DisneyPedia: Hawaii - the Islands of Aloha, "Create Your Own Alien Experiment" Game, A Stitch in Time: Follow Stitch Through the Disney Years, Hula Lesson, "Burning Love" Behind The Scenes With Wynonna, "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" Music Video Performed by A-Teens, The Look of "Lilo & Stitch", Animating The Hula, On Location With The Directors, Deleted Scenes with Alternate Ending, Theatrical Teaser Trailers

Lilo and Stitch is directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. Voice actors include, Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World), David Ogden Stiers (THX 1138, Better off Dead), Kevin McDonald (The Kids in the Hall), Ving Rhames, and Jason Scott Lee. The musical score is composed by Alan Silvestri, and the film also features a variety of Elvis Presley songs. ***

Lilo and Stitch is the story of a young girl living in Hawaii, who recently lost her parents in a car accident. Her older sister is now her legal guardian, and the young girl has become somewhat of a social outcast following the loss of her mother and father. Things take a strange and interesting turn when she befriends what she calls a “dog”, but is actually a creature created through generic experiments. ***

All in all, this is a good movie. When it was first released it received an overwhelming number of positive reviews, and it’s hard to argue with them. The animation is terrific, the voice actors absolutely nail their respective characters (Stiers, in particular, is great as the mad scientist who created Stitch), and perhaps most importantly, it’s a strong story that young and old alike will enjoy. ***

This is actually the second release of the film on home video. The first release was only a single-disc package, and it only had a handful of bonus material. This release is two discs, and has a wide variety of extras that are new to this set. If you bought it the first time around, should you double-dip? Honestly, I have to say no. if you don’t already own the movie, this is the version to buy, though. And it comes strongly recommended. ---

Image and Sound:

The visual elements of this movie combine classic Disney animation with modern-day quality and clarity. This disc is the absolute best the film can look on a standard definition format, with no major negative visual issues (note however I did not have access to the original 2002 release for the purposes of this review, so I can’t really say if the image quality here is an improvement over earlier issues.) The audio mix is better than you’d expect for a Disney animated film, and quite surprised this viewer. ***

The big disappointment, though, is that this was ONLY released as a standard DVD. I hope to God that Disney isn’t ever-so-slowly doing high-def restorations of films IN ORIGINAL RELEASE ORDER (as some of their recent releases imply.) If that’s the case, we won’t be seeing Lilo and Stitch in high-def for a VERY long time.

There are considerably more bonus features here than there were on the single-disc, stand-alone package that Disney released in 2002. However, most of what is offered here is miniscule. The good deal of these features are very short (under 5 minutes), and they are mostly kid-oriented. Still, there are some stand-out gems in the package, including a two-hour documentary on the making of the film that didn’t appear in the original release, and some additional deleted scenes, including the somewhat-controversial alternate ending. Also included is an interesting commenta ry with the crew. But as most of the other extras are kiddie stuff, and it’s hard to recommend this package if you got the previous DVD. ---

Final Words: