When you wish upon a shooting star, you might just end up with an adorable blue extraterrestrial creature. At least, that’s what happens in the first full-length trailer for Disney‘s “Lilo & Stitch” remake.
In the extended look at the live-action reboot, a lonely Hawaiian girl named Lilo is longing for a best friend. After she sees a glowing comet blast across the night sky, she makes a wish and then finds herself face-to-face with Stitch, a dog-like alien experiment whose raison d’etre is creating destruction.
Like the original 2002 animated film, “Lilo & Stitch follows a young orphan who is being raised by her teenaged sister, Nani. Lilo develops a close bond with Stitch (née Experiment 626) through the Hawaiian concept of “ohana,” which means family — and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
“He is your responsibility. Got it?” Nani says in the trailer, to which Lilo cheerfully replies, “We promise!”
Still, Stitch is steadfast on wreaking havoc on the lush, tropical paradise. He honks at innocent drivers and chucks a CD (remember those?) at a moving car, causing the vehicle to spin out on the road. Later in the footage — fittingly scored to Elvis Presley’s “You’re the Devil in Disguise” and “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” — Stitch terrorizes an impressively constructed sandcastle, chugs the liquid in a lava lamp and blindly maneuvers a golf cart on the mean streets of Hawaii.
“Stitch bad,” the crazed creature says wistfully. At least he’s self aware. Lilo, who is impressively insightful for a child, reassures him: “Sometimes, family isn’t perfect. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good.”
Dean Fleischer Camp (A24’s “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”) is directing “Lilo & Stitch.” Sanders, who co-directed the original 2002 film, is reprising his voice role of Stitch, while Maia Kealoha (as Lilo), Zach Galifianakis, Sydney Agudong, Billy Magnussen and Courtney B. Vance are joining the cast.
“Lilo & Stitch” crashes into theaters on May 23. It’ll be the second Disney live-action remake of the year following “Snow White,” which stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot and opens in March. Disney classics like “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “Mulan,” “Dumbo” and “The Little Mermaid” have also gotten the live-action treatment in recent years — to varying degrees of commercial success.
