u/Unusual-Object-2018

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/lilo-and-stitch-animated-short-lilo-and-scratch-explained/

Firstly this indirectly answer's why Scratch's identity has been kept somewhat hush hush despite clearly being either one of ,or related to Jumba's experiments. It's obvious from what's described in the preview's for anyone who's seen the series, that Scratch is starting to look suspiciously familiar to a certain character from it.

A tougher, meaner Stitch with more hidden arms, and heat vision. "Definitely haven't heard of anyone like, that before". Yeah Scratch is blatantly a new take on 627. Albeit reworked to be a more distinct character, that stills serves the antagonistic counterpart role.

Although this now raises the question of whether this is just a fun little callback for old fans, or the team want's to do a reboot of Lilo and Stitch the series, and this short film is really some sort of stealth teaser-proof of concept for it.

I'm assuming it might be the latter? It'd seem weird to spend all of this work making an animation style, that capture's the hand drawn watercolor look of the original film in 3d, as well as the pipeline for it. Then proceed to only use it on what is going to be at least a 10 minute long short film.

I honestly hope I'm right, and it's not just a pipe dream. While most of what we got was still good. The team behind the original series were heavily restricted by Disney's leadership, at the time into having to follow an episodic structure, and making it more of a pure comedy.

Not only has it looked like Disney's leadership currently has gotten more lenient when it come's to letting their television show's contain more serialized serious stories. The main focus currently is on the sequel to the live action remake. So it mean's any side project's would have more creative control by those actually making it.

With what i just mentioned combined with the team behind this short being comprised of people who are obviously huge fans who want to keep thing's faithful to the spirit of the original film. I feel like they can make something truly great if they do indeed work on a new version of the series.

To clarify before i begin talking about it. Even if my speculation turns out to be partially correct. I'm not saying there's going to be some big twist, and where Scratch came from is likely going to be kept mysterious.

I wonder considering how ambiguous the marketing is about what scratch precisely is so far. If the team working on this might be revisiting, and giving a nod to a concept made for the series, that wasn't necessarily scrapped, but only really got explored in early tie in material.

Involving Jumba's experiments belonging to a preexisting highly mutable species, that were only found by him. Think eevee from Pokemon. A trait, that was greatly useful when combined with Jumba's preexisting expertise in genetic engineering.

I might just be looking into it too much, but i just thought it'd be something worth sharing.

https://www.overanimatedproductions.com/lilo-and-stitch-2.html

Before i begin talking about it. I should tell you the story of how i found this in the first place. It was actually by complete accident. I just found randomly on Pinterest. A panel from one of these storyboards, that i then proceeded to reverse image search. Which led me to the website containing these storyboards.

So now on to main topic. The main question most are likely having. Is why this scene in particular, and by extension Cobra Bubbles presence in the film's story was cut. While there has not been an official answer on it. I can safely tell you it most likely was a result of it being connected to ideas, that were scrapped from the series.

Production for the 2nd film started not after the series did, and they were supposed to be closely tied to each other. The marketing saying it takes place between the first film, and series was not just something, that was made up later like many understandably think.

The series however. Underwent a number of changes due to conflicts in vision between the writers, and Disney channel's executives. meaning, that certain part's of Lilo and Stitch 2's script. Which definitely would have been based off of earlier versions of worldbuilding, and story elements of the series. Would have needed to been changed by the films writers to maintain a modicum of consistency between the two works. Even though there was still quite a few in the final product.

Cobra Bubbles stepping down from his "official job" and becoming the owner of an ice cream parlor. Was likely something the writer's of the series wanted, that then was cut. In turn necessitating it's removal from the 2'nd film. Since removing, or changing certain part's of the films story was possibly seen, as a better alternative by it's writer's compared to completely rewriting the script to be 100% consistent with the series. Even if it did came, at the cost of leaving certain plot holes in the movie.

Normally I'd just think it's fake, but this was a random small reply on a larger post. Which is not normally where'd you make stuff up for attention.

Also the Lilo and Stitch the series team came up with a similar concept. Which only really made it to some early comics, and a few leftovers in the final series. Although it was all of the experiments, and not just Stitch.

This is why their designs share so many common elements in the final series. Even if the context was gone.

So it would not be shocking if the series writers were taking some inspiration from ideas, that were passed around when Stitch was making the transition from space criminal to genetic experiment during the writing of the film

So the production of Lilo and Stitch the series ran into issues involving a clash of vision's between the writers, and Disney channels exec's. The former wanted it to be a faithful continuation, that also fleshes out the world more. While the latter wanted it dumbed down with the original's groundedness stripped from it. Which naturally led to a 'lot of what originally planned being cut, heavily diminished, or in this case. A weird mix of both. With a heavy dose of it's only canon depending on the episode. Though it mostly applies to season 1 unsurprisingly.

One of these concepts was Jumba's experiments being revealed to have been derived from a singular highly mutable species. With great work clearly put into how their biology functions, and Tantalog their native tongue. The latter of which still fully made it into the finished series alongside the tun state.

Just to make it clear. It does look like tantalog is the name of the species, as well, but there's nothing to outright confirm it. So I'm not going to be referring to them as such. In case more information comes out, that dispels it.

Thankfully there was an early tie in comic made before parts of the initial concept was gutted. Which combined with the few left over's still present in Lilo and Stitch the series. Helps paint a pretty clear picture. It's also largely the only reason we know this information. Due to a lack of documentation on the making of the series beyond the broad strokes i covered in the beginning of the post.

Sometime before the event's of the film. Jumba discovered a mysterious lifeform he refers to, as protomatter. It's an initially amorphous creature, that can shrivel into a dormant tun state when dehydrated. Which is presumably the state he found them in.

However protomatter can absorb the genetic material from other species. It then uses to assemble itself into a fully conscious stable form. Which combines trait's belonging to the base species with those of the one, or multiple doner species whose genes it took. However the base species is quite diverse. Causing different results even if two take the same genetic material. With some traits being more, or less dominant depending on the individual.

This is the reason. Even if the full context is gone in the finished series. For why Reuben-625. Despite being "made" with nearly the same component's, as Stitch. Hardly resembles him beyond sharing the same body plan, and is also the likely reason albeit unconfirmed, that Reuben, at least outwardly lacks the strong destructive urges his successor initially had.

You can see how someone like Jumba who prides himself on genetic experimentation would quickly get to work on finding uses for his own end's upon discovering the protomatter. It pretty much cut's out the issue of compatibility among other thing's. Meaning you can make a creature, that can both do, and to an extent behave to fulfill nearly any function you desire, as long as you know what genes do what. Which Jumba certainly does. The only drawback being the aforementioned potential randomness in results.

It's visual depiction is also very inconsistent either despite being, or because of it being pseudo-canon, as you've already seen in the images above

So obviously it was accidental. Especially since most of this was not common knowledge yet, or not even known in the first place, but the show's writers were close to retroactively making Stitch almost an glorified tardigrade.

You've likely noticed how Jumba made his experiments is closer to something like plant grafting then true genetic engineering. Especially far from the claims of creating life he make s in the movie. Though in this case it definitely was intentional.

A big if understated part of Jumba's character in the original film was his over the top mad scientist persona he has early on being mostly an act. With it gradually shown, that he's a lot more down to earth, and conscious about his actions then he lets on. Case in point the speech during the camp scene. Which i wish get's more attention.

So it's makes sense for writing a continuation of the story. To reveal, that his claimed accomplishment to be a similar exaggeration. Even if the truth is still equal parts impressive, and terribly irresponsible at the same time.

Also yeah. Before i close off. I should quickly mention the protomatter did partially bleed into Lilo and Stitch 2. Even if the rest of the scene it's in, and the overall plot forgets it's existence. The sequel started production shortly after the series did, and the writers for both made sure early on they'd follow a consistent continuity.

Presumably after the series started undergoing huge changes. 2's writers decided to simply remove what would have been the more explicit connection's between the two, as opposed to completely rewriting it from scratch. Even if came at the price of leaving some glaring inconsistencies, and plot holes within the story.

It's likely not a coincidence, that 2's plot make more sense when you replace the "i forgot to charge his molecules" backstory With the one featured in the comics.

Speaking of which here's the link to a compilation book, that includes tie in comics. They are well written, and have great art throughout it. Skip to page 25 if you just want to see the part, that was supposed to set up the plot, and worldbuilding for the series.

https://archive.org/details/liloandstitch_disneyadventures_comics/page/n5/mode/2up

I do apologize for this going into out of universe production history often. However it is required when discussing something, that can be best described, as having complicated canonicity... I did not even go over Stitch and A'i. Which is it's own huge can of worm's when it comes to this whole conversation.