Also the fact that like Nani is pressured into giving up custody for Lilo because she doesn’t have insurance and can’t afford the hospital bill and she’s coerced into signing because then the state will cover it. I’m supposed to find that a heart warming moment when the social worker is showing that she cares about Nani and Lilo? Really? How is that not just financial coercion? How is that just not a criticism of the health care industry in America (that I’m sure they didn’t mean to do on purpose)
Also it’s so blatantly obvious how the writers of this movie have no idea why Nani sings Aloha 'Oe to Lilo the night she finds out she is going to be taken away. A YouTuber named Sideways, who analyzes music in film(and has done a whole video about how Disney’s live action remakes don’t work musically years before this) explained that scene so beautifully.
How the sond Aloha 'Oe was originally written by the Queen of Hawaii for the people of Hawaii after American Colonizers forced her to surrender the Islands. How she performed it as a last goodbye for the country that was being taken away from her. And that mirrors how Lilo is now being taken away from Nani by colonial forces (even tho Cobra Bubbles does mean well and sympathizes lilo is still being given into the care of the US government) and this is her subtle goodbye to her. And it’s fucking brilliant and you can tell that that scene was written by people that fucking care and know what the fuck kind of movie they are writing. The scene is solemn and is treated as such. Nani sings it as tho it were a lullaby and a final goodbye. It’s the first time the song is sang in the movie because the writers actually understand the gravity of it.
Instead what we get in the live action is lilo first singing it to Stitch randomly while doing (I think maybe the accompanying?) Hula because why the fuck not. And then a lifeless dark scene where Nani plays the ukulele and sings to her like the fact that she had just been coerced into giving up her sister wasn’t just treated like a good and final decision. Because, why the fuck not.















