Disney live-action reboots really can’t win. Despite being hailed by some as its best cash grab, that is, remake to date, Lilo & Stitch is caught up in controversy. Of course, it has nothing on the Snow White reboot, but a significant change to the end of the movie has infuriated fans on the Right and Left.
In the 2002 cartoon, the film’s major conflict centers on older sister Nani’s struggle to maintain custody over her younger sister, Lilo, after their parents’ deaths. Despite, and then perhaps because of, the interventions of a fluffy extraterrestrial interloper, the family ultimately stays together, encapsulating the movie’s iconic message: “‘Ohana’ means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
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The original movie, which is sweet and easily digestible for young viewers, doesn’t suggest that Nani has goals other than caring for Lilo (and encouraging the 6-year-old to stop nailing the windows shut, letting pots boil over, and other precocious activities). In the reboot, we see a different Nani, one who was the top of her high school class, had dreams of pursuing marine biology, and no longer even has time to surf, a hobby she loves. We learn that her full-time caretaker role has come with sacrifices.
The reboot resolves this conflict by offering Nani an out: She entrusts Lilo’s care to the elderly neighbor (a character not in the original), who has encouraged Nani to go to college and has already spent time looking after Lilo. This outraged the Right.
“Ohana means family, unless you get to go to college to be a Marine Biologist, in which case, dump your family on the government and your neighbors,” one X post said. “Disney hates you and your family too.”
The Left was put out for reasons of its own.
“The Lilo and Stitch remake ends up sanitizing the critique of American colonialism [through organizations such as Child Protective Services],” said one critic on X, calling the movie “safe slop.”
Their reasons may differ, but critics on both sides of the aisle are complaining that the film’s new message is: put your children in government custody; it’ll be great! But this isn’t what’s really happening. Nani entrusts the care of her sister not to the state but to a neighbor arguably better situated to watch her, at least for the next four years. According to the success sequence conservatives are so fond of, Nani seemingly does the best thing for Lilo. She positions herself to attain a sustainable, higher-paying job before taking on care full-time.
The “girl boss” critique falls short in light of the realities of the reboot, but that doesn’t mean Disney made the right call here. Likely, it struggled to come up with a way to differentiate from the original, a difficult line to walk when fans are likely to complain that the reboots are too close to the source material and diverge too much from it.
Too much faithfulness to the source is a problem: “Unfortunately, the faithfulness highlights the singularity of the source and the soullessness of the copy,” said film critic Bilge Ebiri of the new Lilo & Stitch. “This remake doesn’t feel like its own movie, but rather a doomed attempt to reengineer a miracle.”
WHO ASKED FOR THIS SNOW WHITE REMAKE?
But so is too little. The few elements of unfaithfulness — Nani’s departure, mad scientist Jumba’s transformation from antihero to bona fide villain, love interest David’s evolution into a silly sidekick — are letdowns that seem designed either to streamline the plot or change its dynamics for the sake of adults.
Though its narrative success as a reboot is questionable, little is objectionable about Lilo & Stitch, as far as parents should be concerned, and it appears they aren’t. The movie’s incredibly profitable opening weekend proved that it’s good enough for families, at least when there are so few other options.