Disclaimer: This website is a personal platform for reviewing books and movies. Images from Lilo & Stitch, the 2025 and 2002 version produced by Disney, are used here for commentary and critique, in accordance with fair use under copyright law. I do not claim ownership of these images; all rights remain with Disney and its affiliates.

The Remake We Didn’t Ask For– But Maybe Needed Anyway

Let’s be real. Disney’s recent live-action remakes have been the cinematic equivalent of reheated rice.

So when news dropped that the Lilo & Stitch movie was the next on the chopping block, I rolled my eyes, muttered, “Please leave him alone,” and fully expected to hate-watch the entire film.

Now imagine my surprise when it shattered all my (admittedly subterranean) expectations.

Watching this movie with my friend was surprisingly wholesome, a rare taste of what Disney used to be. Far from just a cash grab, this science fiction comedy remake, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, wasn’t merely a skeleton of an empty plot projected onto soulless characters. (Unlike a certain centennial-anniversary film.)

No, this movie actually made me– a dopamine-starved, emotionally constipated, and chronically online Gen Alpha teenager– feel something.

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All the Characters Deserve a Hug (and Possibly Therapy)

While the latter vehemently asserts that her extraterrestrial buddy is “definitely a dog,” they wind up fighting off intergalactic bounty hunters, dealing with meddlesome social workers, as well as learning love and acceptance in the face of being different– because “ohana means family. And family means no one gets left behind.”

Cue the pandemonium.

First, let’s talk characters, because this was the absolute clincher for me.

Throughout the movie, you can easily emphasize with her desperation, her (very valid) emotional crash-outs, and inability to replace her late parents, personifying the burden of playing parent before you’re done being a kid yourself. 

As for Lilo, her story was truly peak characterization. There’s something painfully relatable about being a kid who’s too loud, too strange, too “weird” for the world around you. Someone who’s been told to grow up, calm down, and maybe “find a friend” before hooking dead fish on a friendship bracelet.

That’s why her bond with her sister and with Stitch become the film’s emotional spine. For Lilo and Stitch, they’re two catastrophes orbiting each other, gravitated toward one another through the shared experience of being rejected by society. And in each other, the two misfits carve out a space in the world where they’re finally enough.

Speaking of Stitch, the lovable and feral raccoon he is, the blue alien starts off highly intelligent to a ruthless degree, but eventually learns to feel and to sacrifice (as well as the correct pronunciation and meaning of “family”). Crying whilst seeing an extraterrestrial learn humanly love and sacrifice was not on my 2025 bingo card, but I’m certainly not complaining now. 

Having said that, here is my one and only complaint. David, the hapless love interest whose sole purpose in the film was to commit social faux pas while chasing Nani. Throughout the entire movie, he was friendzoned, roasted, and losing aura at every turn. I understand his comedic value in entertaining small children, but it was honestly just painful to watch.

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Where it Fell Short

But as much as the characters shine, I would be remiss not to address the elephant in the room. 

The film has been facing controversy for stumbling on its broader cultural context. Specifically, the 2002 version quietly pushed back against how Hawaii is marketed to outsiders: Lilo’s interactions with foreigners quietly pokes fun at how tourists often view Hawaii as a tourist attraction rather than the homes of people.

In the 2025 remake, that nuance is largely scrubbed away. The film depicts gorgeous scenery and hula dancing, but there’s no real engagement with the colonial gaze that still shapes Hawaii today. This erasure is particularly evident in its omission of tourists and Lilo’s habit of photographing them.

As critic Caroline Madden noted for Slashfilm, “The continual misrepresentation of Hawaii, specifically through Western media, is the reason why visitors often believe their tourist experience is authentically Hawaiian.” Thus, it’s hard not to feel like parts of the film were sterilized– sanded down to fit a more palatable, but ultimately harmful, narrative. 

People are also upset about several pivotal changes to the plot. For example, in the original, highly iconic “ohana means family” scene, Nani reluctantly agrees to keep Stitch after being confronted by Lilo. In the remake, Nani replies that this “isn’t reality,” essentially urging Lilo to grow up and forget that hopeful ideal.

It’s frustrating, because in their attempt to make the film less “confrontational,” the story loses raw complexity, sidelining and sterilizing the very culture that gave the story its edge.

Perhaps a lesser note, the film also had an awfully convenient ending. No spoilers, but everyone essentially gets what they want. (It wouldn’t be a Disney movie without at least one main-character near-death experience, after all.)

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Final Notes

Overall, this isn’t the Lilo & Stitch you grew up with. It’s bolder. It’s louder. And yes, it’s burdened by Disney’s chronic inability to leave well enough alone nor to preserve local cultures.

And for that alone, I would say that Lilo & Stitch is worth watching. Not because it’s perfect– which seems awfully hard to come by in a world of reheated remakes– but because it still has a beating heart. And that might just be enough.