#even in games where i have a very big preference for the female VA (ac odyssey and valhalla) the guy is still good???

[thebicanary]

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[charmmycolour]

Lilo & Stitch: The Two Timelines

Infodump time!

Do you know that L&S have several canons going on? Although people tends to try to compromise all of them together, the true is they are pretty defined. Sure, you can headcanon them whatever you please (and please do, that’s fun and creative!), but for the creators, it will always be several timelines.

Today we are going to talk about two of them of the at least four. I am excluding the animes from this analysis, both the japanese one Stitch! (created by Madhouse and Shin-Ei Animation) and the chinese one Stitch & Ai (created by Anhui Xinhua Media). I don’t know enough of them, nor I have any interest on these particular spin-offs to talk about them here.

So let’s start at the beginning!

Lilo & Stitch was released in 2002, and it was made by Walt Disney Pictures, AKA the Big Movies Team. This is the material all the other ones will use, and it’s canon in all the timelines. From there on, however, it will split.

In 2003, Walt Disney Television Animation releases Stitch! The Movie, a pilot for a tv series. This itineration it’s based on the first movie, and it also tries to include other material with lore that had been done at the time, such the video game Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626. Most focused on the space aspect and what happened to the other 625 experiments, it had less budget for animation and plot, but it was received warmly. The same team will later create Lilo & Stitch: The Series and the movie Leroy & Stitch (2006), making a consistent timeline through them all.

When Leroy & Stitch was in production, another team know as Walt Disney Home Entertainment was given permission for making their own L&S movie. The result was Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Have a Glitch, released in 2005. WDHE didn’t like what WDTA did with the franchise, and so they decided to tell their own story as a sequel from the first movie, ignoring anything WDTA or any other media had done before, creating a second, distintive timeline.

WDHE will also go the extra step to say their movie was the actual sequel, pointing it happened before all the other ones on the timeline instead of just saying it was a different one (and making a pretty poor attempt to tie them with a sweet but full of contradictions short). Disney never gave an oficial answer, but Chris Sanders is know to consider them separate canons.

The differences are not huge for the most part, but some of them are notorious. Here I collected all the ones I noticed. For the sake of brevity, the timeline of Stitch! The Movie and the consequent works will be referred as ST, while the timeline on Stitch Have a Glitch will be referred as GT.

As stated, ST was made to be consistet with other material released at the time. It works with the PS2 video Game Experiment 626, that follows Stitch breaking havoc on the galaxy before his arrest (which in itself is based on a deleted scene of the original movie where he was going to have a trial about that). It also works with a story releases on the Disney Adventures Magazine that stated Reuben had helped Jumba to create Stitch. GT deliberately ignores all prior material of the franchise.

Reuben is mentioned to have been an assistant to Jumba in ST, which ties with his possibly implication with Stitch’s creation. Other experiments, like Ace, are mentioned to have been active around the laboratory while Jumba worked. In GT, Jumba created Stitch alone, and if any other experiment exist at all on the timeline, they are not around during his arrest.

Similarly, if Hämsterviel (the main antagonist in ST) has ever existed on GT, it’s never mentioned. Same for the fact Jumba had married and divorced at some point.

Pleakley seems to be closer to his mother in GT. He adresses her as “mom” and voluntary calls her to chat at several points, seemingly with a better relationship than the one they had on the first movie. ST goes a completely different path, with Pleakley trying to distance himself from his famiy as soon as he’s able to and avoiding her calls. He adresses her with a more formal “mother” half the time and have clear family issues. ST also gives Pleakley two siblings that are never mentioned in GT.

Pleakley is a full-time crossdresser in ST. He wears dresses around the house and chooses femenine clothes, wigs and even undergarments for himself even when he’s alone. Although Pleakley also crossdresses on GT, it’s always only as a means of disguise, and Pleakley wears male clothes when he’s not pretending to be human. This is emphasized by the fact Pleakley chooses female attire to dance hula on ST, but male attire to do the same on GT.

Jumba’s English is much more broken in ST than on GT.

In ST, Stitch talks mostly Tantalog and behaves more like a dog. In GT, Stitch pretty much talks fluent English and acts more human.

Lilo acts more eccentric and weird in ST in general, but her agressive behavior has almost dissapeared completely. In GT, she still have violent outburst, but she’s also less extravagant.

Lilo is the only characters on the cast with a different voice actor. In ST she’s voiced by Daveigh Chase (same VA than the first movie), and in GT she’s voiced by Dakota Fanning.

In ST, Nani was the one that was a gifted dancer of hula as a child, and the reason Lilo wants to be good at hula herself. In GT, it’s her late mother instead.

David and Nani have a sort of on-off relationship in ST, sometimes stating they are casually dating and others being just friends. In GT, they had been formally dating fot three weeks.

In ST, Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley struggle to understand and adapt to their life on Earth (Stitch with belonging to the community, Pleakley comprehending human culture and Jumba not quite feeling part of the family). In GT, they are mostly adapted to their new life and their struggles during the movie don’t have anything to do with the fact they are aliens.

The Pelekai house it’s different after the rebuild. In ST, the house is painted blue and the attic room (Lilo and Stitch’s bedroom) resembles a dome with several windows. In GT, the house is green and the attic resembles a sphere with a single windows and a little antennae at the top. Compared with ST, it’s also taller.

The bedroom itself it’s also different. In ST, it have very minimalistic and sci-fi’s furniture, with metal floor and a futuristic look. Lilo have her own bed and Stitch sleeps on a hanging cot. The center of the roof can be opened to show the skylight. In GT, the room is more traditional and made of wood like the rest of the house, and both Lilo and Stitch sleep on a bunk bed. Half of the entire room is retractable to show the skylight.

In ST, said room is accessed through a vacuum elevator. In GT, through spiral stairs instead.

Mertle’s dad ran away from his family in ST, but it’s still living with them during GT.

One od the girls in Mertle’s posse changes names. She’s know as Teresa on ST and Aleka on GT.

What timeline do you like best? I personally like to mix and match a little bit of both on my stories, although I mostly prefer the ST canon.