With the advent of COVID-19 ruining lives and forcing us all back into the veritable caves we call home, movies have been delayed left, right, and centre. So, with streaming services providing access to an unbridled amount of past content, we at Sequential Planet are bringing you a host of reviews on old movies, TV shows, and comics. So please, enjoy this new series coming your way for the foreseeable future.
Film rewatches are absolutely bizarre things. You can go from hating a film to absolutely adoring it, or from adoring a film to absolutely hating it. Recently, I’ve been rewatching a lot of old classics, what with the fact I’m stuck inside my flat. Disney + also only launched over here just over a week ago, so I’ve been watching stuff such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars on that for the first time. But the first thing I rewatched on the service was something close to my heart, a film that always makes me tear up whenever I watch it.
That film was Lilo and Stitch.
Lilo and Stitch is one of those “flash in the pan” films, one that could never be replicated but also could never have been made outside of the time. The animation is beautiful, the main lead loveable (I should know, I own three things with his face on them. For those questioning, a plush, a mug, and a pillow) and the supporting cast one of the best in an animated film. With few exceptions, this is one of the best animated features ever made and one of the best things Disney has EVER put out.
Daveigh Chase (Lilo), Tia Carrere (Nani), David Ogden Stiers (Jumba), Kevin McDonald (Pleakley), Ving Rhames (Bubbles), Kevin Michael Richardson (Gantu), Chris Sanders (Stitch), This is a list of people I bet not one person you asked in the street could tell you played these characters, and yet they’re one of the best casts in an animated movie. All of them embody the spirit of their characters and are clearly putting the absolute apex of their talents into every single second of the film. I can’t sing the praises of Chris Sanders in particular enough. Stitch may be an alien who doesn’t speak much English, but he’s got more character and humanity than a lot of protagonists from similar movies.
And the animation! God, it’s beautiful. It’s not as visually stunning as the likes of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse or indeed several later Disney films, but it’s some of the best traditional, hand-drawn, 2D animation that Disney ever put out. It’s fluid and striking, with Stitch being one of the most memorable character designs in animation history. Personally, I’d put him up there with the likes of Mickey Mouse, though I may be biased (Again, I own a mug with his face on it). Still, I think about Disney and one of the first thoughts in my mind is that grinning cute little blue face.
I guess there’s just something about Lilo & Stitch that gets me every time (and yes, I mean that in the literal sense. Damned emotions.) It could be the message of the film, that family is the most important thing and that family isn’t always those who are related to you by blood (Ohana does mean family after all, and family means nobody gets left behind) or it could simply be that it’s an absolutely beautifully animated, beautifully acted, just an all-around beautiful film. It’s one for the ages, a true classic, a smorgasbord of quality.
It’s just wonderful.
