Why people are so mad about that Lilo & Stitch ending

WARNING: This story contains significant spoilers for both the original Lilo & Stitch and its remake.

When it comes to dollars and cents, Disney's Lilo &Stitch live-action remake hasn't hit any speed-bumps. In fact, it's more like the little blue guy has hit the NOS.

But if you pay much attention to the Internet, things haven't been so rosy. Everywhere from X, to Instagram to TikTok, fans of the beloved Hawaii-set animated dramedy have had some pointed words about changes made to the story.

To be clear, that backlash isn't just from certain CBC reporters railing against the insipid evil of live-action adaptations. Instead, fans of the original are upset about both a dumbed-down story they say downplays important elements of Hawaiian culture, and a controversial ending that some believe acts as pro-colonial propaganda. 

To understand the reaction, it's important to know the context. The original Lilo & Stitch was something of an accidental success: the 2002 animated feature about a little Hawaiian girl named Lilo who befriends an exiled alien named Stitch was an outlier, both as a 2D, hand-drawn film and for the culture it represented.

It was also beloved for both those reasons: its lush, beautiful art-style nearly revived traditional animation, while its subtly ironic depiction of bumbling, invading American tourists rang true enough to build up a huge fanbase.

The plot relied heavily on the concepts of alienation, home and family: Lilo was bullied by other children and relied on the concept of "ohana" — a communal sense of family — to find a sense of belonging with her elder sister, Nani, who cared for her after their parents died. Lilo also had a fascination with photographing tourists, a subtle dig at the islands' constant influx of them.

And the central theme of ohana is a grounding tenet of all the characters' interactions: in the 2002 original, Nani does everything in her power to keep custody of Lilo when an ex CIA agent-turned social worker threatens to split them apart.

In the end, Nani manages to retain custody of her sister, and all three — Stitch included — remain a family.

Part of the complaint, as critic Caroline Madden wrote for SlashFilm, is the removal of those messages; the 2025 remake "completely erases this cultural commentary," and instead "coasts purely on the aesthetics of beautiful beaches, hula dancing, and surfing."

That is largely apparent in its lack of engagement with or depiction of tourists, and the erasure of Lilo's habit of photographing them.

In the original, the pivotal scene in which Lilo states that their parents told them "Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind" causes Nani to reluctantly agree to keep Stitch. In the remake, Nani instead replies that this "isn't reality," and Lilo essentially needs to grow up and forget the concept. 

To be fair, that's not where Nani and Lilo's story ends. But as culture writer and film critic Aparita Bhandari told CBC News, the subtly bitter and mature tone the original movie had about living in a perceived paradise that's been cannibalized by outsiders is all but absent in the remake. 

"Hawaii is still the backdrop, but it's just a very different kind of a story," she said. "There is irony in there in a different way. But it's not quite that, you know, slightly pointed kind of critique that the original had."