Talk:Stitch & Ai/@comment-35270698-20180413202023/@comment-6952447-20180416025819

This show was not dubbed in English, it was actually produced in English first, and some of the staff behind Lilo & Stitch: The Series worked on this show (director Tony Craig was one of the executive producers of The Series). Also, unlike the Stitch! anime where it initially conceived as an alternate universe until the English dub of that show and the later third season episode "Lilo" in both versions, this series is established as following up on the original Western continuity from the get-go.

Following up a bit on that, Craig told a Lilo & Stitch fan on Facebook (with said fan relaying it to the guys on the Save Lilo & Stitch fansite) that both he and Jess Winfield (another executive producer and a writer for The Series and the current voice of Jumba) want the franchise to continue without Lilo. Their reasons were because "[her] story is done" (they gave her a finale and they want to keep it that way), they consider her to have "grown up" after the events of Leroy & Stitch (although to be honest, that doesn't make sense considering she only 9-going-on-10 by the events of that film; how could a young girl who hadn't hit puberty yet have fully "grown up"?), they don't want to "ruin fans' memories" of the younger Daveigh Chase as the voice of Lilo (which I believe to be noble, but misguided; besides, I could always refresh my memories of her by rewatching any of the films sans Lilo & Stitch 2 or episodes of The Series), the franchise "need to go in a new direction" (even though that the franchise's direction has been this Lilo-free way since 2008), and they believe the "time travel thing" to be clichéd. (I guessing for that last one they're referring to newer TV shows which feature old, familiar characters who were young and school-aged in their original shows that are now adults in their new ones, a la Fuller House, Girl Meets World, and Raven's Home. That one's a bit more understandable, but I don't believe the "Time Skip" trope to be a cliché—just a tool that writers should learn how to use well—and those shows that I stated are actually [mostly] more focused on the once-young characters' children.)

To be honest, a lot of what Craig has been saying to the fans in order to justify the existence of this show and Stitch's continued separation from Lilo has been increasingly turning me off from this show, and well as his and Winfield's continued involvement in the franchise altogether. That said, there are most likely a lot of different reasons (besides the lack of Lilo) as to why a good chunk of the fanbase are against Stitch! and Stitch & Ai.