Let's Talk Movies: The Last Airbender

Okay.. I admit that I'm an Avatar: The Last Airbender fan (thanks to Martin). I got a copy of the entire series and got my brother interested to it, too. Now, imagine my dismay when I found out that the cast of the live-action movie they were going to make about this movie was going to be all white.

For crying out loud, the story covered the entire world. Inuits, East Asians, different cultures and races, not just whites. Sure there's an argument about how they never really mentioned any nationalities there, only the 4 nations and their citizens. But still, you can't help telling from the accents they had, their color, and the costumes they wore. Their inspiration for the costume was a dead giveaway of what nationality the characters were supposed to be.

But enough about that. We've already spoken enough about this and this issue has already been addressed by having Jesse McCartney replaced by Dev Patel for the role of Zuko. Why would you cast Jesse McCartney as Zuko anyway? Doh?!

This is Dev Patel playing Zuko:


Let's go over to Aang, shall we? I was expecting them to cast a white kid, but not a pasty white kid. Hahaha. Newcomer Noah Ringer got the part. Again, a bit on the pale side, but good enough. The kid apparently has taekwondo knowledge so he can probably do his stunts on his own. So yeah, here's Aang:


I just gotta say, when I first saw this picture, I thought he was Eli Snyder, the kid who played Leonidas at age 8 in the movie, 300. Look see and tell me if I'm wrong:


So yeah, we went over the cast list from iMdB a couple of times and couldn't help but mention a few names that we think would be better for the roles.

1. Jessica Jade Andres would've been a better Katara, but she's casted to portray Suki.
2. Lauren Mary Kim who's portraying a supporting Kyoshi warrior would've been more suited to be Suki.
3. Samo Hung would've been a better choice. Chubby, old, and knows martial arts like the back of his hand. What more could you possibly want? Shaun Toub, who got the part of General Iroh, is too skinny.
4. James Isaacs, Lucius Malfoy in the HP movies and voice actor for General Zhao in the series, would be the greatest Zhao ever. Only, they casted someone else.
5. Hiroyuki Sanada, from The Last Samurai, would've been an effective Firelord Ozai.

Don't take this negatively, I think Dev Patel was a great replacement for Jesse McCartney, but because they casted an Indian actor to play Zuko, they had to revamp the entire line-up and get Indian actors for Firelord Ozai and General Zhao, too. Now, even though I see effort to make things uniform, a lot of Japanese and Chinese actors are more suited to play the roles.

So they delegated certain nationalities for each nation: The Fire nation is comprised by Indians and Persians, the Earth kingdom is comprised by Koreans and Mongolians, the Water tribe are made up by Inuits, and the Air nomads (or nomad) is just.. err.. Caucasian. Haha. The Latinos and latinas, however, are in every nation.

Things is the Avatar universe are definitely going to be shaken up with the movie. But here's to hoping M. Night Shyamalan doesn't do too much damage to it. To begin with, a lot of people were surprised at why he is directing the movie. But hey, if Bryan and Mike trust his directing skills, who are we to complain? They are, after all, the creators of the story, and we are just the viewers.

Do you have your own list of actors and actresses who you think would do better for the roles in the movie? Do share. I'd like to hear your ideas.