The new Lilo & Sтιтch remake makes several changes to the original animated story, with one of the most concerning having to do with the appearances of Jumba and Pleakley. Jumba, especially, was one of the biggest differences from the animated Lilo & Sтιтch, as he was made into the villain of the film.

Audiences were confused to see the two alien characters, usually depicted in vibrant, colorful form, turned into the human actors Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen. These changes to Jumba and Pleakley were disappointing, especially as the animated film drew so much humor from their designs and their horribly ineffective disguises.

Instead, the new film gave the duo much more effective human looks, an appearance taken on with the help of a holographic disguise. While having the opportunity to feature Zach Galifianakis in the movie was a positive, this was a somewhat disappointing choice, which has led to some curiosity about why this change was made.

Jumba & Pleakley Appear Human In Most Of Lilo & Sтιтch For Budgetary Reasons

Sтιтch himself is a computer-generated character in Lilo & Sтιтch, and that is an expensive and time-consuming image to construct. While this effort is essential to ensure that the тιтular character is well-represented in the film, the same kind of focus does not need to occur with every member of the supporting cast.

Jumba and Pleakley exist as animated aliens in the original film, but constructing these images for each of their scenes would have been a costly endeavour. Replacing the aliens with human disguises was an excellent way to feature charismatic stars, while also helping to lower the overall cost of the film.

Lilo & Sтιтch‘s budget was a surprisingly low $100 million. This makes sense, as the film was originally planned to be a Disney+ release, skipping theatres entirely. Early in production, however, a pivot was made to produce the film for theatrical release, but the budget was not increased dramatically.

A $100 million budget is low for Disney, and that’s a good thing. The studio has had a difficult time trimming costs, and it has produced far too many films that need to earn blockbuster sums in order to simply break even. Lilo & Sтιтch, meanwhile, only had to earn somewhere in the realm of $250 million to become profitable for the studio.

With Lilo & Sтιтch breaking the $1 billion mark, the film is an astronomical success for Disney. In retrospect, however, this kind of success makes it disappointing that more money wasn’t put into the film’s digital effects, especially with the characters of Jumba and Pleakley.

Hindsight is always clearer, and reducing costs on the film was certainly the right move. However, it is always disappointing to hear about creative choices being compromised because of costs. Still, even as they were, Jumba and Pleakley were an important and enjoyable component of the live-action Lilo & Sтιтch.