Disney’s live-action Moana can’t be as bad as its Lilo & Stitch remake

Disney recently dropped a new trailer for its upcoming live-action Moana re-imagining. Predictably, it was met with comments about how unnecessary Disney’s live-action remakes are, how this is another cash-grab attempt (well, yes, obviously), and most importantly, how horrendous Dwayne Johnson’s wig looks. While I sympathize with all of those thoughts, I actually found it strangely comforting that the live-action Moana mostly seems to be exactly the same as the animated film. It could have been worse: We could have had another situation like 2025’s Lilo & Stitch remake, where the live-action movie dumps the original movie’s core strengths in the trash.

For people who believe that if a movie makes a lot of money, that inherently means it’s good, Dean Fleischer Camp’s live-action remake of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch was a win. It was the first 2025 movie to rake in $1 billion at the global box office. Personally, even as someone who has spent a ridiculous amount of money on utter garbage throughout my lifetime, I’d say the film’s box-office success proves there really is no accounting for taste.

If you’re among the few who have never seen the original animated movie, 2025’s Lilo & Stitch could be enjoyable. After all, how can you dislike a film that features a young, lonely girl who’s isolated from her peers after her parents’ death, but who forms an unlikely bond with the blue, doglike, chaotic alien that crashes into her life? In my case, though, it was easy to dislike the remake, because Camp’s Lilo & Stitch maliciously, gleefully destroys the elements of sisterhood and community that made the original so compelling and beautiful. I still haven’t forgiven Disney for taking the remake in this new direction, and I never will.

2002’s Lilo & Stitch meant the world to me growing up. I strongly related to Nani, a young woman launched into adulthood too fast when she and her younger sister Lilo are both orphaned, and she becomes Lilo’s caretaker. My sister and I were similarly thrust into caring roles when we were just teenagers. We sacrificed a lot to ensure our family was well looked after, and while it was certainly aggravating at the time, neither of us regrets putting our family first. After all, “Ohana means family,” as the original Lilo & Stitch repeatedly says, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.

Camp’s Lilo & Stitch, however, leans into individualism above all else. While the original film’s Nani fights tooth and nail to give Lilo what she needs because she loves and cares for her sister, Camp’s Lilo & Stitch mistakes Nani’s care for Lilo as “just another job” that she hates and that was forced on her. In one particularly grating scene, Lilo points out all the things Nani used to like doing, but can’t anymore because she’s stuck looking after Lilo. By portraying Lilo as an obstacle to Nani’s dreams rather than as someone who gives her strength to face hardships, Disney distorted the original meaning of Lilo & Stitch into something completely unrecognizable.

Instead of Nani continuing to bring up Lilo as she does in the original, Camp’s Nani is forced to sign Lilo into the care of long-time family friend Tūtū, while Nani moves to California to “live her life.” While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Nani having her own freedom — she’s even able to visit Lilo frequently via portal gun — the rewrite completely misses the original movie’s message. In the animated movie, Nani knows looking after Lilo means sacrifice. While the animated film does touch on the hardships of their relationship, with Nani working multiple jobs and Lilo being lonely, Nani choosing Lilo over everything else is vital to her character, and to the siblings’ relationship. Ohana is supposed to mean nobody gets left behind, but in this version? Nani leaves Lilo behind simply because that’s the easier, more enjoyable route for her.

Image: Walt Disney Pictures

It isn’t clear yet whether the live-action Moana will follow Lilo & Stitch in making key changes to the film. But from what we’ve seen in the trailers so far, it seems likely to be a near shot-for-shot clone of the original. I’m firmly in the camp that we don’t need live-action Disney films to exactly reproduce their animated counterparts. However, I will take The Rock in a bad wig and a live-action Moana that is a direct frame-by-frame replica over Disney repackaging a remake to spread a message that’s the complete antithesis of everything the beloved original movie set out to say.