The recent history of Disney making live action versions of their classics has not been great.  Last March, the Mouse unveiled the non-animated Snow White (2025) to seemingly universal scorn.  I saw it, and yeah, it is not great.  Others include Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Mulan (2020), just to name a few.  With apologies, I cherry picked the ones that have probably been the most universally panned, though as I understand it, the others did not do much better.  It is a run of bad luck for an entertainment company that most of the time gets things right.  What I am trying to avoid here is being too critical.  More specifically, I wish to practice Christian charity.  Hence, while I may not have been excited to see Disney’s newest attempt at remaking of one of their beloved cartoon movies, Lilo & Stitch (2025), I was happy to be going with family.  You will see why that is significant as we go along.

The first place we need to go in Lilo & Stitch is outer space.  In a distant galaxy, Dr. Joomba Jookiba (Zach Galifianakis) is put on trial by the United Galactic Federation.  The charge is illegal experiments, which have resulted in a specimen referred to simply as “626” (voiced by Chris Sanders), a cross between a koala and a Muppet, but painted blue and with a penchant for destruction.  Dr. Jookiba is unrepentant in the face of the Grand Councilwoman’s (voiced by Hannah Waddingham) questions.  As leader of the United Galactic Federation, it is her job to ensure that so-called monsters like 626 are dealt with appropriately.  She gives 626, a chance to show that he is good.  When he fails, he is to be imprisoned. However, he escapes just as quickly, steals a police space ship, and jumps into hyperspace.  The Grand Councilwoman is about to annihilate the whole of Earth where 626 crash lands, but is stayed by Agent Wendell Pleakley (Billy Magnussen).  He is the United Galactic Federation’s Earth expert.  Despite having never been there, he points out that the planet is protected as a wildlife sanctuary in order to bring back the galaxy’s mosquito population.  He eagerly provides this information, but is even more eager when he is tabbed by the Grand Councilwoman to be part of a team of two to go to Earth and retrieve 626.  The one to accompany him is Dr. Jookiba.  As they are heading after their escaped convict, we get to meet the first half of the title pair.  Lilo Pelekai (Maia Kealoha) is a six-year-old native Hawaiian.  Because her parents based away a few years previous, her and her older sister, Nani Pelekai (Sydney Agudong), have been trying to make a go of it on their own.  Nani, a former surf champion with aspirations of studying Marine Biology in college, has put her dreams on hold to take care of her sister.  This involves working long hours, which often leaves Lilo to her own devices.  This brings the younger sister a sort of loner status, meaning that she is not accepted by her peers at her hula school.  When one of them makes fun of her during a performance, Lilo acts out, pushes her classmate and gets her expelled.  It is part of a string of behaviors deemed to be rebellious by many, which would not be much of a problem if the Pelekai sisters were not about to be visited by Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere), a social worker concerned with Lilo’s welfare.  Mrs. Kekoa arrives at the residence in the middle of a sibling argument, and there are other worrying signs of disfunction in the household.  Still, Mrs. Kekoa knows that Nani is doing her best and gives the young woman a few days to make some basic changes.  One for which Nani did not foresee is their neighbor, Tūtū (Amy Hill), getting a pet for Lilo while watching the little girl one day while Nani is at work.  As you probably already know, this is 626, who has been on the run from Dr. Jookiba and Agent Pleakley for a while and has taken refuge in the local animal shelter.  With his pursuers bearing down in him, 626 alters his appearance to look more like a dog and bonds with Lilo as soon as they meet.  Thinking he is safe, 626 reverts to his usual chaotic behavior, breaking practically anything on which he can get his claws.  Just a small taste of this behavior has Nani demanding that they take back Stitch in the morning, a name 626 receives after she comments on what she will have to do with her car seat after he slashes them.  Only by invoking the sacred oath of “Ohana,” meaning family and that nobody gets left behind, is Lilo allowed to keep Stitch.  It proves disastrous, though, when Nani is forced to bring them both to her place of employment, and the title pair proceed to nearly burn down the open-air bar at which Nani works.  Now unemployed, Nani must find a new job on an island where everyone has grown tired of Lilo’s antics.  Meanwhile, Lilo attempts to get Stitch to understand that his behavior could use some improvement, and the talk seems to have an effect.  Unfortunately, news of the fire gets around to Mrs. Kekoa. Between that and Lilo almost drowning in a surfing mishap, Mrs. Kekoa insists that Nani relinquish custody of Lilo. Stitch’s super hearing picks up on what has happened and he blames himself.  That night, while Nani is having some quality time with Lilo, he leaves to return to his kennel at the animal shelter.  In the morning, undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Cobra Bubble (Courtney B. Vance), who has come looking for the alien Stitch, accompanies Mrs. Kekoa to collect Lilo, but the little girl has gone to look for Stitch.  Lilo finds Stitch at the shelter, but she gets there only moments before Dr. Jookiba.  The mad scientist lures Stitch onto his spaceship to leave Earth, but Lilo also sneaks aboard.  A struggle ensues, resulting in them crashing into the ocean.  Stitch saves Lilo from drowning, but because of his alien density, cannot rise back to the surface with her.  Instead, it is Nani that that dives down to get Stitch to shore, and her long-time crush, David Kawena (Kaipo Dudoit), revives Stitch.  In the next moment, however, the Grand Councilwoman lands on the beach.  She is about to force Stitch to come with her, but can see that he has learned to be good and allows him to stay.  Finally, Tūtū speaks with Mrs. Kekoa, offering to adopt Lilo and allowing Nani to go to college.

The denouement of Lilo & Stitch involves not only adoption and the pursuit of higher education, but also letting Agents Bubbles and Pleakley to stay and watch what is still considered to be a dangerous alien.  At the same time, they are considered part of this Ohana that develops throughout the course of the film.  I would be critical here since I am growing tired of so many films resting on audience conceptions of family in order to explain the bonds between the characters.  Ohana means family, and even if our own situations are not perfect, the movie expects you to recognize what it is trying to accomplish with the use of that word.  As a Catholic and a son of God through the adoption won for us by Jesus, I am no stranger to this concept.  The Bible, particularly the Gospels, is replete with examples of Jesus referring to us in this way.  In this manner, we are all brothers and sisters in Jesus.  Yet, this is not how the film conceives of the notion of family.  It is wonderful to see Lilo pray for a friend, even if it is on shooting star (which happens to be Stitch’s crashing space ship), thus making her entreaty semi-superstitious.  Rather, except for Lilo and Nani, the Ohana is formed by people who are put into adverse circumstances and come to rely on each other.  Please do not misunderstand me.  In principle, I am not against such an outcome.  My one quibble is that it is not terribly original, which may be an understatement given that this is a remake.

Since Lilo & Stitch is a remake, I need to find a different Catholic angle to discuss.  Actually, I repeated that already in the last paragraph, but only to illustrate the point that the family plot device has deep roots.  Nonetheless, what I was more struck by this time around from a Faith perspective is Stitch’s perception of himself as bad.  This also applies to Lilo, though her acting out is clearly established as a matter of circumstance.  Losing her parents at such a young age is awful, and thus her getting in trouble is understandable.  At the same time, she is demonstrably shown to have a good heart throughout, underscored by her giving nature.  This coincides with Christian thought, which asserts that God creates everyone as basically good.  To behave otherwise is to contradict our God-given natures.  Having said that, how does one explain Stitch?  After all, he is the result of an experiment.  Lilo arguably says it best when she points out that everyone does something wrong sometimes.  That is a theological truth.  Then again, I am waxing philosophical about an animated character.  What cannot be refuted no matter how this is discussed is that God is love, and love is universal.  That is paraphrasing Scripture, by the way, 1 John 4:8 to be specific.  It is also what makes real life so much better than the movies.  I am relaying what is fact borne out by Faith to describe a fantasy world.  At the same time, I like to think that if it were real, with a being who had never experienced such tenderness, he would long for it as God made us to do.

Thus, while I did not long to see this version of Lilo & Stitch, I was fine with it.  I got to see it with my real Ohana, and that is what counts.  I suspect that no matter what I would say, hardcore Disney people will be seeing this one.  As for the rest of it, there is something in it for you, too.  It even had a cultural reference that I was the only one in the packed theater to understand, and laugh at, so that was a nice personal moment.