‘I Do Stand By The Decision': Lilo & Stitch Director Explains Why Gantu Isn't In The New Movie
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The latest of live-action Disney movie remakes is here with the release of the new Lilo & Stitch, and that means fans like myself are going to start talking about how the beloved animated version compares to it. One major change you might have already noticed is that a character named Gantu was not adapted to the 2025 movie. When CinemaBlend sat down with the filmmakers, they told us why.
In the 2002 movie, Experiment 626 flees to Earth after he is sentenced to exile, but the United Galactic Federation is hot on his trail to retrieve him. We already knew Jumba and Pleakley would be back in the movie (played by Zach Galifinakis and Billy Magnussen), but Captain Gantu is not part of the equation this time. Here's what director Dean Fleischer Camp said about the revision:
Gantu was one of those things that just didn't work so well in live action. We explored it a bit, but ultimately we had to make the decision. And also I do stand by the decision 'cause I feel like a lot of the things that in trying to ground these characters more and tell a story with a little more emotional depth, especially between the sisters, I feel like you have to free up real estate to allow that breathing room to do those things.
When it comes to Disney remakes, there's been a varying degree of resemblance to their originals, from The Lion King's quite close reenactment to the recent Snow White movie adding a whole new batch of songs to the soundtrack. As Camp shared with us, they 'explored' having Gantu in the live-action Lilo & Stitch, but ultimately felt he was a necessary cut to make room for some of the new additions.
In the case of Gantu, the character is sent by the Grand Councilwoman of the Galactic Federation to take more invasive measures to capture Stitch after Jumba and Pleakley's methods prove to be ineffective. As someone who grew up adoring the 2002 movie, I didn't necessarily miss his presence, and I can see how it might look a little odd in live-action. Still, I would be curious how it would have looked for him to be in it.
I gave the remake a 3.5 out of 5 in my Lilo & Stitch review, noting how, yes, there's some aspects of the animated movie I missed from this version, Gantu included, but I overall enjoyed the added focus on its human characters, particularly through Maia Kealoha and Sydney Agudong's Lilo & Nani. As Camp continued in our interview,
I think my approach to the film is to respect the fact that animation is a very different medium than live action. And I don't think it usually works when – there's a danger in just trying to port it in one-to-one. Literally just depict it in photo-real photography because I think you lose a lot of expressiveness and all these things that animation does better than live action. There are a lot of those.
Lilo & Stitch does a balance of having so many recreations of original scenes we know and love, and taking some creative liberties to align better with the medium. (For example, you might have also heard about the changes to Pleakley and his affinity in the original for wigs and dresses.) As Camp continued:
There's ways it can also cheat that live action can't, and live action can also do things better than animation can't, which is what we kind of tried to write a little bit more towards in recalibrating it for a live-action film.
At the end of the day, we'll always have the original animated movie to return back to, but it's always interesting to see what stays and what goes when it comes to these Disney remakes. Lilo & Stitch is now playing.
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