Avatar Protest Shut Down By Viacom Copyright Claim

[Hydrus]

It's called Artistic License.
Live with it Kids.

Yeah sure, artistic license. That's why they did it. Definately.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Well when a major studio shows interest in something they wish to make a movie out of be prepared for them to change it to their liking. Goku wasnt asian and that sent a big tantrum amongst certain asian communities, all i can say is you are not the first race to be excluded from leading hero roles and you wont be the last.

EDIT: also i dont remember anyone giving a shit that the actors in the movie 21 werent asian, like most of the real people the movie is based on were.

To be honest, Goku never needed to be asian, because he never was asian in the anime.

The last time I remember a fuss being kicked up about something like this was when Prince of Persia was announced, and quite frankly, I believe it's justified.

As much as the show took a lot from chinese culture, did Aang ever sound or really even appear asian besides how he dressed and moved?

So... How would you translate that into an asian role?
You'd be going the opposite way to how the Dragonball movie went.

Let's ignore the fact that despite the fact most anime is set in the country of it's origin, that most character appear Westernised anyway...
They're intended to look like people from the western side of the globe, so why can't they be cast as such?

While true, as most, if not all mainstream animé characters appear westernised (you rarely see a protagonist with black hair and dark eyes) they aren't intended to be people from the western side of the globe. It seems like they are taking liberties with the ethnicity because they would already have the fans in the bag, much like Dragon ball: Evolution and, well, everything in that film.

EDIT: Perhaps I'm just moaning for the sake of it in this case though, as I guess Aang is so westernised they were just asking for it, weren't they? I've never seen the animé before anyway, but I have a friend who loves it to death.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

They should be protesting alot more then just the shitty choice of actors they made.

Like the fact this steaming pile of shit is being made in the first place.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Anyway, Hollywood never usually does that, apart from Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, or Mel Gibson in Bravehart, or Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own...

Actually, they do it all the time to every other country...Hardly "Westernised".

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Wait...I'm confused...so doing a quick google image search the character is white. Yes his "nationality" might not be white but considering it looks like a slew of other characters aren't white, so its not like every other anime where every character is white. So why are the shirts saying Aang isn't white when he clearly is?

To me this sounds like snooty anime fans that crawl out of the wood work every time an American company touches an anime because it ruins it "authenticity" or whatnot.

I see your image and raise you this one, which is a screen grab from the show

 

[N_of_the_dead]

not surprising but still kinda lame that they would cast a large part of the cast as white given the heavy asian influence in the show. odds are it'll suck any ways

 

[LowFatLoki]

Honestly, I think people should worry about something else. Its an american show with asian influence. As long as the actor does a good job people shouldn't care that much.

 

[IxionIndustries]

I find it funny how Viacom can say the product is theirs, and it's their material, when it actually belongs to Nickelodeon.
The world is such a funny and stupid place.

 

[Jsnoopy]

A live-action, all-white avatar movie? Sounds awful. I loved the T.V. show, but this doesn't seem like it well be any good, or even enjoyable.

 

[Signa]

I see your image and raise you this one, which is a screen grab from the show



Also, Avatar is not anime, it's an American show.[/QUOTE]

Uh, isn't that pic during sunset hours and Ang squinting/looking depressed?

I watched and loved the whole show, and I always thought of Ang as "white." It's a fictional world, so it doesn't really follow real-world ethnic groups. Hell, Katara has dark skin like she's Philippineo or something, yet she's from an Arctic tribe. You don't get tan from living in ice. If you did in the real world, Africans and Norwegians would be swapped.

 

[Nazulu]

Wait.. doesn't Aang have blue eyes and light/medium brown hair?

Give an asian actor blue eyed contact lenses and spray his hair brown, or shave all his hair off and give him a big blue arrow on top of his head. Whatever shuts these cry baby's up.

90% of the stupid main characters in anime look more western than anything else, especially characters like Edward Elric with a bloody english name!

This movie is going to be as bad as DBE anyway so I couldn't give a shit!

 

[n01d34]

Fun fact.

Anime character designs are deliberately racially ambiguous so that they can appeal to both Japanese and American audiences. Avatar as an anime-inspired American cartoon borrows this aesthetic hence why you can't really call Aang Asian or Caucasian.

 

[Rednog]

Fun fact.

Anime character designs are deliberately racially ambiguous so that they can appeal to both Japanese and American audiences. Avatar as an anime-inspired American cartoon borrows this aesthetic hence why you can't really call Aang Asian or Caucasian.

Lots of animes are like that but from looking at character profiles there are characters who are clearly not white or ambiguous in Avatar.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I see your image and raise you this one, which is a screen grab from the show



Also, Avatar is not anime, it's an American show.[/QUOTE]

Uh, isn't that pic during sunset hours and Ang squinting/looking depressed?

I watched and loved the whole show, and I always thought of Ang as "white." It's a fictional world, so it doesn't really follow real-world ethnic groups. Hell, Katara has dark skin like she's Philippineo or something, yet she's from an Arctic tribe. You don't get tan from living in ice. If you did in the real world, Africans and Norwegians would be swapped.[/quote]

You've never seen an Inuit have you?

 

[santaandy]

Isn't social critique allowed under the fair use doctrine?