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ENDLESS LIST OF FAVORITES ★ movies ↳ Lilo & Stitch (2002) dir. Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois

"W-… waiting. For what? Family. Ah! You don't have one. I made you. Oh... Maybe I could… You're built to destroy. You can never belong."

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There's more to living than gloves and gowns and threads and seams. In my dreams, I'll be free!

BARBIE AS THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER (2004) dir. William Lau

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Everything I hear about the Lilo & Stitch revival somehow makes me angrier. Like,

That realization also led the filmmaking team to divide the character of Cobra Bubbles, Lilo's social worker in the animated film, into a CIA agent of the same name (Courtney B. Vance) and the new role of Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere). "If the dramatic stakes of Lilo is that she's going to get separated from her sister, then you need a person who actually services those stakes in a credible way," Fleischer Camp says. "You can get away with that being Cobra Bubbles in an animated film — a 6-foot-5 huge dude with 'Cobra' tattooed on his knuckles is somehow a social worker in that world."

Hey. Hey, Director Dean Fleischer Camp. Why is a large black man with tattoos having a job as a social worker something you consider so ridiculous that it could only exist in animation? Why are you carefully sidestepping the fact that he is the only black character in the original film? Is it somehow more realistic to turn him into a figure who only interacts with the family through the lens of government defense against extraterrestrials? Or does the idea of a scary looking black man caring about the well-being of people's families confuse you, you racist piece of shit?

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How do you look at this guy and decide to make him an outright main villain

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Given how the Lilo and Stitch remake completely missed the entire point of the story by having Nani give Lilo up at the end I can't wait to see their Hunchback of Notre Dame remake where I assume the core message will be that Frollo was actually right the whole time and committing a genocide against a marginalized group while severely abusing your disabled adopted son is normal and good.

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my rage increases with everything i hear about the live action lilo and stitch

what do you mean nani gives up custody of lilo.

what do you mean no jumba redemption— and he’s the twist villain???

what do you mean no pleakley in drag.

what do you mean no nani and david romance subplot.

what do you mean no gantu.

what do you mean no ugly duckling scene.

what do you mean no anti-tourism theme.

what do you mean jumba just sounds like some random american guy.

what do you mean cobra bubbles isn’t the social worker

not to mention nani’s actress being in brownface.

and more than anything— showing an indigeneous family being separated by the government, and having it be shown as a “happy ending.” the original ending was perfect. nani kept custody and gained a support system.

disney’s rise in conservatism is showing bigtime

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Thinking about Lilo & Stitch makes me really appreciate certain things about the original + the series. Almost every single named [human] character in the movie isn’t white: the only exception being Mertle, y’know, the bratty little girl we’re not supposed to like.

Besides all of the racial representation, Lilo herself is very much a neurodivergent icon, and her portrayal as the protagonist is amazing considering how characters like her are typically either sidelined or depicted in ways to make them less sympathetic/human (modern media does at least a slightly better job at adressing that kind of thing tho).

So all of that is great, but to anyone that hasn’t seen Lilo & Stitch: The Series, it also does some extremely refreshing stuff.

Pleakley gets tons of validation to dress in drag, everyone always referring to Pleakley as “she” when dressed up as “aunt Pleakley.” There’s even an episode that tackles Pleakley dealing with the pressures of his family that wants him to marry a girl and settle down to have a “normal life.” After the episode's shenanigans, there's a realistic depiction of the misunderstanding of a heteronormative/traditional parent with their non-traditional child: Pleakley's mom says that she just wants her children to be happy, but when Pleakley says that he is happy, she thinks he's only trying to console her as she insists, "How can you be happy? You aren't even married." But Pleakley finally gets it through to his mom when he says, "I don't want to be married, mother! I'm happy just as I am."

After getting to meet all of Pleakley's ohana throughout the episode and hearing from Pleakley himself -after all of the previous misunderstandings- that he really, truly, is happy, she's finally starting to understand.

Even though his mom comments as they leave that she wants him to “try wearing men’s clothes more often,” she still does walk away accepting that she simply doesn’t understand her son's way of thinking. It’ll definitely be hard for her since she’s so much more “traditional,” but she’s finally coming to grips with the fact that her son is who he is, and likes being that way, so she’ll love him regardless. She's trying her best.

The portrayal of people with physical disabilities is also great. It’s not because there’s one recurring character with some condition, but almost because there are non-recurring characters. It isn’t in every episode, but here’s an example: they want to show someone at the park playing fetch with their dog for just one shot. They could very easily have it be any a random person, but they decided to make it a lady in a wheelchair. There's another episode where Nani's friends from highschool show up and one has forearm crutches, but not just because she had some recent accident. No one in the episode questions her condition or feels the need to point it out, the only comment on it being that the friend will use the crutches to lightly bonk the others' arms, and Nani jokes, "You are still deadly with that thing."

The fact that they include characters with disabilities when they "don't have to" makes it that much more normal. These people aren't some special case or the main highlight of the episode, they're just another person. They're normal.

There's so much that all of the original Lilo & Stitch media did right, but now the name will forever be tainted with the association of the remake, which I'm sure will have absolutely none of the tasteful writing and ideas of anything prior to it.

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Tyrus Wong (1910 - 2016), Concept art for Walt Disney’s Bambi

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TURNING RED (2022) Dir. Domee Shi

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DO YOU SEE IT

CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE GET A GIF OF THE EGG HATCHCING IN THE WILD ROBOT AND THE EGG HATCHING IN ULTRAMAN RISING AND PUT THEM NEXT TO EACHOTHER

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Ultraman: Rising (2024) - Film vs. Concept Art

“The moment when Emi is born: what does it feel like to see life for the first time? Well, maybe it would feel like a nursery, with a moon and the stars hanging from the ceiling of a nursery.” — Shannon Tindle

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The Wild Robot (2024) - Official Trailer

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The Wild Robot (2024) dir. Chris Sanders

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CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE GET A GIF OF THE EGG HATCHCING IN THE WILD ROBOT AND THE EGG HATCHING IN ULTRAMAN RISING AND PUT THEM NEXT TO EACHOTHER

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How do you know if you love something? Someone? Well… you should probably tell them. What if it is too late? I wouldn’t know.

THE WILD ROBOT (2024) dir. CHRIS SANDERS

Joy's never-ending list of movies [4/?]

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I know you all have instincts that keep you alive, but at some times, to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be.

The Wild Robot (2024) dir. Chris Sanders

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The Aristocats (1970) dir. Wolfgang Reitherman