All the cool kids are lambasting the casting of the Avatar movie these days. (For my part I'm irked at James Cameron for hogging the name "Avatar", so the movie will just be going by The Last Airbender). What I find most puzzling are the folks that expected Sokka and Katara to be played by Inuit actors. As drawn on the cartoon they both have blue eyes, and they don't have Inuit names (they both sound Japanese to me). I never thought the water benders were meant to be Inuit just because they live in snowy places. Why assume they are Inuit and not, say, Laplanders? I assumed they were meant to be Ainu. But with blue eyes.
To be honest, the idea that the different nations in the world of Avatar are supposed to represent different ethnic groups doesn't make any sense to me. We're talking about a world so small that Gran Gran can leave the Northern Water Tribe to live with the Southern Water Tribe to avoid an arranged marriage. That's moving from pole to pole, and it's not portrayed as any sort of epic journey (actually, they never explain how she did it. Did she have help, or did she paddle her own canoe to the other side of the world all on her lonesome?). How could distinct groups emerge in a world so small, so tightly connected and easily traveled through? The different regions have different clothing and lifestyles, but they all speak the same language. And I think if you stripped them down and removed any culture-specific hairstyling or tattooing you wouldn't be able to tell a Water Tribe person from an Earth Kingdom person.
They do all look Asian, though. I'll admit the casting of Aang gives me pause. But if I were M. Night casting any of these parts I would be looking for 1) someone who can act and 2) someone who can pull off the martial arts. You think it'd be just as easy to find an Asian boy who can do both as a white boy. But I'm not the type to scream "epic fail!"; I'll wait and see the film and judge.
What I am super-geeked about:
Dev Patel as Prince Zuko. Zuko was hands-down my favorite character on the show. He had the complicated arc, and boy did the writers make him suffer and fail before he finally succeeded. (And how sweet is the costuming? I'm already dying to see this movie and it's another year away!).
I'm also pleased with this piece of casting:
Shaun Toub as Uncle Iroh. My second favorite character (and apparently the Avatar character I am). I've liked Toub in everything else I've ever seen him in: Crash and Iron Man most prominently but also Lost, and apparently even Sliders (OK, I don't remember him in that one).
The relationship between Uncle Iroh and Zuko is just so wonderfully nuanced. Particularly in the third season, when Zuko desperately wants someone to just tell him what the right thing to do is, and Iroh says nothing, because Zuko needs to find those answers for himself. After Mako died they used the power of silence in a couple of scenes in really moving ways, even though the guy who took over the voice did it well. Just another cool layer to the show.
It's going to be tough to scale each season of this show to movie-length; I hope these two characters and their relationship doesn't suffer. They have some of my favorite scenes. Like this one:
Uncle Iroh: You're looking at the rare white dragon bush. Its leaves make a tea so delicious it's *heartbreaking!* That, or it's the white jade bush, which is poisonous.
Prince Zuko: We need food, not tea. I'm going fishing.
Uncle Iroh: Hmm... Delectable tea, or deadly poison?
(later)
Uncle Iroh: Zuko, remember that plant that I thought might be tea?
Prince Zuko: You didn't.
Uncle Iroh: I did... and it wasn't. When the rash spreads to my throat I will stop breathing. But look what I found! These are pakui berries, known to cure the poison of the white jade plant. That, or makaola berries that cause blindness.
