Kawaii in Hawai’i. Disney music.

(The poster images are very large and don’t link directly on the page well as images, so I am posting them as text links.) Lilo and Stitch had a very interesting advertising campaign when it came out. The standard poster that I saw in the USA had an assortment of classic disney characters looking at stitch with disgust. Some variations of this poster had Stitch without clothes and some witty slogan, but the same disney characters on it. When I first saw this, I was excited about a possible “crossover” flick but appalled by it too… well, as all of you probably know, L&S was NOT a crossover movie, and all the classic disney characters were just there to help sell the movie.

This corresponded with a TV/Movie ad campaign that had Stitch disrupting scenes in famous Disney movies, such as interrupting Jasmine and Aladdin’s carpet ride to hit on Jasmine >_<;;;  These are all on youtube.

Once again, Japan did things differently….but very very well! Their poster features Lilo and Stitch on a hammock in a beautiful evening setting. It’s gorgeous. It’s cute, too, and かわいい (cute) sells in Japan, no doubt about that.

This one was used in France, Spain, and Italy. I don’t know if it was used in combination with the standard poster. It’s pretty, but you don’t even see Lilo’s face. The tagline on this variation is something like “anything is possible with friendship.” This totally undersells the movie, making it seem like your average dumb kid-meets-alien flick but set in Hawai’i.

The USA poster undersold the movie, too. Which is why I made the horrible mistake of going to see Mr. Deeds instead, which was a huge waste of time. I would’ve rather seen Rock-a-Doodle than Mr. Deeds. o_o;;

All images from carteles.

Yeah, I liked Lilo and Stitch. Until it turned into pokémon on the TV series. I haven’t seen either of the 4-odd sequels they’ve made (direct-to-video) but Lilo’s voice actress’s voice annoys me. Which is why I couldn’t stand the dub of Spirited Away. But bad dubbing is a separate rant for a separate occasion.

But we can’t judge a movie by the crappiness of its spinoffs and sequels, now can we? That would be unfair. So, ignoring all disgust caused by the various forms of prostitution Disney has subjected L&S to, I really liked the original movie. It was “weird,” and that’s what made it good. Completely original, too. And it had Elvis music! Instead of trying to write some kind of musical garbage for such an odd film and failing (cough cough…All Dogs Go to Heaven….good movie, abysmal songs), they used sort of “pop” songs for it. Kinda like Tarzan. Disney, for many of its films, especially old ones, used whatever style was popular at the time for the film music, i.e. Pinocchio had the swing-style “Give a Little Whistle,” Jungle Book had the bebop-esque “I Wan’na Be Like You” and Snow White’s music was all kinda ’30s-pop. So Lilo and Stitch was somewhat an extension of this, although “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” sounds a little ’80s to me. (Don’t get me wrong, I love the broadway-style Disney songs just as much…)

I think Disney took a big risk with L&S, and maybe that explains the use of classic disney characters in advertising. Funny how many of the movies they expect to flop or do mediocre become hits (L&S…some of those Pixar films, can’t remember which…) and some of the expected winners do terribly. A risk can be a good thing, considering the crap sequels to “winners” and Princess re-hash DVDs we’ve been subjected to. I hope Rapunzel and Bolt are damn good….