'Lilo & Stitch' live-action remake brings human connection to the fore

LONDON: “Lilo & Stitch” is the latest Disney (DIS.N), opens new tab animation to get a live-action remake, with the medium allowing a closer look at the main characters’ relationships, its makers say.

Like its predecessor, the new movie, which begins its cinema rollout on Wednesday, tells the story of a young Hawaiian girl called Lilo, played by newcomer Maia Kealoha, who befriends a fugitive alien who crash lands on Earth, and names him Stitch.

After the death of her parents, Lilo is under the care of her sister Nani, who is struggling to juggle all her responsibilities – all while new family addition Stitch wreaks havoc around them.

“It has the same heart and it has the same fun and Hawaiian rollercoaster ride of chaos that is Stitch,” actor Sydney Agudong, who plays Nani, told Reuters.

“But at the same time, I think the beautiful thing about being able to do a live-action is that you get the nuance of human connection. And I think with Maia and I’s bond…hopefully (audiences) get that true sense of family and that it doesn’t actually always have to be blood.”

Director Dean Fleischer Camp said the 2002 animation’s characters and setting allowed for scope to work in a new form.

“Unlike so many other Disney movies…it stars mostly humans, it takes place in a real contemporary setting…it just felt like something like ‘oh that will benefit and be different in a live-action setting’,” he said.

“Live-action affords you the opportunity to dig deeper on some of the human relationships and the emotions.”

Several cast members from the 2002 animation return in the new film, including Chris Sanders, who once again voices Stitch. Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani, plays new character Mrs Kekoa, with co-stars Amy Hill and Jason Scott Lee also in new roles.

“I think we grew the ‘ohana’ for this film,” Fleischer Camp said, referring to the Hawaiian word for family and the movie’s central theme.

“It was great because so many of the people that worked on the original were game and excited to come back…it was just great to see those people…also having a bit of a reunion themselves.”