By: Kaylee Alvarez
The animated “Lilo and Stitch” was released on June 21, 2002, featuring a little girl named Lilo Pelekai, who lives with her sister Nani. They are both going through a rough time after their parents passed away, when a fugitive alien named Experiment 626— later named Stitch— escapes his containment in the alien spaceship and crash lands in Hawaii.
On May 23, 2025, the movie was brought to life with brilliant actors and the help of CGI to create a fun movie for all Disney lovers.
The movie begins the same as it did in the animated version, introducing us to the Grand Councilwoman of the Galactic Council, who is having a meeting with the entire galaxy to arrest Jumba, a scientist gone mad, for conducting illegal genetic experiments.
Even though the council has already decided on Jumba’s arrest, they wanted to see if his experiment, Stitch, was good and able to live among the rest of the aliens. Stitch replies by inspecting the microphone and yelling, “Meega Nala Kweesta,” translating to “I want to destroy.” The council is disappointed and sends Stitch down to the containment chambers and puts Jumba in a cell.
Eventually, Stitch finds a way to escape, crash landing on Hawaii.The Grand Councilwoman assigns Jumba and Pleakly, a former member of the Galactic Federation, to find Stitch and bring him back unharmed. They both agree,but instead of staying in their natural alien forms, the new movie changes it up by making them able to steal a human’s look, and the two go undercover as humans.
As the movie continues, it follows the same pattern as it did in the animated movie, Lilo being late for hula. Instead of the memorable moment where Lilo punches one of her classmates, Mertle, in the face during their hula dance, she instead pushes Mertle off the stage.
The movie continues, with Nani struggling to keep a stable job and convincing the social workers that Lilo is growing up in a stable environment. Instead of skipping over the scenes with child protective services, the new “Lilo and Stitch” includes scenes to show some of the processes you go through when having the organization visit showing this is something a lot of people go through and it’s a real thing.
Another detail in the new movie is that some characters were changed slightly including Nani who, in the end, ends up going to college. Jumba ends up being the bad guy acting as Captain Gantu did in the animated series, and the added character of Tutu, a grandmother to Lilo and Stitch. In the end of the movie, Tutu agrees with the child protective services to take Lilo in while Nani goes off to college.
Other than the slight change and additional character, the movie is very similar to the animated movie.
Overall, out of five stars I’d rate this movie a four-star movie. It was very well scripted and similar to the original while also having some twists of its own, keeping everyone guessing what would happen next.
