‘I Do Stand By The Decision’: 'Lilo & Stitch' Director Explains Why Gantu Isn’t In The New Movie

Interview with DIrector; Dean Fleischer Camp and Producer; Jonathan Eirich

Transcript

00:00There's no Gantu.

00:01Tell me why.

00:02What happened?

00:03You know, you're not the first person.

00:05You're difficult to work with.

00:06Yeah, I've got cut out.

00:07He's massive.

00:08I shouldn't, but I want to know why.

00:09He wanted too much money.

00:10No, I think that there are...

00:13I think, you know, my approach to the film is to respect the fact that animation is a

00:19very different medium than live action.

00:21And I don't think it usually works when there's a danger in just trying to port it one-to-one,

00:27literally just depicted in photoreal photography.

00:30Because I think you lose a lot of expressiveness and all these things that animation does better

00:35than live action.

00:36There are a lot of those.

00:37There's ways it can also cheat that live action can't.

00:39And there's a...

00:40You know, live action can also do things better than animation can't, which is what we kind

00:44of tried to write a little bit more towards in recalibrating it for a live action film.

00:48Gantu is one of those things that, you know, it just didn't work so well in live action.

00:55We explored it a bit, but ultimately we had to make a decision.

00:59And also, I still...

01:00I do stand by the decision because I feel like a lot of the things that, in trying to ground

01:05these characters more and tell a story with a little more emotional depth, especially

01:09between the sisters, I feel like you have to free up real estate to allow that breathing

01:15room to do those things.

01:16And, you know, sorry, Gantu.

01:18Sorry, Gantu.