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Stitch! The Movie
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Wikipedia article
'Stitch! The Movie' is a 2003 American animated science fiction comedy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and Rough Draft Korea, released on August 26, 2003. It is the second film released in the 'Lilo & Stitch' franchise and the third film chronologically, taking place after the 2002 first film and (by later extension) the 2005 direct-to-video sequel 'Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch'. The film also serves as the backdoor pilot of the spin-off sequel series 'Lilo & Stitch: The Series', which debuted the following month. The story is an introduction to Dr. Jumba Jookiba's 625 experiments (made prior to Stitch) that he created with the financing of Dr. Jacques von Hmsterviel.
Plot
Stitch is still not fitting in and causes another disaster. Lilo tries to encourage him by saying he's one-of-a-kind, comparing him to Frankenstein's monster, which just makes him feel worse. Meanwhile, ex-captain Gantu, who's in his new spaceship after his original one got destroyed when he kidnapped Lilo and tried to recapture Stitch, is hired by Jumba's former partner; a diminutive creature resembling a cross between a hamster, poodle and rabbit named Dr. Jacques von Hmsterviel to retrieve the other 625 experiments. Gantu goes to Earth, breaking into Lilo and Stitch's home, blasting Stitch into a net, finding and taking a blue pod with the number 625 on it, and abducting Jumba for interrogation. Stitch and Lilo take Jumba's spaceship and chase Gantu into outer space, engaging him in battle, only to be defeated and fall back towards Earth.
Back at their house, Lilo, Stitch and Pleakley find the container Jumba was hiding. Pleakley realizes that these are the other 625 experiments, in dehydrated form, and warns them not to tell anyone or put the experiments in water, aware of how dangerous they are. Deliberately disobeying Pleakley's orders, Stitch and Lilo retrieve the container and hydrate one of the experiments, Experiment 221, who promptly escapes into the night. Jumba is being held captive on the ship of Dr. Hmsterviel. Unable to intimidate Jumba, Hmsterviel activates another experiment, Experiment 625, to attack him. Although 625 has some of Stitch's powers, he is incredibly lazy and a terrible coward, prioritizing and making sandwiches above all else. Meanwhile, Pleakley is able to call Hmsterviel's ship via telephone. Hmsterviel tells Pleakley that he wants a ransom of the other 624 experiments in return for Jumba. When Pleakley informs the other family members what the ransom is, Nani proceeds to call Cobra Bubbles about the problem while Lilo and Stitch go out to find 221. When Cobra arrives the next morning, he seems to already know about what happened. Meanwhile, Stitch and Lilo finally manage to catch a troublesome Experiment 221 at a nearby hotel with a glass vase and soon befriend him.
The rendezvous time arrives and Pleakley and Cobra show up with the container, not knowing that it contains only 623 experiments. Pleakley hands the container over to Hmsterviel, who is shocked to find that one is missing. Lilo then shows up with Experiment 221 trapped in the vase. Announcing that she has named it "Sparky", she says that Sparky is part of Stitch's, and thus her, 'ohana'. Furious, Hmsterviel tells her to give him the experiment or Jumba will die. After several moments of thinking and hearing Cobra, Pleakley, Jumba and Hmsterviel persuading them, Lilo and Stitch set Sparky free and break Jumba from his bonds. On Cobra's signal, the Grand Councilwoman's ship rises out of the nearby ocean and aims several guns at Hmsterviel to obliterate him. Lilo protests, saying that Hmsterviel has the other experiments while Sparky overhears this. Sparky then proceeds to use his electrical abilities to blow the power on the Councilwoman's ship, while Hmsterviel and Gantu climb back aboard their own ship with the captured experiments. In a last attempt to stop Hmsterviel, Lilo, Stitch and Sparky stow away on it as it leaves Earth.
Inside the ship, Lilo and Stitch manage to swipe the container with the other experiments in it. The struggle for the container between Lilo, Stitch and Gantu results in releasing the dehydrated pods to rain down and scatter throughout Hawaii. Having captured the two, Hmsterviel reveals his plans to clone Stitch a thousand times over and orders Gantu to do what he wants with Lilo. While Gantu puts Lilo in a teleportation pod to send her to an intergalactic zoo, Stitch is strapped to a weight just heavier than he can lift. Watching as Stitch tries to avoid being vivisected by a laser for the cloning process, Sparky shows that he has reformed by short-circuiting the cloning machine. He then breaks Stitch free from his bonds and the two strap Hmsterviel to the device before they rescue Lilo.
Having locked Hmsterviel in handcuffs, Lilo, Stitch, and Sparky short-circuit Gantu's ship, causing it to crash near a waterfall on Kauai. Landing Hmsterviel's ship back at the rendezvous point, they give Sparky a new home powering Klauea Lighthouse, which hasn't been running in years because powering it was very expensive. They then persuade the Grand Councilwoman to let them rehabilitate the other 623 experiments. The Councilwoman places Hmsterviel under arrest, and Jumba whispers to Pleakley that he has plans for making Experiment 627. At that moment, Experiments 202, 529, 455, 489, and 390 are activated, beginning the events of the series.
Later, Jumba and Pleakley hope to go home with the Grand Councilwoman this time, but they are left stranded on Earth once again.
Voice cast
* Chris Sanders as Stitch a.k.a. Experiment 626
* Frank Welker as Sparky a.k.a. Experiment 221, Stitch's cousin and Various Voices
* Daveigh Chase as Lilo Pelekai
* Jeff Bennett as Dr. Hmsterviel
* Kevin Michael Richardson as Captain Gantu
* Tia Carrere as Nani Pelekai
* David Ogden Stiers as Dr. Jumba Jookiba
* Kevin McDonald as Agent Wendy Pleakley
* Ving Rhames as Cobra Bubbles
* Rob Paulsen as Reuben a.k.a. Experiment 625, Gantu's sidekick
* Dee Bradley Baker as David Kawena
Other voices, listed as "With the Voice Talents of":
* Corey Burton as Hawaiian Man
* Zoe Caldwell as Grand Councilwoman
* Tress MacNeille as Hmsterviel's Ship Computer
* Kunewa Mook as Moses Puloki
* Liliana Mumy as Mertle Edmonds
* Jess Winfield as Various Voices
* Lili Ishida as Yuki (uncredited)
* Jillian Henry as Elena (uncredited)
* Kali Whitehurst as Teresa (uncredited)
Production
Presented by Walt Disney Pictures and produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, 'Stitch! The Movie' serves as the lead-in to 'Lilo & Stitch: The Series'. The animation production was outsourced to three studios in Seoul, South Korea: Rought Draft Korea, Starburst Animation, and the Main Stream Studio. Main Stream also worked on the film's CGI production.
The film's original title was going to be 'Lilo & Stitch: A New Ohana'. At some point, there was a decision to only have Stitch's name in the titles of both the movie and the subsequent series, which was planned to be called 'Stitch! The TV Series'. Eventually, this was abolished, resulting in both this film and 'The Series' having mismatched names. The 'Stitch!' name (with exclamation point) would be used as the title for an anime series five years after this film's release.
Critical reception
In a 2019 list of direct-to-video sequels, prequels, and "mid-quels" to Disney animated films, Petrana Radulovic of 'Polygon' ranked 'Stitch! The Movie' tenth out of twenty-six films, the lowest of the 'Lilo & Stitch' sequel films on her list. Radulovic wrote that she liked the message of Stitch finding his family, but criticized it for not being as funny as the original 'Lilo & Stitch' film, stating that "some of the [mundane] charm of 'Lilo & Stitch'[...]is lost in favor of chasing a new alien [Sparky] and introducing the rabbitlike villain [Hmsterviel] who just wants world domination."
In a similar list in 2020, Lisa Wehrstedt of 'Insider' ranked 'Stitch! The Movie' seventeenth out of twenty-five films, also the lowest of the 'Lilo & Stitch' sequels on her list. Wehrstedt wrote that she believed the film's premise did not warrant a full feature film, and its finale was too "open-ended" to have 'Stitch! The Movie' "work as a stand-alone film like the rest of the 'Lilo & Stitch' sequels." However, she nonetheless claimed that "everything in the 'Lilo & Stitch' world has an irresistible charm that propels it up many ranks considering what its plot and animation quality would be able to achieve without a bunch of cute little monsters."
Notes
References
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