Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 animated movie, released by Walt Disney Pictures and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. on June 21, 2002. The 41st animated movie in the Disney animated features canon, it was written by and directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. It was the second of three Disney animated movies produced mainly at the Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida studio in Walt Disney World's Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. The movie was rated PG for "mild sci-fi action". Lilo & Stitch was nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, which went to Hayao Miyazaki's movie, Spirited Away which also was released by Walt Disney Pictures and starred Daveigh Chase (in the English version).

The movie was so popular that it started a franchise. A direct-to-video sequel, Stitch! The Movie, was made. It launched a television series, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, and a second direct-to-video sequel, Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, was released in August 2005. A third and final television sequel, Leroy & Stitch, was released in June 2006 and ended the TV series. Another television series, an anime called Stitch!, aired in Japan from 2008 to 2011, later gaining two post-series specials in 2012 and 2015. A third TV series, a Chinese animated series called Stitch & Ai, began airing in 2017. Both the later two series took out Lilo as a main character, separating Stitch from her and putting him into different countries on Earth where he makes new friends with other human girls and becomes part of their families.

The movie was released on VHS and DVD on December 3, 2002. In 2003, a 2-disc DVD version was announced to come out along with Alice in Wonderland and Pocahontas, which were released in 2004 and 2005. A 2-Disc Special Edition DVD of Lilo & Stitch was released in the UK on August 22, 2005, along with the UK release of Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, but a release in the US was affected by many delays. On March 24, 2009, Disney finally released the special edition DVD, which is called a 2-Disc "Big Wave Edition". This new DVD has everything that the original DVD had and adds an audio commentary, a 2-hour documentary, more deleted scenes, a number of behind-the-scenes featurettes, and some games. The original DVD is no longer available, with the new one having the same list price.

Plot 
An evil alien scientist named Dr. Jumba Jookiba creates "Experiment 626", a creature built to cause chaos and destruction. This is against the law of his planet, and he is arrested. 626 escapes the planet, flying a spaceship to Earth.

On Earth, a little human girl named Lilo adopts 626 (thinking he is a dog) and names him "Stitch". Lilo lives in Hawaii, a series of islands in the United States of America. Lilo's mother and father have died in a car crash, so her older sister Nani takes care of her.

Stitch at first uses Lilo to avoid being captured by the alien officials, but the they become friends when Lilo teaches Stitch how to be good. She uses music by Elvis Presley in her lessons. Stitch also learns a new phrase: "'Ohana" means family. Family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten." Because of this, Stitch decides to go against his original purpose in order to keep his family together. The alien officials manages to find Stitch on Earth and prepare take him away, but they decide to let Stitch stay with Lilo in Hawaii after she explains that she legally purchased Stitch. Jumba and Pleakley become members of Nani, Lilo, and Stitch's family, and the movie ends with various footage and pictures of Stitch and his new family's life together.

Cast 
 Daveigh Chase as Lilo Pelekai
 Chris Sanders as Stitch
 Tia Carrere as Nani Pelekai
 David Ogden Stiers as Dr. Jumba Jookiba
 Kevin McDonald as Agent Pleakley
 Ving Rhames as Cobra Bubbles
 Zoe Caldwell as Grand Councilwoman
 Jason Scott Lee as David Kawena
 Kevin Michael Richardson as Captain Gantu
 Susan Hegarty as Rescue Lady
 Hans Zimmer as Male Officer

Production 
An animated scene that had to be changed due to the September 11, 2001 attacks was where Stitch hijacks a Tsunami Air Boeing 747-400 and follows Gantu to the city of Honolulu. Stitch is the launched out of Tsunami Air Boeing 747-400 and lands on Gantu’s ship but he is blown off and lands on the road. Gantu is able to find Stitch by using his computer. He tries to shoot the alien but misses. A truck comes close to Stitch and he commandeers it. Stitch drives over a volcano and dumps the fuel into it. This shoots Stitch up like a rocket and he lands on Gantu’s ship. Crashes through the windshield into the cockpit, Furiously trying to pound Stitch with his fist, Grabs Gantu's hand. and throws him through the windshield onto the wing of Tsunami Air Boeing 747-400 below, Gantu tries to shoot Stitch, Stitch breaks the capsule with his head and takes Lilo out. Lilo kisses Stitch’s nose as he jumps off,  When Stitch saves Lilo and they jump back onto Tsunami Air Boeing 747-400 and destroy Gantu's ship. The Tsunami Air Boeing 747-400 then crashes into the ocean near David on his surfboard. Lilo asks if he will give them all rides back to shore In the final movie, Stitch finds Jumba's spaceship and follows Gantu to the mountains and volcanoes.

Reception 
The movie opened at #2 with $35,260,212 in its first weekend, less than $500,000 behind the movie Minority Report. In its second week, fell to #3, again behind the Steven Spielberg movie at #2. The movie made $145,794,338 in the United States and Canada, and $127,349,813 internationally, finishing with $273,144,151 in the world.

Lilo & Stitch received very positive reviews from critics and movie-goers alike, and it was the most successful Walt Disney Pictures movie after the Disney Renaissance of 1989 to 1999 until Bolt a few years later. The movie's success at the box office and on DVD led to a franchise, with three direct-to-video and televisions sequels and three television series. The movie has received 139 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 119 positive and 20 negative, giving it a positive total rating of 86%.

Soundtrack 

The soundtrack of the movie was released by Walt Disney Records on June 21, 2002.
It, along with the movie, has more Elvis Presley songs than any of Elvis' own movies.

Spin-offs 
On August 26, 2003, Disney released a direct-to-video sequel, Stitch! The Movie, which was made as the pilot to a TV series titled Lilo & Stitch: The Series. This series ran for 65 episodes between on September 20, 2003 and July 29, 2006. The series carried on where the movie left off and showed Lilo's efforts to capture and re-home Jumba's remaining experiments. This series ended with TV movie Leroy & Stitch, which was released on June 27, 2006.

On August 2005, Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, another direct-to-video sequel to the movie, was released. In this movie, Stitch has a glitch because his molecules were never fully charged (this is different than a deleted opening, "Stitch's trial", which was seen on the DVD release of Lilo & Stitch). Lilo wants to win the May Day hula contest like her mother did in the 1970s, but Stitch continues to have problems. Lilo thinks Stitch is not behaving right, until she finds out that Stitch is dying.

In March 2008, Disney announced that it is to produce a remade version of Lilo & Stitch, called Stitch!, for the Japanese market. The show, which began in October 2008, features a Japanese girl named Yuna (formerly referred to as Hanako) in place of Lilo, and is set on a fictional island in Okinawa prefecture instead of Hawaii. The series is produced by the Japanese animation house Madhouse LTD.

On October 4, 2018, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Disney would be making a live action remake.

Release Dates

References

Other websites 

 Official site
 
 
 
 
 

2002 animated movies
2002 science fiction movies
Disney animated movies
English-language movies
Impact of the September 11 attacks
Lilo & Stitch
American family movies
American musical movies
American science fiction movies