Roger Ebert has a column on his website where he answers fans questions. When asked what he thought of the casting of the Last Airbender live action adaptation, this is what good ol’ Rog had to say:

Q. Regarding the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan vehicle “The Last Airbender,” what do you think about the whitewashing of the production so that all of the original Asian cultural landmarks, architecture, philosophy, and costume design are being retained while they cast white kids to play the main characters?
Arlene C. Harris

A. Wrong. The original series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts.

Oh man, I can’t wait to see what he has to say when he actually sees the movie. His flaying of Transformers 2 all but cemented my resolve to never pay money to see that travesty on purpose. I’m eager to see what he thinks about the Racebender.

Source: Roger Ebert, Answer Man

This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Action, Chop Socky, Crunchy Pants, Diversity, Fantasy, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.