Interestingly bold of them to just straight up alter a black character like that.

For real, how the hell would Lilo and Stitch even work in live action without coming off as hilariously stupid? We accept the whole 'everyone thinks Stitch is a just weird dog' plot point because its a cartoon and we accept stuff like that in a cartoon. In a real life, how the hell would anyone mistake Stitch for any dog breed?

Seriously, pray the Little Mermaid bombs hard and all these pointless remakes get killed before they begin filming.

That just make this even more baffling. We've been going under the assumption that these recasts are for diversity's sake, right? Or at least, nominally so. So why recast a character who is black (which makes the otherwise Polynesian cast more diverse) as Polynesian (making it less diverse), but have them played by an actor who isn't Polynesian (racist by implication that they look "close enough")? How many racisms make a diversity win?

Not even getting into how this is now a wholly different character. WAIT, DID THEY CHANGE HIM BECAUSE OF THE INHERENT JOKE OF HIS CHARACTER? Like, he appears as a huge, intimidating black guy, but then reveals that his name is Mr. Bubbles/Cobra Bubbles (silly name) (funny juxtaposition). But in order for that joke to land, he has to be intimidating. So did someone in the re-writers room say "It's racist to imply that him being black makes him more intimidating," plus maybe something about "black man with silly name = racist"?
And all this combined made them decide to redo his character entirely, throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water?