If there’s one tenet that defines the 2002 Disney animated film Lilo & Stitch, it is the idea of ‘ohana, a Hawaiian term explained by the film’s mantra: “ ʻOhana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” Naturally, when Disney announced a live-action remake of the animated classic, fans assumed that the original movie’s defining moral of ‘ohana would remain the same. Well, you would be mistaken—now that the live-action Lilo & Stitch is here, many fans have been pissed off to discover that changes both small and large seem to have changed the film’s core, particularly when it comes to the character of Nani, Lilo’s older sister and guardian. Despite the film—which was directed by Marcel the Shell with Shoes On creator Dean Fleischer Camp—performing well at the box office and receiving positive-ish reviews, hordes of viewers have taken to social media to criticize the live-action remake for everything from stripping the story of its anti-colonial politics to being queerphobic.

Trying to wade through the backlash of this entry into the questionable Disney live-action remake canon is a tall order. But fear not! Below, I present my best attempt at breaking down all the controversy surrounding the film, from its depiction of Nani to its omission and defeminization (yes, you heard that correctly) of other characters.

Remind me what this movie is supposed to be about. Who is Nani supposed to be, again?

The 2002 animated film Lilo & Stich follows the titular 6-year-old girl, Lilo, whose quirky personality makes her a social outcast, and whose inability to make friends causes her to lash out. That is, until she meets Stitch, an alien who escapes exile from the Intergalactic Federation by crash-landing on Earth. Stitch pretends to be a dog so Lilo will take him in, and the two teach each other about family and community. Meanwhile, Nani—Lilo’s older sister who, at 19 years old, has become Lilo’s de facto guardian after the sudden death of their parents—is being monitored by social services who threaten to take Lilo out of Nani’s custody. The 2002 version of Nani fights tooth and nail to maintain custody of Lilo despite having trouble holding down a job due to the antics of her sister and their alien pet. Toward the end of the story, social worker Cobra Bubbles deems that the state must take Lilo from Nani—and Nani attempts to say goodbye to Lilo by singing the native Hawaiian song “Aloha ‘Oe” to her younger sister—but they ultimately work it out in the end after some good ol’ alien intervention (during which it’s revealed that Bubbles used to be a CIA operative who occasionally dealt with alien relations).

To be definitive: Never once in the original story did Nani even consider giving up custody of Lilo. The thought of being forcibly separated from her younger sister devastated her.

OK, so what are people so upset about with the new movie? How does it change Nani’s character?

There are two main criticisms of the changes Disney has made to the character of Nani, played here by Sydney Agudong. The first is a criticism that surfaced way before the movie even came out. Some fans deemed the casting of Agudong to be colorist. In the original movie, Nani was shades darker than her live-action counterpart; this difference in skin color was seen by some as an affront to the 2002 movie’s representation of darker-skinned Native Hawaiians (and, more generally, Pacific Islanders). Since the film’s release, there has been even more online debate about whether Agudong—who was born and raised in Hawai’i and who is of Filipino, white, and Polynesian descent—is ethnically Hawaiian.

Then, there’s the general distaste with how Nani’s story has been radically changed this time around. The live-action Nani, like her animated counterpart, is struggling under the weight of having to parent the rambunctious rebel child Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and their newly acquired ill-behaved alien dog. But, in this story, Nani is a former competitive surfer who harbors dreams of studying marine biology at a prestigious program at the University of California in San Diego. After Lilo gets hurt during a surfing incident (which does happen in the original plot), the social worker—a new character named Ms. Kekoa (Tia Carrere, who voiced Nani in the 2002 movie), rather than Cobra Bubbles, who comes in later as an actual CIA operative played by Courtney B. Vance—convinces Nani that giving up custody of Lilo is the right thing to do. Nani agrees; in the end, they work it out so that Lilo will live with Tūtū (Amy Hill), their next-door neighbor, who does not appear in the original film. In the remake, Lilo urges Nani to go to school in California, which she does. Occasionally, they reunite using a portal gun stolen from another character, which allows them to visit each other across long distances.

Oh, that does feel like a big tonal change with her character. Is that why people are angry?

It’s sort of complex! The original Lilo & Stitch struck many viewers as a fairly political and radical movie for Disney at the time, not only because of its focus on darker-skinned Native Hawaiians, but also because of how it touched on the painful history of Native and Indigenous peoples’ experiences in the U.S. For example, the song Nani sings to Lilo, “Aloha ‘Oe,” is known as a significant cultural symbol representing traditional Hawaiian culture, sung by one of the islands’ last reigning monarchs, Queen Lili’uokalani. Over time, and since the islands’ forced annexation into the U.S., the song—a farewell from a queen to her people—has become known as a resistance song against colonial power.

Nani’s fear of social services and the separation of her family fit hand in hand with the devastating history of Indigenous families being forcibly separated in the U.S. Particularly, Native Hawaiians have historically had families ripped apart via forced relocation, medical incarceration that occasionally saw young children taken into custody, the effects of land dispossession, and, as Native Hawaiian historian and scholar Maile Arvin reports, federal boarding schools used to force assimilation upon Native children as a “damper” to “more widespread resistance to U.S. colonialism in the territorial period.”

Thus, many viewers, such as journalist Carolyn Hinds, are criticizing this new narrative as “colonial anti-indigenous messaging.” However, it doesn’t take a historian or scholar to understand that giving up custody of a family member would likely be antithetical to ‘ohana meaning “nobody gets left behind.”

I can see why this particular change would upset fans of the original. Did anyone working on the movie address the changes?

In an interview with Deadline, Fleischer Camp said the changes to Nani’s character were attempts at “thematically modernizing” the story for this live-action version, which involved “broadening the idea of ‘ohana and complicating it with a little more nuance.” Fleischer Camp described the original Nani as “a little too rose-colored glasses for somebody in her situation,” her situation being that she had to “abandon” a lot of her “dreams” because she “inherited the responsibility” of taking care of Lilo. Per the filmmaker, “It just felt like she might not have such an easy time buying into, ‘Nobody gets left behind’ because she certainly would feel like, well, I’m struggling here.”

And Fleischer Camp is not necessarily alone in this view. Some fans online have come out and defended the changes. And hey, I get it—Nani is only 19 with a whole life ahead of her. She is allowed to have dreams and aspirations, surely. But the backlash stems from the idea that this character, in particular, would never make this choice, given all that we know about her. The original Nani would never give up Lilo—not only because of the cultural history of forced separation among Indigenous families, but also because of the way the original film honored that cultural history in many extremely pointed ways. The nods toward the exploitation of native Hawaiians isn’t simply relegated to the presence of child protective services in the original, but it also shows up in many smaller ways, like Nani being exoticized while working briefly at a tourist-trap restaurant.

No matter how you feel about it, for this movie to introduce the social services worker Ms. Kekoa as a benevolent character, instead of a governmental force whom Nani lives in constant fear of throughout the story, is a massive change. And it’s no surprise that some fans find it unsavory that the movie showcases social services as innocuous, like when Ms. Kekoa convinces Nani that the decision to relinquish custody isn’t severe by saying: “We don’t say goodbye, we say ‘a hui hou kākou,’ ‘until we meet again.’ ”

I can definitely understand the disappointment. The other thing I’m wondering is why did Nani have to go all the way to California to study marine biology when the University of Hawai’i is a phenomenal school for marine biology studies? 

I am still wondering this, as are many. The movie mentions Nani being offered a full ride to UCSD, but I’m sure she could have made in-state tuition at the University of Hawai’i work, especially if she applied for the proper financial aid. Also, she literally has the number for a CIA operative (Bubbles, who in the live-action is still active in the CIA and, unlike in the original film, never moonlights as a social worker) who could likely get her into any school she wanted.

OK, so Disney may have flubbed it with Nani. But what are the other changes that people are so up in arms about? 

In addition to the changes with Nani, Tūtū, Ms. Kekoa, and Cobra Bubbles, the other big changes involve the Intergalactic Federation characters: Captain Gantu, Jumba, and Pleakley. In the original film, it is Gantu, the movie’s real antagonist, who comes to Earth to capture Stitch, eventually kidnapping both him and Lilo, which then causes Jumba and Pleakley to defect over to the good guys. However, none of this happens in the new one. Gantu is gone entirely—according to Fleischer Camp, this character was removed due to the difficulty of translating Gantu to live action, and because Fleischer Camp wanted to focus more on the emotional beats of the sisters’ story.

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The other big controversy concerns the defeminization of Pleakley. In the 2002 movie, Pleakley and Jumba try to blend in with humans by dressing in human clothes, which, for Pleakley—the comedic relief to Jumba’s straight man—were always feminine. In other words, Pleakley was always, hilariously, in drag. In today’s Lilo & Stitch, the two aliens disguise themselves by taking the form of two humans, played by Billy Magnussen (Pleakley) and Zach Galifianakis (Jumba). From as early on as the trailer release, fans noticed that Pleakley was pointedly not in drag, and Fleischer Camp took to TikTok to respond, simply: “I tried.” Does that mean, as some fans are speculating, that Disney refused to let Pleakley be in a dress, considering conservatives’ targeting of trans people in the current political climate? We may never know—although, if you ask me, it’s just as bad that the new movie covers Pleakley’s character in a physical sliminess that I truly hated.

Then there’s Jumba, who in the original film has a nondescript Eastern European accent, and whose personality very much gives “mad scientist.” In the remake, however, he’s fairly serious and even-keeled, and, instead of starting off purely evil and becoming good, he starts off somewhat neutral and turns evil. Here, Jumba is the one who captures both Stitch and Lilo and ends up giving a maniacal speech about how empathy is a weakness. Disappointingly, he doesn’t join the good guys in the end, like in the original. While there’s nothing super offensive about that change, I think we can all agree that it’s just not as fun!

Finally, and most critically, the 2025 version of the hair of Nani’s love interest, David (Kaipo Dudoit), is shorter and not parted in the middle like it is in the 2002 film. Please join me in the mourning that that loss inspires.

Nadira Goffe Read More

This is all so exhausting; maybe it will finally prompt Disney to put a pause on these unnecessary live-action remakes.

Actually, this may really be happening, although it wouldn’t be thanks to Lilo & Stitch! If you’ll recall, all of the hullabaloo about the recent live-action remake of Snow White—which bombed at the box office—has reportedly forced Disney to pause development on a future remake of the 2010 hit Tangled. Snow White, we owe you one.

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