Disney's live-action Lilo & Stitch is a frustrating film. Not because it's unwatchable, but because it's 75% of the way to being genuinely good before it decides to lecture you about female empowerment instead of finishing the story it started telling.

For most of its runtime, the remake does what you'd expect: it faithfully recreates the animated classic's story of Lilo, a lonely Hawaiian girl who adopts a fugitive alien disguised as a dog, and Nani, the older sister struggling to keep their family together after their parents' deaths. Maia Kealoha, the young actress playing Lilo, is an absolute revelation. She carries the movie with effortless charm and genuine emotional commitment that puts half of Disney's adult performers to shame.

The Hawaiian setting looks gorgeous in live action. The cultural details feel authentic, thanks in large part to Native Hawaiian writer Chris Kekaniokalani Bright's involvement. Stitch, rendered in CGI with Chris Sanders returning to voice him, works better than anyone had a right to expect. The bond between Lilo and Stitch develops naturally and lands emotionally.

So where does it go wrong?

The third act. Specifically, the ending.

In the original animated film, the climax is Nani proving to social services that she is a capable guardian. She fights for Lilo. She earns the right to keep their family together. The message is simple and powerful: family is worth fighting for, and love means putting someone else's needs above your own convenience. It's one of the most genuinely traditional messages Disney ever delivered.

The live-action version rewrites this entirely. Instead of fighting to keep the family together, Nani gives Lilo up. She hands her sister to an elderly neighbor and David (the love interest, now demoted to babysitter) so she can leave Hawaii and pursue her scholarship at UCLA. The film repeatedly establishes that Nani was a gifted athlete and academic who sacrificed her ambitions to raise Lilo. The new ending frames this sacrifice as the actual tragedy, not the loss of their parents.

The message lands with the subtlety of a sledgehammer: motherhood is a burden. Caregiving holds women back. True fulfillment comes from career and education, not from raising the child who needs you most.

This isn't a small change. It's a complete inversion of the original's moral center. The animated Lilo & Stitch said family is everything. The live-action version says family is negotiable if a better opportunity comes along.

The film tries to soften the blow by showing that Lilo is okay with it, that the arrangement is temporary, that Nani will come back. But the emotional damage is done. The story spent 90 minutes telling kids that ohana means nobody gets left behind, then showed them the opposite.

Outside of this catastrophic ending rewrite, the film is mostly fine. A little long, a little flat in places, with supporting characters (Jumba, Pleakley, Bubbles) who lack the energy of their animated counterparts. Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen are serviceable but forgettable as the alien duo. Courtney B. Vance's Cobra Bubbles, tragically, has almost nothing to do because his role has been split to make room for Tia Carrere's new social worker character.

It's a competent but uninspired remake that coasts on the strength of its source material and its extraordinary young lead, until the ending rips the heart out of everything it built.

Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier

🔴 Woke Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Motherhood/Caregiving as Burden	5	Low	High	12.6
Female Ambition Over Family Obligation	3	Low	Moderate	4.2
TOTAL WOKE				16.8

🟢 Traditional Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Ohana / Found Family as Moral Center	4	High	High	5.04
Cultural Rootedness and Community	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Child's Capacity for Love and Forgiveness	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Redemption Through Love	3	High	Low	1.05
Sacrifice for Others	2	High	Low	0.7
TOTAL TRADITIONAL				11.0

Score Margin: +6 WOKE