Stitch (Lilo & Stitch)
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Stitch is the name of the genetic experiment 626, a fictional alien protagonist from the Lilo & Stitch films and television program. Originally created to cause chaos across the galaxy, he is marked by his short temper and mischievous behavior, traits that endear him to his friend Lilo, who adopted him as her puppy dog. He is voiced by his creator and the film's co-director, Chris Sanders.
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[edit] Appearance
Stitch is a cute blue alien genetic creation standing between 3 and 3.5 feet tall and strongly resembles a koala, though he's referred to as a dog throughout much of the franchise. He has a limited ability to change his physical appearance, as he can retract a second set of arms, his antennae, his claws and the three spines on his back into his body.
[edit] History
As revealed in Lilo & Stitch, Stitch was created by "evil genius" Dr. Jumba Jookiba, who called him "Experiment 626", with the genes of the galaxy's strongest and most ferocious creatures being zapped with electricity to start the molecules forming and starting to solidify into the form and fully formed, but when the experiment was finished, Jumba was disappointed to see how cute and fluffy he was. Nevertheless, Jumba soon sees 626's destructive potential and begins to charge Stitch's molecules. However, before Stitch is fully charged, both he and Jumba are captured by police officers of the Galactic Federation.
626 is then sentenced by the Grand Councilwoman to life in exile on a desert asteroid and Captain Gantu escorts him. Stitch escapes and crash-lands in Kaua'i, Hawaii. Disguising himself as a dog (although he actually looks like a koala), 626 was adopted by a little girl named Lilo, who names him "Stitch".
Stitch is trained by Lilo to be good, using Elvis Presley as a model for his behavior. Lilo's efforts prove to be fruitless at first, as Stitch is unable to suppress his destructive programming. Nevertheless, Lilo enjoys her new "puppy". Although at first he only wanted to use the girl as a human shield from Jumba and Agent Pleakley, whose mission is to capture the fugitive experiment, Stitch slowly develops feelings for Lilo, to the point where he saved her life from Gantu. After his heroics, the Grand Councilwoman allows Stitch to serve his exile on Earth with Lilo as his warder, citing her dog adoption certificate (subsequently, Lilo seems to have become not only a best friend but also a sister figure to Stitch).
In Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (set shortly after the first movie), Stitch is living well and is reasonably well-behaved (although still hot-tempered and mischievous) with the exiled Jumba and Pleakley in Lilo's house until he begins malfunctioning. Since he was not fully charged after his creation, Stitch experiences periodic glitches that have him reverting back to his original destructive programming, appearing to suffer from a "fit" or "seizure". Seeing this, Jumba strives to create a proper charging chamber for Stitch. Not wanting to hurt anyone and not knowing about Jumba's plan, Stitch attempts to leave Earth for a remote planet, while Lilo, Jumba, and the others desperately try to have him return so they can recharge him. Although they are too late when they place him in the recharging pod, Stitch seems to be revived by Lilo's love, in accordance with her belief that love is more powerful than death.
In Stitch! The Movie, 626 discovers the remaining 625 genetic experiments locked in a crate, in the form of dehydrated pods. In order to rescue a kidnapped Jumba a trade between Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel and Jumba for the experiments is organized, but it instead results in the freedom of the experiments and the capture of Lilo and Stitch. Hämsterviel then tries to clone Stitch but he was rescued by Experiment 221 ("Sparky"). Stitch then rescued Lilo and landed Hämsterviel's spacecraft back in Kaua'i, where the Grand Councilwoman waited to arrest Hämsterviel.
In Lilo and Stitch the series, Stitch and Lilo have to capture Jumba's experiments, turn them from evil to good, and find them a home. Stitch is infected by some experiment powers:Babyfier(151) turns him into a baby, Spike(319) makes him goofy and Amnesio(303) wipes out his memory. However, in "Angel" Angel(624) attemps to turn him evil but the spell won't effect him because she was created before he was. Stitch and Lilo eventually captures these experiments and finds them a home :Babyfier(a dogpound), Spike(Stitch keeps him), Amnesio(unknown) and Angel(Stitch keeps her).
After they have successfully captured all the remaining experiments in Leroy & Stitch, The Grand Councilwoman offered Stitch the chance to become the captain of the Galactic Armada and its new flagship, The BRB (Big Red Battleship) 9000. However, that would require Stitch to be separated from Lilo. Not wanting to make Lilo sad, he chooses to return to Kaua'i. However, Lilo tells him he should go. Before he leaves with Jumba and Pleakley, Lilo gives him a necklace with a tiki of the god Ku Tiki to give him strength. She also gives Pleakley a rock, and Jumba an Elvis record. When Gantu breaks out Dr. Hämsterviel in an action of frustration, Stitch is sent on his first mission to capture the evil rodent once more. But when he arrives at Galactic Defense Industries, Stitch faces off against a new experiment - Leroy, who is an enhanced clone of Stitch. Stitch fights well and is about to beat Leroy when Pleakley shows up unexpectedly, allowing Leroy to take advantage of Stitch's lapse in concentration and beat him. He is placed in a cage and sent with Jumba and Pleakley heading towards a black hole. After they are sent towards the black hole, Leroy heads off towards earth to capture all of the other experiments for Hamsterviel. Later, Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakley escape from the black hole, and arrive on the planet Turo. There they rescue Lilo, 625 (now known as Reuben), and Gantu, in whose spacecraft they fly back to Earth to assist the other 624 experiments in the defeat of an army of Leroys. Now, with Leroy defeated, Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley return to Earth with Lilo, realizing family is more important than spaceships, laboratories, and prestige.
[edit] Personality
Throughout the course of the entire Lilo and Stitch franchise, Stitch is depicted as a character that is unlikable to many people except Lilo (on rare occasions, even she falls out with him, most notably in Lilo and Stitch 2, where she cries out at him that he is "bad, and always will be!") due to his destructive and temperamental behaviour. It is interesting to note that people who are averse to Stitch, such as Mertle or Hamsterviel, describe him as "ugly and deformed", while people with an affection( like Lilo, Jumba, and Nani) for him describe him as "cute and fluffy". This reflects the basic idea behind Stitch and also his cousins: they do not correspond to many established criteria of good physical appearance in that they have an extra pair of arms or misshapen heads. When Stitch is in his "evil" form, he is undeniably worrying as his somewhat botched physique underlines his at the time twisted behaviour; in "good" form however (the form that the audience most often sees), Stitch's display of emotion at being rejected due to his behaviour and looks while trying to act good for Lilo is meant to make him seem more adorable to the audience. Despite his surface destructiveness, which does not go away even after he has become "good", Stitch is a complex character: according to his creator Jumba, Stitch as a destructive machine was not given a higher purpose in life. Since Stitch is trapped on an island where there are relatively few things to destroy, he has many occasions to reflect on other occupations than evil. It is implied that Stitch destroys only because that is what he is programmed to do; but since he has a personality of his own (a fact that only Lilo truly understands), he also has the choice, even will, not to do so. Despite having superhuman strength and a high level of computer-intelligence, Stitch is emotionally fragile and has a child-like personality beneath his "monster" appearance. Lilo believes that one reason why he originally pursued his destructiveness was for similar reasons to her own naughtiness, that it was because he was emotionally scarred (for having been made as a monster by Jumba) but received little understanding or sympathy from others. Stitch becomes much more well-meaning after his betterment, but is frequently unable to control all of his impulses to antisocial actions. Fortunately for him, Lilo (and later Reuben and Angel) is always there to support him, and he returns her support willingly. There is a common misconception from viewers that Lilo is dependent on Stitch for protection and support; if anything, it is Stitch who is more dependent on Lilo, although as the story progresses he becomes more self-conscious and capable of the right decisions thanks to his friend's efforts to help him in life, despite her having her own troubles to contend with. At the end of the series, Stitch has friends, family, love life and a purpose worth believing in.
[edit] Abilities
While explaining his creation to the Galactic Council early on in Lilo & Stitch, Dr. Jumba gives the following rundown of Stitch's powers: "He is bulletproof, fireproof, and can think faster than [a] super computer. He can see in the dark and can move objects 3,000 times his size. His only instinct - to destroy everything he touches!"
In the original Lilo & Stitch movie, Jumba claimed that Stitch's "destructive tendency was taking effect", and that he would be irresistibly drawn to large cities to "back up sewers, reverse street signs, and steal everyone's left shoe."
Although we rarely see Stitch shot at with a bullet, he does survive the crash of his spaceship with only a scratch, is only briefly stunned by a fall of several thousand feet, and has to be run over by three tractor-trailers in succession to be knocked out. As for fireproof, he does drive a tanker truck of gasoline into a volcano and ends up only a little singed. Weapons fire from plasma guns seems to cause him discomfort, although he can hold it in his hands long enough to throw the plasma back at his enemies. Thinking faster than a supercomputer is harder to quantify, but he does figure out how to escape from captivity fairly quickly, builds a model of San Francisco after only glancing at a postcard; grabs a crossword puzzle from the table and finishes it in about 7 seconds; builds a bomb out of a plasma-bolt, a doll and a roller skate; operates automobiles with ease; builds a "bucking bronco" out of a toaster, a vacuum cleaner, and a lamp; and generally picks up quickly on what is happening around him. However, his ability to lift objects 3,000 times his own size and weight, which is seen several times throughout the franchise, including incidents where he lifts a building off its foundation and hurl it, he picks up a descending blast door, and another where he hits Dr. Jumba with a thrown Volkswagen Beetle (shouting gleefully, "blue punch buggy! No punch back!"), yet another he plays the airplane along with 234 people inside like a giant frisbee, and again when he stops an 18-wheeled tanker of gasoline dead in its tracks. This ability is sometimes joked about in the later series; for example, in Stitch! The Movie, Hämsterviel, while physically restraining Stitch for a cloning experiment, counters Stitch's strength with restraint devices, that are equal in strength themselves, as Hämsterviel loudly declares, to "three-thousand and one!" times Stitch's own weight.
His greatest weakness is his inability to float or swim due to his dense molecular structure, which causes him to sink like a stone in water. Another weakness is the fact that his super-sensitive hearing can lead to temporary deafness when exposed to sonic blasts. His third and arguably greatest weakness, is if a macadamia nut even goes in his mouth, all of his special abilities will be completely erased, including his strength and dexterity. At this point, the only way to restore his abilities is to retrain him from scratch. At the beginning of the first movie, Stitch had an instinctive fear of water and avoids pools but was able to overcome it because of Lilo's influence over him. His claws are able to grip anything: pads on his feet and paws contain a sticky substance allowing him to adhere to almost any surface and scale buildings and walls. His skeletal system is very flexible, allowing him to put his feet into his mouth and become a rolling ball/buzzsaw, while his legs are powerful enough to enable him to jump several feet into the air. His eyes can pick up infrared and ultraviolet light as well as visible light and he can filter out one or the other if necessary. He can see in normal vision (during this mode, his eyes appear black in color), night vision (which is green), infrared (red), ultraviolet (purple, which allows him to seen animals that have left their scent marks, unlike all past alien experiments), and in the series he displays the ability to 'zoom in' (and apparently sees with a head-up display. He can grab a pure plasma burst in his hand and hurl it back (with some pain), he catches it shoves it in his mouth for it to get to critical point and unleashes it as a huge plasma cannon blast; capable of destroying a full house in one blast. He also can act as an audio amplifier, radio and/or microphone, illustrated when he can put his finger on a record player and the music comes out of his mouth, but he walks around being a portable radio; he opens his mouth and pops his antennae out which receive radio signals and you can listen to radio. He can instantly regrow his fur in the series, but it's unlikely this is an actual ability. He has an acute sense of smell and hearing as well as some ability to receive and transmit microwave radio energy via a pair of antennae on his head. He has displayed an ability to fight in hand-to-hand combat easily with his four arms, but has also demonstrated similar ability using only two in the series.
[edit] Other appearances
Since the first movie's release, Stitch has emerged as one of Disney's most popular and marketable characters. As a result, he has popped up in additional films, TV series, comic books, video games, and merchandise.
A doll that looks similar to Stitch can be seen briefly on a toy rack in the beginning of Disney's 2002 film Treasure Planet. He also received cameo roles in a few other Disney movies, including The Lion King 1½, and in a blooper reel from 2003 film Brother Bear.
Stitch was featured in a Disney Adventures comic called "Experiment 626". The storyline explained that he was created with the genes of the galaxy's strongest and most ferocious creatures, but somehow the genes of a puppy got mixed into the batch. Stitch was created using the so-called "Jumbatron 6000", apparently some kind of cloning or splicing device. After his creation, 626 was determined a failure and Jumba decided to fix him (in the flashback in Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, the rest happens). As shown in a deleted scene from Lilo & Stitch, 626 promptly proved Jumba wrong by causing various acts of mayhem, resulting in panic among the populace before the events of the first movie see him captured. However, it appears that this plot has been retconned, since in Lilo & Stitch 2 he is shown to have been captured before he is able to cause any further damage.
Numerous Stitch toys have been produced by a variety of manufacturers, such as Mattel's Concept 626 Car, a vehicle resembling Stitch in the Disney Wild Racers offshoot of the very popular Hot Wheels die-cast car series. Stitch is can also be found depicted on merchandise at the Walt Disney World and Disneyland resorts, including trading pins and Santa hats that sport Stitch-ears. He also appears for meet and greets.
Stitch made a cameo appearance in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride 2-Disc Special Edition in Disc 2 in Timon & Pumbaa's Vitural Safari 2.0 where he flies in his spaceship with Timon & Pumbaa up in space, if you go to the left vine.
In November 2004, Stitch received his own attraction at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Stitch's Great Escape!. The attraction features an Audio-Animatronic Stitch interacting with the audience. Hong Kong Disneyland opened a similar attraction named Stitch Encounter on July 13, 2006. Also in 2006, he became the center attraction of Disneyland Paris Resort's annual Halloween festivites, being featured in a morning cavalcade event, stage shows and a Villain's Parade takeover. The 2007 Halloween events will have him taking over the "Once Upon A Dream" parade and be part of a stage show, and at Disney World, hosts a dance party in Tomorrowland at "Mickey's Not-So-Scary" Halloween hard-ticket event at the Magic Kingdom dressed as Elvis. Stitch will have an interactive attraction in 2008 at Walt Disney Studios Paris as well.
Stitch appears at Hollow Bastion in the 2006 Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II. He was indirectly responsible for getting Sora and the gang into the alternate Tron world of Space Paranoids by accidentally catching the attention of the Master Control Program. He eventually becomes a summon character to use shortly after. His fighting style includes use of his laser pistols and a ukulele attack, all while climbing around the screen, even when the player is looking in first-person. He is seen helping various Final Fantasy characters defend Hollow Bastion during a massive Heartless attack on the city. Koichi Yamadera provides his Japanese voice, while Chris Sanders reprises his role as Stitch in the U.S. version.
Lately there has been a High School Musical/Stitch crossover music video of "We're all in this together".
One of the rarest sets of items in Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom online game is the Traveling Stitch Package, which was available by booking a trip to Disneyland in 2006. The package included three virtual items: the Traveling Stitch Pin, the Blue Traveling Trunk, and the Stitch Hat (whose rarity in the game far surpasses the other two items in the set) [1]
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