The 2025 live-action Lilo & Stitch movie has finally dropped its first full trailer

Disney has a grand tradition of wishing upon a star but when Leigh Harline and Ned Washington wrote that song in 1938, they likely never imagined a chaotic blue alien would answer the call.

Sometimes you forget how much Disney incorporates its classic tropes into its stories, but even a story set in Hawaii about an unlikely friendship between a precocious girl and an extra-terrestrial with a penchant for destruction has those moments.

Lilo, seeing a shooting star, rushes to the window and asks the universe, “I wish for a friend, like a best friend”.

Amid the shenanigans, Lilo & Stitch is a very sweet movie about belonging and connection, and the nature of what makes someone good or bad. He’s just a mischievous little experiment.

The live-action version of the 2002 beloved animated feature is out in just over two months and has finally released its first full-length trailer.

Mostly what it confirms is that this remake seems pretty faithful to the original film, recreating some scenes beat for beat.

There’s Lilo being ostracised during her dance class, Stitch stealing the red cruiser, destroying sandcastles and going for a surf. There’s also the all-important message about “ohana” and how family doesn’t left behind or forgotten.

Awww, you’re going to cry, aren’t you?

The Elvis tracks are present as is, at least in the trailer, the familiar refrain from the “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” song.

The delineations from the original include Dr Jumba and Peakley now have shape-shifting human disguises in the form of Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen. Plus, the recurring sunburnt white tourist who constantly loses his ice cream is now a Hawaiian guy and the ice cream is now shaved ice.

The live-action cast also includes Maia Kealoha as Lilo, Sydney Agudong as Nani, Kaipo Dudoit as David and Courtney B. Vance as Cobra Bubbles, the social worker/former secret agent.

Chris Sanders, who co-directed the 2002 film and voiced Stitch in the animated film returned to lend his vocals to the CGI version.

Tia Carrera and Jason Scott Lee, who played Nani and David in the original, have small supporting roles in the live-action movie.

The film is directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, who is best known for the tender and meditative stop-motion animation film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which was nominated for an Oscar and won three Annie Awards.

Despite reticence from some quarters of the internet that the CGI Stitch would be an abomination, the more we’ve seen of him, the more it’s clear he is pretty damn adorable.

How can you not love that chaos monster, in any form?

Lilo & Stitch is in cinemas on May 22