Chris Sanders first began thinking about a Stitchlike character nearly 17 years ago when he was just out of school and working on his first animation assignment. He drew a monstrous-looking creature and began toying with a wide range of plots to go with it. The character stayed with him over the years as he continued to search for the appropriate vehicle.
Sanders recalls, "Back in 1985, I made one drawing of Stitch in which I had partially constructed his head. After working on the story for a while, I got stuck and put it aside. Years later, while working on the story for ‘Mulan,’ I started thinking about him again. In the early versions, there was no Lilo and Stitch wasn’t an alien but rather a monstrosity that didn’t know where he came from. He was an anomaly who lived in the forest all by himself. That evolved into him being marooned on Earth for having done something really bad. Then the setting became Kansas and the story took place completely in the animal world. When I pitched it to Tom Schumacher, he suggested we should put Stitch in the human world to get more of a contrast. It was pretty much at that point that the story took off and I hooked up with Dean."
Producer Clark Spencer remembers, "The film was originally going to take place in Kansas because it is sparsely populated and suited that aspect of the story. It happened to be around the time in the story development that Chris was planning a trip to Hawaii. As he studied the map of Hawaii, he saw all the islands spread out and surrounded by an ocean of blue. And he thought, ‘Hawaii is a very isolated location and would make a fantastic place to set the film.’ As he began to learn more about the wonderful rich culture and the history of the islands, it all began to take shape. The choice of Hawaii as a location informed a lot of different things. There’s hula dancing and surfing. There’s great native music. And there’s a spectrum of colors that you don’t get anywhere else in the world. In our film, audiences who haven’t been to the islands will also get to experience and understand a culture that is quite different than in other parts of the United States."
DeBlois recalls, "When I first read Chris’ book presentation, I fell in love with Lilo because she was eternally forgiving and full of love. She was just looking for someone to give it to. Nani and Lilo were on this crash course destiny and barely holding it together when Stitch comes in and accelerates the destruction of the family. In so doing, he is affected by Lilo and is the only one who can pull it back together. So these two very unlikely characters end up affecting each other’s lives in ways they wouldn’t have seen coming."
Sanders notes, "Most of the action in the film rests on Nani. She’s like the Gregory Peck character in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Everything pivots on her, storywise. All the pressure is on her. The other characters have a lot to lose but she’s the one who’s aware of it. The scene where she’s about to tell Lilo that she’s going to go away for good is a perfect example of the burden that she faces."
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