Screw it, I’m gonna say it: I actually think the Lilo & Stitch remake is WORSE than the Snow White remake!
On a surface level, I should be more angry at the latter, considering it’s a bastardization of the film that went on to be the very foundation of Walt Disney Animation Studios (and the Walt Disney Company as a whole). But the former makes me angry on a much deeper, and more personal level.
I was only 10 when I saw the original Lilo & Stitch in theaters, and up until Elsa came along, Lilo was the only “autistic coded” Disney character that truly made me feel seen. Sure, there’ve been other autistic coded Disney characters before her (Ariel, Belle, Quasimodo, Hercules, Tarzan, Milo Thatch), but Lilo was the one I felt was the closest to being realistically autistic: creepy girl with weird hobbies struggles to make friends with other people her age, tends to lash out when someone insults her or misunderstands her, and is generally seen as this social outcast.
Heck, every other main character in Lilo & Stitch is pretty much a social outcast too:
Jumba is an “evil genius”, who the Galactic Council sees as nothing more than a pompous idiot.
Pleakley’s a scrawny nerd who’s completely enamored with Earth’s culture and history (in his own distorted, alien kind of way), and is unapologetically gender non-conforming.
Stitch is a genetically engineered “experiment” who was designed for destruction.
Then there’s Nani, who may not be as much of an “outcast” as the others, but she’s still a young woman living in poverty with her recently orphaned little sister and struggling to find a job in a nation that’s frequently populated by colonizers and tourists. Plus, she’s basically the only other human (besides David) who sees Lilo as a person, and not just a little terror.
Once I’ve read all the leaked spoilers for the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, I wasn’t just angry, I was FURIOUS! Practically everything about the original movie that I just described here is either completely absent or significantly dumbed down in the remake! It’s like they tore out everything that made Lilo & Stitch a neurodivergent masterpiece, and made it for the Neurotypical Gaze!
Anyway, I’m done ranting about this piece of shit remake, and I hope it flops harder than that dumb Mufasa movie.
