‘Lilo & Stitch’ turns 20: how the film broke new ground long before ‘Moana’

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film about a Hawaiian girl named Lilo, whose life is turned upside down when a runaway alien, Stitch, crashes nearby.

When director Chris Sanders was starting work on Lilo & Stitch, the film’s visual development supervisor Sue Nichols made a comparison that surprised him.

“He drew a picture of Mulan next to Nani,” Sanders said, referring to Lilo’s older sister. “And he pointed out that Mulan actually lacked some features of her anatomy if you looked at her torso.”

Sanders, who wrote and directed Lilo & Stitch starring Dean DeBlois, he opted for a more robust animation style for the film, an adventure comedy that, in the two decades since its release on June 21, 2002, has garnered praise from critics and fans for its lifelike body types, its culture and its incomprehension protagonists.

The film tells the story of a Hawaiian girl named Lilo, whose life is turned upside down when a runaway alien, Stitch, crashes nearby. The film laid the groundwork for trends in recent Disney films, such as the lack of a great romance and a little sulky protagonist.

“When we shot watches from the 1990s to the 2000s, everyone thought the world was going to end,” said Shearon Roberts, the book’s publisher. Reformulating the Disney Princess in an era of new media and social movements and associate professor of mass communication at Xavier University in New Orleans. “So all the content they were creating was minus the fairy tales we saw in the 80s and 90s and more this exploration of the unknown.”

Sanders had conceived the story as a children’s book, but reworked the script for the big screen. He was a loser from the start.

After a series of high-profile but expensive publications from the 1990s, such as Atlantis – The lost continent And Tarzanwhich cost more than $ 120 million, manufacturers of lillo he wanted to make a smaller film, for about $ 80 million. DeBlois and Sanders, who had worked together in the story department Mulan, since 1998, have teamed up to co-direct and co-write. Daveigh Chase, a preteen who was already a veteran actress, voiced Lilo. But for Stitch, they went with Sanders anyway.

“We didn’t want a real actor, like Danny DeVito, just for the studio to follow us and say, ‘Why did you hire someone who is a well-known entity to say only fifteen words?'” Sanders said.

“I love that we remembered it that way,” said Clark Spencer, who produced the film and is now president of Walt Disney Animation Studios. “But the truth is, the character has been Chris from day one. He did the design. He knew what he wanted the character to be, what his voice would be like. I can’t imagine anyone but Chris for Stitch’s voice.”

Behind the scenes of “Lili and Stitch”

Initially, the story would take place in rural Kansas, but after an island vacation, Sanders decided to stage the film in another remote location: Kauai, Hawaii.

He, DeBlois, and other members of the creative team made another trip to Kauai – together this time – to chat with the locals and learn about Hawaiian culture.

“One thing we have learned from working Mulan is that when you’re spotting a story in a specific place in the real world, there are places you can’t access, “DeBlois said.” There are some cultural elements you can’t use because you’re not from there. “

So they recruited Hawaiian musician Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu to advise on hula dance and choir arrangements. Hawaiian upbringing cast members – Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani, and Jason Scott Lee, who played her boyfriend – suggested text changes to better reflect Kauai’s colloquial dialect.

The production did not take steps that would be taken on Moana, such as hiring a team of Hawaiian writers and directors, but Roberts, the Xavier University researcher, said that most realistic representation of Hawaii it was a start.

“THE disney really struggled to tell Asia-Pacific stories, “he said.” That’s why they spent so much time building a team of brains around moana, a film that had a much better reception, from casting to making sure some parts of the story arc didn’t border on the stereotype. So there were other lessons on how to get people to the table to support your writing team. “

Lilo & Stitch touched on real-world issues young audiences might relate to: Nani, forced to become Lilo’s legal guardian after her parents died in a car accident, faces parental struggles. And a social worker always seems to catch Nani and Lilo at their worst.

However, the filmmakers received negative feedback at the first screening, Sanders said: Viewers didn’t like it when Nani grabbed Lilo by the wrist in a certain scene, because they mistakenly believed Nani was Lilo’s mother.

The filmmakers made that clear with a make-up by playwright Howard Ashman. “It was like, ‘If you want the audience to remember something, you have to say it three times, one after the other,'” Spencer said. “So we shot the scene again,” making sure Lilo and Nani mention that they were sisters three times in a row.

But the team wouldn’t edit the film in response to another complaint, Spencer said: Audiences didn’t like how much Nani and Lilo yelled at each other.

“Chris, Dean and I were like, ‘But this really happens!'” Spencer said. “It’s a time when Nani is under pressure and Lilo feels out of place and trying to figure out who she is.”

The filmmakers also prioritized realism in another area: a more realistic depiction of female bodies. Lilo is short and chubby, Nani has thick thighs and what Sanders called “a real pelvis”.

Roberts said the film was a notable change from the Disney formula. “In the previous decade, princesses had fully developed adult female bodies,” she said. “But let’s allow Lilo to still be childish. Her face is very innocent. We have a body that is not a size 0 – we have youth completely rooted in our dimensions.”

Janet Wasko, author of Understanding Disney: The Making of Fantasynoted that by focusing on a female lead without a sentimental or marriage plot, Lilo & Stitch foreshadowed future female Disney stars like moanaMerida’s courageous and Riley from In reverse.

Critical and public success

Lilo & Stitch It proved to be a critical and popular success, debuting with just $ 500,000 behind Tom Cruise’s sci-fi thriller. Minority relationship and ultimately grossed $ 273 million globally. (She also received an Oscar nomination for best animated filmbut lost Chihiro’s journeyby Hayao Miyazaki). lillo spawned a franchise that included three sequels and three television series, as well as several theme park attractions. There is also a live-action remake in development.

“It’s one of those movies where when people say, ‘What did you work on?’ you literally feel a change in the air when you answer Lilo & Stitch“, Spencer said. / TRANSLATION BY RENATO PRELORENZOU

Source: Terra

Emily

Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.