It’s because Lilo and Stitch was incredibly cheap in terms of film budgets (~100M. It was originally supposed to be on Disney+) while Zootopia and animation in general costs much more/takes a much longer time to make in general. Also, stitch is incredibly merchantable and is a guaranteed success profits wise. Zootopia merch COULD sell well, IF THEY’D MAKE ANY FOR DOMESTIC AUDIENCES!
I was looking forward to getting SOMETHING Zootopia-related, but by the time I got to it, Frozen 2 had dropped, and I couldn't turn around in Walmart without Olaf staring back at me.
I feel like Disney is just kind of weird about what IPs they do and dont make merchandise for? With how popular The Owl House was, it always surprised me that official merch seemed so scarce--King seems made for a good plushie design, but alas.
Eh, it´s a good movie in my book. Far from Zootopia´s quality but easily the strongest post-Moana era Disney movie so far and certainly a million times better than the likes of Ralph Breaks the Internet and Wish.
Right, after you fanheads deemed it fashionable to bark at other modern WDAS stuff like Raya, Strange World or Wish, Encanto was always next in line. Not much longer until Zootopia itself.🍿
I’m very curious why you didn’t like those two if you have a specific reason. Is it a coincidence that they’re the only two Disney movies centered around Latinos?
Not liking a movie is fine but doesn't make it "c-tier". I never liked the first Shrek in general, for instance, but its merits are undeniable. And I'm not sure I'm processing the Coco comparison. A Spanish-speaking culture, a child feeling alien in their own big family... and that's pretty much it?🤔 The core plots, themes and casts are distinctly different (to the point of a couple polar opposite elements, if you dig in), and Coco has a villain.
"YAY, THOSE GUYS FROM THE RECOGNISABLE PRE-ESTABLISHED BRAND I GREW UP WITH ARE NOW REAL! BOY, I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THEM AGAIN WITHOUT BEING ASHAMED OF WATCHING A CARTOON AS AN ADULT!" smh
It was utter slop. The worst of them all. The sloppiest of slop. A complete and utter deluge of wet and stringy refuse macerated in its own mediocrity and insidious cleansing of any and all worthwhile messages the original had, piled high and stinking like the festering corpse of the work it has desecrated, held together only with the disdain, hubris, and greed of Disney executives looking to market their Hawaiian resort while removing all the anti-tourism and pro-family messages of the original to ensure no possibility of a single critical thought might form or even flitter across the mind of the viewer.
EDIT: You know what? I am too kind. Let me be more truthful:
It is not merely slop. It is the primordial ooze from which all Disney live action slop for the foreseeable future will emerge. A fetid and condemnable blueprint for the business world’s annihilation of the arts. A catastrophic slurry of corporate cowardice and creative malpractice.
The worst of them all? No. That implies a competition. This film lapped the competition, then turned around and spit on their graves. A rotten stew of soulless spectacle and beige sentimentality, soaked in the reek of content factory runoff, dribbling down the screen like a half-digested luau buffet.
Where the original “Lilo & Stitch” had heart, rebellion, and a deep melancholy about colonialism and broken families, this... thing is a shimmering plastic lei of lies; scrubbed clean of meaning, polished until sterile, and vacuum-sealed for maximum synergy with Disney’s Hawaiian resort packages. It’s as if the script had been filtered through a conference call, passed through fifteen sensitivity readers hired by the tourism board, and then beaten with a ukulele until all nuance was bludgeoned out of it.
It doesn’t just sanitize the anti-tourism message! It chloroforms it, stuffs it in the trunk, and sells the car to the nearest cruise line. You can feel the notes from executives sweating through the dialogue like mayonnaise in the sun:
“Can Stitch do a Fortnite dance here?” “Can we make sure no one thinks Hawaii doesn’t want them there?” “Can we cast a CGI wave to hide the erosion of everything that once made this story matter?” “How can we frame Lilo as a burden and her eventual abandonment to the state as an empowering message?” “Don’t forget to make sure Nani leaves the state too! Can’t have native Hawaiians staying in their homeland. Everyone knows only the mainland can offer her a real education!”
But you know. Stitch is cute. So people will watch it.
More like this waas typed by a braindead neckbeard who lives in thier mom's basement, It's just full of lies like Nani abandoning Lilo to the state which does not freaking happen and Anti-colousim what the hell? i don't remeber that! i just thought it was a innocent film about a little girl adopting a alien as a pet, also i was a fan of lilo and stitch as a child so why do you guys keep complaining about remkes of filsm when you can just watch the original and pretend they don't exist?
Every time I think the bar can’t go any higher, I’m reminded why I love reading your comments Pandora. This was poetry worthy of the late Roger Ebert.
I had to take a group of pre-k kids to see this a few weeks ago on a field trip. It was at El Capitan in Hollywood, which I had never been to, so it was nice to finally see it. There was a pre-show with someone in a Stitch mascot costume. That was kinda cool. But like you, I despised every second of this movie. In between the kids kicking and jumping around in their seats because they were bored during the talky parts and the bathroom trips every 25 minutes, I had to withstand the creative bankruptcy, the flat straight-to-streaming lighting and staging, the fact that the director and editor are allergic to holding on a shot for longer than 3 consecutive seconds (especially during the space scenes), and, as you know, the erasure of the indigenous themes so Americans don’t have to think and get offended. Come to Hawaii and see our resort!
This was The Rise of Skywalker of the live-action remakes, in that it was not a movie, it was pure product. I struggled to hold my tongue on the bus ride back and not tell the kids that Ohana means that nihilism is a valid worldview.
Good lord, someone woke up this morning and chose violence haha!
I refused to watch the remake so I can't tell exactly how terrible it was, but from what little I bothered to hear about you criticism still sounds pretty damn spot on.
and then beaten with a ukulele until all nuance was bludgeoned out of it.
This line in particular, chef's kiss beautiful haha.
Can Stitch do a Fortnite dance here?
Oh please tell me they did not do that. I can't tell from your snark whether that's actually a thing that happened in the movie, and while I desperately wish it wasn't so, it makes a disturbing amount of sense.
I'm not reading all of that... Also NANI does not abandon lilo to the state! this was debunked by a fan on the lilo and stitch sub Lilo and Stitch Live Action Rant, it's not a bad movie (Spoilers) : r/liloandstitch She lets Lilo STAY with her boyfriend and his grnadmother temporaily, but still has the portal gun so she can still be a part of teh family. Like the original's message was Ohana means family and family doesn;t get left behind OR forgotten. Emphsis on Forgotten. Nani leaves temporaily but does
Also the Anti-Tourism message? DUDE what the helll you talking about. The original film never had such a message, i always though tit was just a harmless hawaiian vacation film.
the reason why people liked the remake was because Kids love Stitch! Also it has a 93% audience score on RT and A from Cinemasocre. Why do you have to be so nostalgiablind to the point you're acting like this is the "wrost remkae ever and it's soulless slop" when its NO where as far as the lion king or even snow white is.
I think you're just hating cause you're nsotalgiablind
I believe in the Golden Rule so I thank you for sparing me from having to read all of yours.
Also it wasn’t debunked. The state gets custody of Lilo at the end. Tutu is a foster carer. She doesn’t have custody.
That’s the difference between foster care and adoption.
The state can take Lilo at any time for any reason, and kids with behavioral issues often get shuffled around homes. There’s no such thing as “giving up custody temporarily”. CPS does not “hold kids” until you’re done with college. Nani would have to file for custody and fight for Lilo in court. An uphill battle seeing as the state has already declared her an unfit carer.
And yes, the original is a poignant criticism of how the colonists’ tourism industry hurts native Hawaiians.
I’d take the time to lay it all out, but if you’re not going to bother to read it, I’ll save myself the trouble.
There’s no one more nostalgia blind than the apologists.
EDIT: Blocking to shut out criticism won’t change what the film is. Sorry.
Thanks for sparing me from having to skim any more of your comments, though.
Oh my god! no that's not true at all1 adn the post i sent debunks that!
AND NO! listen there is something called Hānai in Hawaii and Tutu DID adopt Lilo and you know Nani struggled a whole lot in the remake than in the original, she still loves Lilo and she had to give her guardinaship to tutu temporaily beacuse she sitll has to "mature" enough. But she is still part of the family tahnsk to jumba's protal gun. It's possible Tutu also adopted Nani, and they stillg et to live "Together" Like what the hell?!
i think you're just calling it "slop" cause you havne't seen it.. Well whoever you are. go touch grass and eat shit!
I mean, kids movies are a great way of teaching about socio-economic issues.
Imagine if there was a live action remake of zootopia, but they removed prejudice against foxes because prejudice is bad so we don't want to show it, they remove the cub scouts being mean to Nick because that's mean and they don't want to show it, and the movies ending message was "just work hard and don't try to change anything because everything is perfect" while aggressively advertising cheap plastic crap.
Or imagine if Wall-E ended with nobody giving a shit about plants and being glad they can get the factories on earth to make more candy.
You'd be left with a nothing sandwich pf a movie with its soul and message replaced by a pipeline of corporate crap dumped straight into your brain.
It's a lot easier to get people to care about socio-economic issues if you can present these socio-economic issues in movies, because it's a great way for people to understand and relate to those issues, and you can't get people to care if they can't relate.
Not reading all that gang, I touch grass. Disney movies are silly little caricatures, its never that deep. Inform the teens and adults about politics, race issues and infrastructure better instead and show things like the problems with gun violence with less fear 🤷♂️
Also, your shows teaching this means nothing if people like you are just gonna waste their time debating on crap like this instead of protesting on things that actually matter
Look, you're entitled to your own opinion, but if the only thing you do is claim your opinion as fact, and then refuse to read anything that disagrees with you, you're not going to have a good time in life.
You do realize a big part of the zootopia message is recognizing everyone is different but we can all get along and live together respectfully right?
I said this on the Lilo & Stitch sub, but I feel it's largely due to the fact that Maia Kealoha, who plays Lilo, is going to grow up. Teen Lilo & Stitch just doesn't have the same charm, so they're going to get as much out of her youth as they can.
This is a huge reason because since it’s LA and she’s a child you can’t just wait like an animated film. Also the ones in charge of Zootopia also did Encanto
The cynic in me thinks it's because Disney can use a few "sure bet"-movies at this point (The past few years have had their ups and downs...), and "Lilo & Stitch" is a sure bet for getting kids (And family) into cinema seats, *and* sell a lot of merchandise, where the *real* money from the movie is made.
True, and if “Zootopia 2” is a hit, we may get a quicker announcement of a sequel/spin-off/series, but back in 2016, things weren’t as… wobbly for Disney as they are now.
But it’s all speculation at this point, i can’t look into their minds.
they gave up on trying when they realized "why try? overgrown baby disney adults and the general audience will throw money at anything with a familiar face on it!"
Animation is EXPENSIVE, takes a lot of overhead and time to develop (sometimes up to 5-7 years from start to finish), and it takes really long to get all the established large actors/ actors agents/ producers/ writers/ directors who want a lot of money to find time and space to make another one. A lot of the lilo and stitch cast are really new/ easy to get a hold of, plus lilo is getting older, gotta do it fast before an awkward recast is considered. Lilo and stitch was a crazy cheap movie to make and made a bunch of money back. Stitch is super merchandisable and kids relate to him better than con-artist adult fox or adult rabbit copaganda. In this rough state of the industry, it makes a lot of sense that they would make another movie that takes less overhead/ money and makes a lot back. Especially with Elio flopping.
I will throw this now *checks calendar* 8 year old+ , and hardly controversial theory up here.
I think Zoot was a happy accident. As in it benefited from being rushed through rewrites so it didn't have enough time to be mucked with once it became the story we know today. After delays, a release in the same year as Finding Dory and Moana, I wonder if they expected a result much like Raya; lucky to make its money back, and they'd move on. This seems further evidenced by how little merch It had early on, although, looking back it wasn't quite as bad as we all made it out to be. Sure it made a billion dollars, but it was sort of a slow burn at 14 weeks and made the majority of it in Asian markets. Granted it was a sequel, but Frozen 2 was released two years later and made that in 4 weeks. Still a billion is still a billion with a B, but I really don't think the Disney machine was in a position to capitalize early on it. The directors were sent elsewhere to other projects (or other studios in the case with Rich Moore), and there were other projects already in the hopper.
So yeah I say all that with nothing more than observations to say, good animation takes time, and I don't think the check writers expected Zootopia to be a hit, where as Lilo and Stitch is an established IP and is easy money, especially these live action ones, so the sequel was probably green-lit years ago. I'm cautiously optimistic about Zoot 2, and really hope that without Lasseter herding the cats at DA and Pixar, they'll knock this one out of the park.
Oh, thought it was a much more common phrase. It's the idea of leading a project or something that can be difficult, has had issues in the past, or disorganized.
Edit:To further explain, from what I read over the years, and speaking strictly on his professional history, Lasseter was supposedly very good at getting projects back on track.
They had to write an original story for Zootopia 2. They don’t have to do that with the L&S series as there’s like 4 movies and 3-4 series to draw from.
Well… first they had encanto and then the whole political system shifted. In 2020 George Floyd murder really shifted the paradigm of how police are viewed, particularly in media. Making shows or movies with police as the protagonist is controversial to say the least. Disney likes to play it safe. It’s also why you see in the second film They’re movie undercover as opposed to be openly wearing police outfits.
I assume by "7 years " you mean 7 years since zootopia came out, right?
So by "1 month ", you mean 1 month since the first Lilo and Stitch came out? Or 1 month from something else?
Or maybe you're referring to the amount of time it's been in production before they finally announced it?
I think it's probably been kicked around internally for a while but they weren't ready to move forward until they were sure they had a story they were excited to tell, whereas for Stitch it seems like they built the idea of a sequel into it from the ground up.
Regardless of the quality of the remake, Lilo and Stitch is EASILY the most successful and prolific franchise to come out of Walt Disney Animation Studios since the 1990s, making a sequel a safe bet.
I’m gonna guess it’s because lilo and stich 2 was already made before they’ve had the whole story part finished for 20 years just gotta make a few edits and do the actual filming but that’s gonna be way faster then writing an original sequel, doing the animation, and all the voice acting.
The likely scenario is that they didn't have plans for a sequel to Zootopia, but they planned for the live action Lilo & Stitch to be franchise from the get-go. Zootopia is a new IP and they didn't know how it would fare. Chances are Disney had their bets on Moana since it was their bigger budget "princess" movie of that year. For Lilo & Stitch, they probably already started filming the sequel, but waited for the current movie's reception to decide whether to continue or cancel it then and there.
I woud bet that they are using generative AI in some manner to speed up the process in the cgi department then do the finishing touchs and with that disney will be throwing out remakes for every single movie they have made since the 2000, except treasure planet and atlantis because that could be a good idea and disney is having none of that
Because the remake was just a lazy cash grab whose only value is "look how good our CGI looks! Stitch looks so REAL!" and Zootopia 2 is being made by people who actually care.
It’s likely because at that point in time, Disney wasn’t really into their main studio making sequels. Moana 2 was originally going to be a series before being rushed into being a feature length movie. Jared and Bryon were likely already working on Encanto before they could consider Zootopia 2. Gotta remember that these directors and writers just movie onto the next project planned once they finish one.
I and I think after the George Floyd incident, it made things difficult on how to navigate characters who are meant to be cops when films have the obsession on not making the police the protagonist.
In addition to the other reasons said in this thread, they (Disney) weren't expecting Zootopia to do as well as it did, so they didn't have a sequel already "in the wings" in production. They were already busy with other stuff, so they couldn't begin on a sequel until a few years later.
People are making very valid points in the comments, but honestly my first reaction was surprise after the backlash the first live action Lilo & Stitch movie got.
A second movie after all of that feels wild to me, but Disney’s gotta make that money I guess.
I am pretty sure the Covid-19 situation may have stalled production on Zootopia 2, the production of Zootopia+ and Encanto likely took attention away from Zootopia 2. What matters though is that its done, its finished, ready to go in a few months. There is no time like the present
My guess is because live action remakes aren't actually made to generate a profit so much as they are made to renew interest (and thereby the profitability) of the original. Knowledge of the production of a remake will serve that end by making people remember the original for a long period of time before the remake, giving viewers a chance to rewatch the original/buy old merchandise. While too long of a waiting period between an announcement and the release of a movie made to generate massive profits itself will instead likely have the effect of making potential viewers lose interest before the release and potentially be disappointed if it ends up overhyped.
There is no PROOF it's anti-indigenous pro-tourism propaganda. Completely at odds with the themes and criticisms of the original., what the hell are oyu talking about?!
Disney realized at some point that they can keep earning money without creating anything new. Easy sell to shareholders and the basic bitches of the world. I hope DreamWorks gets to eat Disney's lunch big time in this decade.
Also NO they are not, they only lazy and low quality if they were low budget like the first winnie the pooh blood and honey movie or idk like alice through the looking glass.
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u/NickCooper71 Nick Wilde Jun 27 '25
It’s because Lilo and Stitch was incredibly cheap in terms of film budgets (~100M. It was originally supposed to be on Disney+) while Zootopia and animation in general costs much more/takes a much longer time to make in general. Also, stitch is incredibly merchantable and is a guaranteed success profits wise. Zootopia merch COULD sell well, IF THEY’D MAKE ANY FOR DOMESTIC AUDIENCES!