The Last Airbender

I'm getting a Borat comic site.

Won't stop anyone from doing it, though. :P Plus, the casting is fair game since they've announced it.

Can I say how happy I am that they got rid of Aang's really silly looking pants?

I apologize, but I think I might have liked that trailer better without the voice over.

I don't mind white Aang and I wouldn't even mind a white Zuko so much, so long as they were good enough actors.

White Katara and white Sokka piss me off to no end. Especially since Jackson Rathbone, who is playing Sokka, said "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."

SADFKL;JASD;JKGHASDL;GKFJSDK WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!?!

edited 26th Jun '09 6:48:54 PM by RabidRainbow

All actors are stupid.

I actually like the way the kid playing Aang looks. I think he's fitting. Whaddiya know.

I'm more annoyed by how cheesy the martial arts looks, but hopefully it'll be tightened up in the final.

Not going to comment on other casting, because lord knows the Internet's had enough.

@Oscredwin: No, they aren't.

Are actors spouting Deep Wisdom not Acceptable Targets anymore?

So, a Penny Arcade blog posting deals with this. Considering the way the Tycho avatar is acting in-comic, it might be safe to say that Shamalyan has sort of lost the benefit of the doubt on the casting choices. There isn't even a coherent vision here. It's like they got a different casting director to pick each character and didn't let them talk to each other before they made a final choice.

This whole thing definitely goes to show that you can't judge someone's attitudes based on their race- Shamalyan's, that is. We're in a really weird spot when Mel Gibson cares more about getting a a racially accurate and diverse cast than an actual Indian guy does. [[Shamalyan]] kind of like the movie version of Bobby Jindal.

@Os: No, they're acceptable. But you said all. And in order to be understanding and imaginative enough to take on a character successfully, a performer must have a certain type of intelligence.

Doesn't necessarily make them capable of open-heart surgery or even particularly poised in their daily lives, but it does mean they aren't stupid.

Most actors aren't even on the stage or screen, after all; every successful liar in the world is an actor.

Exactly what race are Katara and Sokka supposed to be, anyway? I want to say Inuit, but that may just be because of the whole polar region thing.

I believe the creators said the greatest influence was the Inuit, with a little bit of mythical Atlanteans thrown in for the Northern tribe. But since the Earth Kingdom has strong Korean influences and the Air Nomads have strong Tibetan monk influences, I don't know if we can say they were definitely meant to look exactly like Inuits or the related tribes.

However, they are without a doubt much darker skinned than the other nationalities.

Hmm...I never thought of the Northern Water Tribe as Atlantean but I can totally see it now and it is excellent.

The problem is that Katara especially (Sokka less so) doesen't look inuit at all. She has the wrong bone-structure, if anything she looks indian (as in from the subcontinent)

Their culture is clearly based on inuits though, the Northern tribe is pretty much what an inuit urban civilization would look like.

The whole race and ethnicity is it always comes up. I remember way back when they were casting the Harry Potter film, fans of HP were saying that if Harry wasn't British they'd boycott the movie or something. Even when I pointed out that this sort of mixed casting is common, even Gone with the Wind had Vivien Leigh playing an antebellum Southerner.

It's interesting to see that Cliff Curtis is in this movie. He's the Maori New Zealander that's cast as any person from Latin America to the Middle East.

There's a pretty big difference between casting a (white) American to play Harry Potter and, say, casting an ethnic Asian to play him. Nationality != race and/or ethnicity.

edited 6th Oct '09 1:49:34 PM by ccoa

"Nationality != race and/or ethnicity."

I don't think relational operators work well in this context. From Wikipedia:

"A nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin who inhabit a particular country or territory."

Though nationality can be separated from race or ethnicity, it is not always mutually exclusive.

But my original reasoning still stands. If people complain about casting differences that may arise from countries within the Anglosphere, then they're definitely going to complain about casting differences when it involves race.

Actually it is, unless you can find a nation that is entirely ethnically homogeneous (good luck).

Your statement makes it sound like you believe the complaining is unjustified by comparing it to Fan Dumb whining. I'm simply pointing out that it is an entirely different beast.

That just sounds ridiculous. People complaining about one relatively minor ethnic change are Fan Dumb, therefore, people complaining about painfully obvious and extreme changes are also Fan Dumb?

Just watched the trailer at the beginning of another movie. Is it a bad sign that I didn't realize it was this movie, despite reading tons about it on this very site, until the dude took off his hood and I saw the arrow (which looks way too much like henna)?

You know what I hate? Speed Racer, which was, well, y'know, an actual Anime didn't get this kind of idiotic "RACISM!!!!!" cries when it cast white actors. Here's a crazy idea- Maybe, just maybe, the people were looking for good actors first rather than people who just looked the part.

^ In Hollywood?

In Hollywood?

How?

Surely there must be good actors who are also dark enough to portray the Water Tribe. You can't tell me there's that few good actors in the world that they had to be white.

Additionally, when the race is ambiguous, like it is in most anime, it isn't really racist to cast whomever you want for the role (within reason). But in this case, the Water Tribe was completely and unambiguously brown. Not white.

I think no one complained about Speed Racer because no one cared, as it looked terrible. I didn't see it, but the previews made it look like it was filmed inside a Chuck E. Cheese.