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      in Movies

      ‘Lilo & Stitch’: How a Fuzzy Blue Alien Became a Disney Cash Cow

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      Step aside, Moana, Elsa and Simba. In recent years, Stitch has quietly become one of Disney’s most popular — and most merchandised — characters.Eight-year-old Elle Bauerlein of Wake Forest, N.C., is obsessed with Stitch. “Honestly, I think about him all the time. Like, 10 hours every day.”Her American Girl doll, currently clad in a Stitch onesie complete with alien-eared hood, is technically named Stacy, but Elle prefers to call her “S” in tribute to Stitch. If she had to pick a favorite Disney princess it would be Moana, but only because Moana spends time on beachy activities similar to Stitch. Her pillowcase is Stitch. Her backpack is Stitch. Her Crocs are Stitch.The third grader was born more than a decade after the 2002 Disney animated film “Lilo & Stitch” was released in theaters, and yet, for the past two years, the rambunctious title character has been a fixture in her life.She’s not alone.In an act of belated cultural permeation, Stitch — the destructive but adorable alien experiment who crash-landed in Hawaii and befriended a young girl named Lilo — has become a crucial character in the Walt Disney Company’s modern empire, mainly in the form of a dizzying array of licensed merchandise.At PetSmart, you can find a Stitch squeaker toy for your dog. The discount chain Five Below has Stitch neck pillows, portable power banks and slime. Stitch clothing and accessories line the shelves at Primark. Yoplait offers berry- and cherry-flavored Stitch yogurt. Even Graceland has a tie-in collection of Stitch pompadoured plushies dressed in various Elvis Presley ensembles. If you’re overwhelmed, don’t worry: There’s also a cottage industry of TikTokers who devote their entire accounts to showcasing the latest Stitch-centric items to their legions of followers.While Disney does not release official sales data, the company’s annual financial reports for 2023 and 2024 included “Lilo & Stitch” on a short list of nine examples of its “major” licensed properties, putting it on par with classic titans like Winnie the Pooh and Mickey and Friends, and conglomerates like Star Wars and the collective Disney princesses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      What if Making Cartoons Becomes 90% Cheaper?

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      “Fear not! For I shall lead ye to riches beyond your wildest dreams!”Inside a tiny recording booth in downtown Los Angeles, John Peck waited for a verdict from the voice-over engineer: Did the line sound pirate-y enough?Try again, the engineer suggested, perhaps with more throaty emphasis on “wildest.” It might make the animated character Mr. Peck was voicing — a buccaneer with a peg leg — a tiny bit funnier.Mr. Peck, 33, cleared his throat and gave it a whirl, prompting chuckles from the production team. A couple of clicks on a laptop later, and an artificial intelligence tool synced Mr. Peck’s voice with a cartoon pirate’s mouth movements. The character was destined for an episode of “StEvEn & Parker,” a YouTube series about rapscallion brothers that attracts 30 million unique viewers weekly.Just a few years ago, lip-syncing a minute of animation could take up to four hours. An animator would listen to an audio track and laboriously adjust character mouths frame by frame. But Mr. Peck’s one-minute scene took 15 minutes for the A.I. tool to sync, including time spent by an artist to refine a few spots by hand.Toonstar, the start-up behind “StEvEn & Parker,” uses A.I. throughout the production process — from honing story lines to generating imagery to dubbing dialogue for overseas audiences. “By leaning into the technology, we can make full episodes 80 percent faster and 90 percent cheaper than industry norms,” said John Attanasio, a Toonstar founder.“This is how you build the next generation of hot intellectual property,” Mr. Attanasio added excitedly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Lilo & Stitch’ Review: Creature Chaos

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      The live-action remake of the hit 2002 Disney film is mostly serviceable and often adorable, even if the best parts of the original got left behind.An interesting facet of this age of Disney live-action remakes is how the style and tone of these updates to children’s classics, reimagined decades later, can personify exactly how the sensibilities of mass entertainment have shifted since. From the opening moments of “Lilo & Stitch,” which mostly mirrors the content of its 2002 animated predecessor, the difference is clear: more speed, more noise and more hand-holding for the audience.To be fair, that is all particularly enhanced by a movie whose entire engine (and marketing) is fueled by a critter that wreaks mayhem and destruction at every turn. Here, things move at warp speed, even as the movie constantly trips over itself trying to pluck at the next heart string. But there’s just enough to make for a moderately fun, mostly serviceable and often adorable revamp that will probably satisfy fans of the original.Save for a couple characters added and subtracted, along with an amped-up climax, this update, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, is largely faithful to the original, tracking the bond between Lilo (Maia Kealoha), an orphaned girl being raised by her older sister, Nani (Sydney Agudong), and Stitch (a returning Chris Sanders, who was one of the directors of the 2002 film), an incorrigible alien lab experiment that crash-lands in the jungles of Hawaii.On the run from the United Galactic Federation, Stitch poses as a dog and goes home with Lilo and Nani, using them as human shields against Jumba (Zach Galifianakis) and Pleakley (Billy Magnussen), two aliens tasked with capturing Stitch. As Nani struggles to raise her sister on her own and tries to prevent child services from taking Lilo away, Stitch only adds to the chaos. But for Lilo, a desperately lonely girl still grieving the loss of her parents, Stitch quickly becomes “ohana,” i.e. family, i.e. “nobody gets left behind.”This early aughts romp didn’t seem like an obvious candidate for Disney’s ongoing live-action redo campaign, other than the opportunity it presented to let such a memorable (and moneymaking) creature loose in the real world; the studio giant’s other remakes have been partly justified by either recreating vast and fantastical universes (“The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King”) or dusting off classic storybook properties for a new century (“Dumbo,” “Pinocchio”). In this case, the unique visual splendor of the original — rendering Hawaiian landscapes in a gorgeous and idiosyncratic watercolor animation — is replaced by the easy blandness of a Disney Channel movie.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      How Japanese Superfans Redefined What It Means to Be Obsessed

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      Otaku, people for whom hero worship is a way of life, have changed everyone’s relationship to the culture.ON ANY GIVEN night, the neon-lit streets of Akihabara, an entertainment district in central Tokyo, are packed with visitors. Inside windowless shopping malls, they flock to stalls selling used Hello Kitty or Astro Boy figurines, Pokémon trading cards and vintage video game consoles. At the idol bars and theaters — venues dedicated to musical acts like AKB48, which was named after the area — they wave glow sticks in colors that correspond to their favorite performers. And at the maid cafes, they pay to take pictures with young waitresses in petticoats and pinafores, many of whom hope to become stars themselves one day. Since the Japanese anime boom of the past few decades, Akihabara has been a refuge for the otaku — someone who would “go beyond the lengths of any normal person to pursue their interests,” according to the 2004 documentary film “Otaku Unite!” Kaede, 29, a member of F5ve, a girl group based on the 1990s manga series “Sailor Moon,” calls the neighborhood their “holy land.” More

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      in Television

      The Darker Side of Japan’s Love of Cuteness

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      From Hello Kitty to Pikachu, the country changed what the world considers adorable. But do these characters represent joy — or rage?To accompany this essay, three Japanese artists created (and named) seven mascots exclusively for T, all inspired by or representing The New York Times in some way.HELLO KITTY STANDS on the balcony like Eva Perón, framed by two great stone pillars and a blue-green dome. At least theoretically she is standing: Save for the round, claw-free paws on the balustrade, she is all giant head, white as a lit-up lamp with sun ray whiskers and the slash of a red ribbon at her left ear, mouthless, her eyes wholly pupils. This little girl — she is not a cat, although not not a cat either (more on this in a bit) — presides over an exhibition at the Hyokeikan, part of the Tokyo National Museum complex in the city’s Ueno Park, celebrating her 50 years of existence and global domination. More

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      in Television

      How an Anime Master Perfects the Cool Guy Action Hero

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      When it comes to creators who have defined contemporary anime, Shinichiro Watanabe is no less than a television auteur. His anime series, which include the renowned “Cowboy Bebop” and “Samurai Champloo,” are known for thrilling fight scenes, propulsive musical scores and fun, unpredictable characters.Watanabe’s signature is his magnetic Joe Cool protagonist. He’s a cowboy, bounty hunter, itinerant with some moral gray areas, but he’s ultimately a good guy who’s loyal to his crew. While loafing around at a bar he may give the vibe of an impassive layabout. But during a mission he is a suave, athletic fighter with a hybrid style of tussling that draws from various martial arts forms and alludes to several of the great movers and fighters from history.“Lazarus” is Watanabe’s latest series, about a scientist whose miracle drug may wipe out humanity and the ragtag team of miscreants who must track him down. Recruited to that team is Axel Gilberto, a fresh yet familiar take on Watanabe’s typical hero. Here’s how the latest version of Watanabe’s always athletic, always stylish leading man fits into his history.‘Cowboy Bebop’ (1998)The OriginalSpike Spiegel, the cool guy prototype, is known for his laidback style.Watanabe’s original cool-guy hero is Spike Spiegel, the centerpiece of his popular space Western “Cowboy Bebop.” Spike’s attitude and style are a mix between two well-worn cinematic tropes: the unflappable Old West gunslinger and the cynical down-on-his-luck film noir detective. His body language conveys a sense of nonchalance, even indifference. When he’s relaxed, his gangly frame is often reclined, and when he’s up and about he saunters around, hands in pockets, arms akimbo, with a smooth, uninterrupted gait.His fight style reflects this same fluidity; Spike is a master at evasive movement, great at narrowly dodging hits. Though he excels at both close range fighting and taking shots at a distance, his legs and footwork are really the stars of his combat style:We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      At 30, ‘A Goofy Movie’ Has Made a Serious Impact

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      The 30-year-old animated Disney film has fans across generations. Now, a documentary looks back at its legacy.“If we listen to each other’s heart / We’ll find we’re never too far apart,” sang the fictional pop star Powerline (voiced by Tevin Campbell) during a 2017 screening of “A Goofy Movie” at El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.The ecstatic reaction from those in attendance confirmed to Kevin Lima that the first movie he ever directed, originally released on April 7, 1995, had indeed amassed an adoring fandom.“I sat amongst an audience who was singing along, repeating back dialogue with the characters onscreen, dancing in their seats,” Lima recalled during a recent video interview from his home in Mill Valley, Calif.“A Goofy Movie” observes the often hilarious, and at times thorny relationship between Goofy (voiced by Bill Farmer), the lanky anthropomorphic dog from Disney’s classic cartoons, and his teenage son, Max (Jason Marsden), as they go on a road trip that will bring them closer.A scene from “A Goofy Movie,” which follows a father-son road trip.Buena Vista PicturesUnlike most Disney films made during that time, this heartfelt father-son adventure was a contemporary story entrenched in the 1990s via its upbeat pop music and the characters’ wardrobes. Lima described it as “an animated film that feels like a John Hughes movie.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      ‘Boop!’ Arrives on Broadway, With a Surprising 100-Year Back Story

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      Betty Boop has arrived on Broadway, nearly a century after she first boop-oop-a-dooped her way onto the big screen. “Boop! The Musical,” like the “Barbie” and “Elf” films that preceded it, imagines a transformational encounter between an anthropomorphic character and the real world (well, a fictional world full of people).Betty’s journey to the stage has been an unusual one. The original character didn’t have much of a back story, which has made her an appealing blank slate for storytellers. But her image — and Betty, at her core, is a remarkably long-lived illustration — has managed to straddle media and merchandise, surviving court battles and changing mores.“Her popularity goes on and on,” said Peter Benjaminson, author of “The Life and Times of Betty Boop.” “The musical is the latest in a series of incarnations.”Film DebutThe 1930 animated short “Dizzy Dishes.”Fleischer Studios, Inc.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More