5 things we want to see in the live-action Lilo and Stitch

With news that Disney is giving us a live-action Lilo and Stitch movie, there are plenty of things we want to see from the original animated film.

Now that the Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that there is a live-action Lilo and Stitch movie in the works, we know that the adventures of our favorite alien space surfer are coming our way once again. With the film giving us a mix of both CGI and live action, there seems to be enough flexibility to give us many of the things we want to see from the animated classic.

While there are plenty of things we think the movie needs to give us in order to live up to the original, we have come up with five must-haves we think will make this movie perfect.

Representation in casting

Perhaps the most important thing is making sure the actors who portray characters like Lilo and Nani are played by someone from Hawaii. Representation is important, and one of the things we loved about the original animated movie was the amazing culture we got to see. From Lilo taking classes to learn the art of Hula, to seeing David surfing, we want to see these things brought to life.

Music!

Another thing we want the live-action to include is all of the amazing music, specifically the Elvis music. After it was originally revealed that Mulan would not feature music, all of our hearts broke a little (even if Disney did change its mind eventually). The last thing we want is to hear that there won’t be any music in Lilo and Stitch.

The Rock

While we don’t have a dream cast in mind just yet, we would love to see Dwayne Johnson in the movie. In fact, we think he would be great in the role of either Jumba or even Gantu. Whether he is the bumbling scientist who created Stitch or the intergalactic agent out to capture the escaped experiment, we think Johnson would be a great fit in Lilo and Stitch.

Experiments

Even though CGI is likely going to be used to bring us our Stitch, we still want to see some of the other experiments that Jumba created. As experiment number 626, there are over 600 other experiments created by Jumba. And since we got to see some glimpses of those other experiments in the animated movie and the ensuing series, we would love to see them in the live-action as well.

“Ohana means family”

And if nothing else, we hope that Lilo and Stitch holds true to the animated movie both in terms of its primary focus on family, but also in the relationships between Lilo and Nani, as well as Lilo and Stitch, and even Jumba and Pleakley. These relationships were at the core and heart of the movie, giving us characters we fell in love with and rooted for.

At this point we don’t really know a lot about the live-action movie, beyond the fact that Mike Van Waes has been hired to work on the script, and that the producers are Jonathan Eirich and Dan Lin. And really we can’t wait for more details to be revealed.