Not even a month ago, Polygon’s Petrana Radulovic called for the ad campaign of the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch to show us any characters other than Stitch. And today, with Disney’s release of the first full trailer I can confidently say: “No, no, stop, that was too many live-action characters. What have you done to Jumba and Pleakley?”
This might sound like I’m being the pickiest person alive, but a good portion of why Petrana — and other fans of the animated classic on Polygon’s editorial staff — were so interested to see more of the new movie was to get a look at how all of its alien characters other than Stitch would be converted from the lovable, cartoony designs to a photorealistic style.
Petrana even called it out in her piece:
“It’s easy to sell Stitch — he’s a super-beloved character. Just make him a bit more textured, and bam! You’ve got a solid “live-action” design. But what about the original movie’s evil scientist Jumba (David Ogden Stiers), with his big head and four blinking eyes? Or one-eyed, green, mildly rubbery Pleakley (Kevin McDonald)? Or large, lumbering, whale-like Gantu? What are they going to look like?”
And as many fine nostalgic beats that the new trailer hits — Stitch stealing the one red fighter, ice cream cones dropping on the beach, the banger melody of Alan Silvestri and Mark Kealiʻi Hoʻomalu’s “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” — it also has a quick reveal that Jumba and Pleakley will have hologram technology that justifies them being played on set by their new actors, Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen.
And to that I say: Boring! I say: Cowards! If we can accept that Stitch can be mistaken for a dog by reasonable observers, it is not a stretch to maintain that a four-eyed giant sloth man and a living sticky-hand toy could be mistaken for people just by putting on people clothes.
The juxtaposition of Jumba and Pleakey’s bizarre appearance with their ostensible goal of blending into the human population of earth is not just a superficial aspect of Lilo & Stitch, after all. The whole subtextual chew of how they are able to pass as humans simply by wearing Hawaiian shirts and bucket hats, is that they’re dressed like tourists. Because human tourists are aliens to the culture of the film’s main characters. Not just in their manner, or actions, but in their very physicality.
Disney’s made two entire photorealistic Lion King movies without a single human character, so it’s not as if the precedent hasn’t been set. Jumba and Pleakley didn’t even have to be a completely CGI effect, either. Go ahead, change their character designs — realize Jumba and Pleakley with facial prosthetics or animatronics. But make them look weird, all the time.
I realize I’m making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill here. And that Disney’s “live-action” remakes habitually make more money than god regardless of their quality. And that actors like Galifianakis and Magnussen absolutely have the chops to turn up the weirdness of a character even without special effects. But if we must make a live-action Lilo & Stitch, it deserves the best version of its weird alien uncles.
See More:
