This is why I object to the characterization of the state ‘taking’ Lilo, for it is more accurately described as Nani realizing, correctly, that as a nineteen-year-old orphan, she is in far over her head in her current situation, and that she can do better for Lilo in the long run.
The reason why this new ending works is partially due to Nani’s new arc, but also due to the new character of Tūtū. The latter is a grandmother figure to both Nani and Lilo, as well as being a literal grandmother to David. She is already a member of the broader chosen family by the beginning of the movie, and so there is now another person who could naturally (by narrative logic) take stewardship of Lilo. She is what a lot of online conversation in this film ignores, for she is really the character who makes the whole thing plausible. She is trusted and loved by Nani and Lilo and is blood family with their friend David. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and Lilo accepting Tūtū’s help ultimately comes off to me as a very mature decision, as much as it hurts in the moment. As a message to a young audience, it shows that it is okay, good even, to ask for help, and to accept help, and to know when you are being overwhelmed, for that is kinder to both yourself and the people around you.
In the long run, I can’t help but think that the ending is the kinder one for Lilo. Sure, they may be physically separated, but with modern telecommunications they can talk regularly. Like many Hawaiians, Nani is going to the mainland to better her future, and with her new education she may well get a job where she can not only afford to live comfortably, but also care for Lilo far more effectively. If Lilo is six in this film, Nani will graduate when she is ten or eleven, which means that it is very possible that Nani will be able to provide her younger sister with an adolescence far more comfortable than her childhood. This is not nothing, given the brutality of poverty, as well as Hawaii’s current housing crisis. It is, I dare say, a great kindness.
I expected to write a brutally negative review of this movie. Walking out of the theater, I was surprised I didn’t hate it. The film ultimately ends up justifying its existence artistically (financially, I’m certain Disney is very happy right now, as this has already outgrossed Thunderbolts*) in a way many remakes simply don’t. Thematically, I would argue it is more adult. Visually, it takes advantage of both live-action and CGI to make Hawaii absolutely beautiful, and its performances provide an energy of their own. If all remakes Disney made were as good as this, they would still be making more of them, which is both great praise for this film, and great condemnation of Disney for getting into this mess in the first place.
POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy.
