Disney’s Lilo & Stitch Live-Action Bombs With Critics (Photo Credit – Instagram)
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Lilo & Stitch live-action remake is here to make Disney more money in its opening weekend than the original 2002 animated classic did in its entire lifetime. But does that mean the movie is good or an excuse for the House of the Mouse to capitalize on the nostalgic sentiments exuded by a somewhat gullible audience, mainland millennials who turned to the studio during its renaissance era in the ‘90s? Many have compared Disney’s half-hearted attempts to those of a babysitter rather than an animation studio.
Critics formed a consensus that, despite the social media hype and social media reactions unveiled by influencers, Lilo & Stitch is another bland attempt in a long line of failed Disney remakes. The movie has accumulated mixed reviews, which, though not horrible, and its Rotten Tomatoes score illustrates it.
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Critics Say Lilo & Stitch Carries All the Horrors of A Bad Disney Remake
Lilo & Stitch’s Rotten Tomatoes score of a mere 72%, well short of the “certified fresh” designation, after over 110 critics have weighed in, is disappointing and reiterates the same ethos any mediocre Disney live-action remake has been subject to.
An embarrassing Metacritic verdict of 53 takes it further into the rabbit hole, resting alongside Snow White (50) and The Lion King (55). The circumstances are so chaotic that the last time Metacritic found a Disney remake to get “generally favorable reviews” was half a decade earlier with 2020’s Mulan.
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Lilo & Stitch was originally planned for Disney+, and that’s evident in its visuals. Disney’s parsimonious stance prevented enhanced CGI, reducing Stitch to get minimal screen time; though they didn’t have a problem investing billions in Stitch merchandise. This raises the concerns — is Disney treating its original IPs as a cash cow and nothing more?
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Here’s Why Disney Should Stop Remaking Its Classics (For Disney’s Own Sake)
Speculations that Disney is a money-hungry corporation have been surging for years, given how it’s not even the first live-action remake in the last nine weeks. These establish the consensus that audiences are not wrong. Reimagining every animated film from the classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Moana — made over eight decades — is, though not a bad maneuver, producing them all within a single decade is more so when the same studio loves reciting how expensive it is to reconstitute resources for live-action, specifically in VFX disappointment.
Should Disney stop making live-action remakes? No, but there are only so many animated movies to begin with. If Disney recreates them all before the end of the 2020s, scarcely anything would be left to develop in the future. What would Disney make then — a third wave of remakes?
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While remakes in Hollywood have existed since the beginning of cinema history, a studio has never had to rely on recycling. Disney could consider slowing down a bit rather than overwhelming its viewers with more unoriginal content.
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Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, was meant to familiarize newer generations and nostalgic audiences with classic materials from bygone eras. Then, what is the need to remake when Disney already owns cash-grab franchises like Marvel, Fox, Star Wars, Hulu, ABC, National Geographic, and ESPN?
