.png)
Dean Fleischer Camp, the director of Lilo & Stitch, has addressed why important changes exist between the live-action version and the original animated picture.
"The real trick," he said to Entertainment Weekly, "is to try to make a movie that rhymes really well with what people remember of the original without just doing a one-to-one exact mirror."
He explained Stitch's violent tendencies, saying, "His whole thing is destruction, and so much of the character's comedy comes from that impulse."
"Violence is actually incredibly tough to execute; it just lands differently. In an animated picture, you could have a very ridiculous 10-car pile-up on the interstate, but I dare any live-action filmmaker to create a 10-car pile-up genuinely humorous," he said.
"We had to figure out ways to soften the things that didn't work in live action, but also find new things that we could do that the animated movie couldn't," the animator said.
The live-action film delves more on Lilo and her older sister Nina's relationship.
"In a live-action movie," Camp explained, "if we're going to represent a 6-year-old being separated from her sister by social services, you have to genuinely believe that bond. You cannot cheat or ignore it. You have to delve deep, make those things sink in, and make it feel like you're describing a real-life event."
Another significant difference, which some fans may dislike, is that Galactic Federation-sent aliens Jumba Jookiba and Agent Pleakley (Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen) now wear human "skins" in the shape of actors Zach and Billy rather than human clothing as in the animated version.
"The humor of them walking around Hawaii dressed in these terrible disguises where Pleakley still has one eyeball, it's a little harder to buy in live action," said Camp.
"You definitely see Jumba and Pleakley in their alien forms through a lot of the movie, but they are in human skin suits for part of it," she said.
Live-action Lilo & Stitch stars Maia Kealoha as Lilo and Sydney Agudong as her sister Nani, with Chris Sanders reprising his role as Stitch.
#liloandstitch
