Lilo and Stitch on DVD

By Jim Bray

Full disclosure: when the theatrical release of Lilo and Stitch was being advertised, it struck me as a movie I really didn’t want to see, despite a love for classic Disney that extends right up to such modern masterpieces as Tarzan. Dunno know why I got that impression, really (though the teasers may have had something to do with it), but there was just something that rubbed me the wrong way, that transmitted to me the feeling that it would be some kind of politically correct pap turned out by the liberals at Disney.

But some people whose opinions I respect saw it and said it was very good, so I did my best to go into the DVD with as open a mind as possible. I really wanted to be pleasantly surprised.

Alas, Lilo and Stitch is politically correct in the extreme (though calling it pap isn’t really fair), where the audience is beaten over the head with the philosophy that “family is where you find it or make it.” This may not be a bad message in itself, but the way it’s presented here it’s just to cutesy and predictable to even be believable. The result is a fairly enjoyable family film, but one that pales in comparison with Disney's best.

Lilo and Stitch isn’t even a great example of Disney’s best animation, with quality that looks almost like one of their “made for TV” features that seem to come out every couple of weeks. In fact, I thought “Return to Neverland” featured better animation and a better story than Lilo and Stitch.

Anyway, the tale follows a troubled Hawaiian girl (Lilo, voiced by Daveigh Chase) and her big sister, who live alone together after their parents were killed in a car accident (probably by a rampaging SUV). Older sister Nani (voiced by Tia Carrere) appears old enough to parent (though of course it’s hard to judge the age of an animated figure), but she seems to have a black cloud following her around and it doesn’t help that Lilo is a troubled little hellion with issues of her own.

The Bad Guys are the government’s Social Services people, represented here by the ominous and threatening Mr. Bubbles (Ving Rhames), who seems more motivated to separate the sisters than helping to find a way to make their family work. He gives Nani an ultimatum to pull her life together or lose Lilo.

Meanwhile, there’s Stitch, whose real name is Experiment #626 (voiced by co-director Chris Sanders). At the movie’s opening it’s revealed that he’s “a lean mean destructive machine” invented for just that purpose, and when he’s unleashed on an unsuspecting Earth his inventor and a “handler” are sent to bring him back.

There’s a lot more to #626 than meets the eye; he can change his shape somewhat, and this ability leads to him being mistaken for a strange type of dog. He gets adopted by Nani and Lilo, who names him Stitch and starts loving him without further ado.

But Stitch is still a destructive creature and the havoc he wreaks manages to destroy Nani’s attempts at finding a job and keeping the family together.

Everything works out fine at the end, of course, as the “engineered to destroy” Stitch discovers love and family and responds to Lilo's love, changing from chaotic to cuddly (if only it were that easy!).

As mentioned, Lilo and Stitch is far too saccharine for my tastes, though I have to admit I rather enjoyed the science fiction aspects and the scenes on the far off planet. But the writing is ham-handed and the animation blend of traditional and CG offers nothing more innovative than one can get from watching “Futurama” on TV, except that Futurama has the occasional laugh.

Too bad; there was great potential for an “ET the Extraterrestrial-type” story.

The DVD is very good, however. It’s THX-Certified, and the audio and video quality are excellent. The picture is presented in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible, and it’s beautiful, with wonderful color and razor sharp images. The aspect ratio is 1.66:1, and it fills the 16x9 TV screen fully. This makes me wonder why other 1.66:1 aspect ratio movies aren’t released anamorphically; it makes for a far more satisfying viewing experience than the “letterboxed” versions that have to be zoomed to fit 16x9 TV’s with a resulting loss of resolution.

Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 and it’s very good, though we’d have liked to have heard much more use of the surround channels, especially since there was plenty of opportunity for good surround effects.

Extras are typically Disney, and that isn’t meant as a shot. The company’s product has traditionally been a babysitter of choice for busy parents out empowering themselves, and this disc is no different, since it includes stuff aimed specifically at kids as well as moviegoers in general.

First up is a series of deleted scenes, and “Burning Love: Behind the scenes with Wynonna” (there’s a real Elvis component to this flick, and thanks to the Dolby Digital technology the King may never have sounded so good). You also get “A Stitch in Time,” which has little Stitch wreaking his personal kind of havoc (obviously before he discovered there’s more to life than destruction) in classic Disney films. Keeping with the Hawaiian theme, you also get a “Mickey Mouse” tour of the islands (sorry, I couldn’t resist that joke, but the tour’s actually quite interesting), as well as a lesson in the hula and a “Young Voices of Hawaii” featurette.

Then there’s the “Create your own alien experiment” game, which is strictly for the younger ankle biters. There’s also a video by the A*Teens doing Elvis’ “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” “The Look of Lilo and Stitch,” “animating the hula” and “On Location with the Directors,” all of which are pretty self-explanatory.

You also get four theatrical teaser trailers for the movie that put Stitch into a quartet of far better Disney animated classics: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King (the latter teaser displaying a certain “Simba-lism”). The cashing in on these legitimate classics may have been my first warning that there was less to Lilo and Stitch than meets the eye.

As it stands, Lilo and Stitch is a better DVD than it is a movie, and it’s a shame. There was so much potential here; too bad it wasn’t reached.

Lilo and Stitch, from Walt Disney Home Video
85 min. amamorphic widescreen (1.66:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring the voices of Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Jason Scott Lee,
Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, Ving Rhames
directed by Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders

Tell us at TechnoFile what YOU think