I could easily imagine a 19 year old acting like Sokka, so it's no big deal. They could play it off as a coping mechanism which is something Sokka sort of implied to be doing in the original series.
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Avatar Netflix: Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko Casting.
- Thread starter Sacul64
- Start date
- News Entertainment
Apparently people on Twitter are giving the actors portraying Katara and Sokka shit for being too light skinned.
For fucks sake, people.
For fucks sake, people.
because of his voice? I guess he might be a bit young, I think he's in his 40s
Oh no no, I just mean in general. Iroh is a multi-faceted character with a unique charisma.
oh… I guess I don't know of any of his work outside of Avatar, I just assumed he could pull it off
I really don't know how this necessary it is to get another live action adaptation of Avatar... but hey, the casting here doesn't seem bad and more uh, I refuse to believe it even is possible to be worse than what we got.
Never actually seen this show so I had no clue what the characters looked like.. pretty darn spot on.
I have seen the M. Night movie though. Lol.
We've found the cast. Everyone except the four main kids are Daniel Day Lewis. Even Toph.
The rumor was a casting call not an actual description of the characters. The person reporting it changed the fake names to the actual character names while leaving the fake descriptions the same. One of the descriptions still had one of the fake names of Sokka in it.
I'm not really into Avatar, but I showed this casting to some of my friends who are and it seems Ian Ousley who portrays Sokka is caucasian. So this does mean they are still whitewashing part of the cast, despite DiMartino and Konietzko claiming they weren't going to do that. One of my friends also said they might have cast Ousley because he appears like he could be racially ambiguous despite the fact that he is, in fact, white.
In Bulma's case, having her cast by a white actress in a live action adaptation makes sense since she's from the western world in DBZ's version of earth. Apparently Toriyama even designed her to have the appearance of a "western girl".
Goku on the other hand was discovered by Gohan in the eastern world of the earth and despite the fact that he is an alien, he's a humanoid alien who has the appearance of a human. The latter is the same exact description that can be used to describe Superman, but as far as I can tell Superman has almost always if not always been cast as a white man, so as to be portrayed with the appearance of a white human man. The creators of Superman were presumably white and American, so it makes sense that that's how they envisioned their character to appear live action.
As others have said, Goku is based on Son Wukong from Journey to the West, which is a story of East Asian origin. The creator of DBZ is also East Asian and DBZ itself is also a work of East Asia so it makes perfect sense to cast Goku as Asian in a live action adaptation and it's why I would argue that Justin Chatwin's casting was another instance of whitewashing.
DBZ: Light of Hope got the casting right. 17, 18, and Bulma were all played by white actors while Gohan and Trunks were played by Asian actors.
Bulma's and Goku's cases are different since one character is human, and one is a humanoid alien. So when someone says Goku isn't Asian what they really mean - I guess - is that Goku isn't supposed to have the appearance of an Asian person, which is still something I disagree with.
In Bulma's case, having her cast by a white actress in a live action adaptation makes sense since she's from the western world in DBZ's version of earth. Apparently Toriyama even designed her to have the appearance of a "western girl".
Goku on the other hand was discovered by Gohan in the eastern world of the earth and despite the fact that he is an alien, he's a humanoid alien who has the appearance of a human. The latter is the same exact description that can be used to describe Superman, but as far as I can tell Superman has almost always if not always been cast as a white man, so as to be portrayed with the appearance of a white human man. The creators of Superman were presumably white and American, so it makes sense that that's how they envisioned their character to appear live action.
As others have said, Goku is based on Son Wukong from Journey to the West, which is a story of East Asian origin. The creator of DBZ is also East Asian and DBZ itself is also a work of East Asia so it makes perfect sense to cast Goku as Asian in a live action adaptation and it's why I would argue that Justin Chatwin's casting was another instance of whitewashing.
DBZ: Light of Hope got the casting right. 17, 18, and Bulma were all played by white actors while Gohan and Trunks were played by Asian actors.
I was hoping Nic Cage would have played the leader of the Fire Nation
you joke, but take another look
technically he is.
How do they know if you don't mind me asking? The casting call specified Indigenous. It would just seem weird and open to controversy to cast Katara as such and not him given the history of racebending and the Aangaintwhite movement with the franchise.
key word is look race appropriate
I think it was just from reading about the actor. There doesn't seem to be anything conclusive from a Google search, except suggestions pointing to him being caucasian. The threadmarked tweets in this thread also mention the heritage of each of the actors except for his.
yeah might not be, which would be unfortunate but given the casting for the other 3 main roles I will give them the benefit of the doubt until proven either way.
Yeah I saw that tweet too. But that's not really evidence that he isn't. Though, it's also not evidence that he is. The actor might just be private about his ethnicity. Personally willing to give the production the benefit of the doubt based on the other leads but I understand people being hesitant in trusting them.
true, there really isn't a way to tell. for what it's worth though, I don't think the actor really looks like the character either. Sokka looks more dark skinned than Ousley. maybe the guy killed it in his audition and just deserves it. like I said I'm not really into Avatar so this potential news doesn't affect me that much; I'm always upset to see roles in acting get whitewashed but that's as far as I'm concerned, it was my friends who are diehard Avatar fans who felt really upset and they kept bringing up the M. Night Shyamalan movie too.
I just wanted to make a note that Brian and Mike are not working on this show anymore, so you probably shouldn't use their words as a source anymore.
whoa what? why did they leave production?
damn, I don't know if that's gonna mean good or bad news for the Netflix show. Then again, I dunno if they were involved with the film adaptation either. but yes, I was referencing this article from 3 years ago when they were still working on it:
‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Live-Action Series Set at Netflix
Netflix has ordered a live-action series based on "Avatar: The Last Airbender."
variety.com
They left over "creative differences". Which pretty much means don't get your hopes up for this being good.
whoa what? why did they leave production?
damn, I don't know if that's gonna mean good or bad news for the Netflix show. Then again, I dunno if they were involved with the film adaptation either. but yes, I was referencing this article from 3 years ago when they were still working on it:
‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Live-Action Series Set at Netflix
Netflix has ordered a live-action series based on "Avatar: The Last Airbender."
They were experiencing irreconcilable differences with Netflix.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21730397/avatar_airbender.jpg){kind=avatar}
Avatar: The Last Airbender creators quit Netflix live-action adaptation over creative differences
There were issues with the overall direction of the product, according to one creator
www.theverge.com
They also were initially on the original film then ousted because M.Night wanted to do his own thing and didn't want to listen to Brian and Mike.
ugh. this definitely sounds like it will not bode well for the Netflix series. I dunno what they're thinking here but they should be aware that history is about to repeat itself if they don't work with the original authors.They were experiencing irreconcilable differences with Netflix.
Avatar: The Last Airbender creators quit Netflix live-action adaptation over creative differences
There were issues with the overall direction of the product, according to one creator
They also were initially on the original film then ousted because M.Night wanted to do his own thing and didn't want to listen to Brian and Mike.
I'm gonna be honest, I kind of don't care if the original creators are on board or not. The idea of just completely 1 for 1 recreating the original show in live action sound so incredibly boring to me. I don't think this show will come close to touching the original with or without them, but at least maybe it can be satisfying in it's own way. Casting so far to me looks good.
I don't think they intended on going for a 1:1 recreation, but they wanted something true to the spirit of the original. We'll find out when the show eventually releases…
I think a lot of people are not hopeful because we've seen what Netflix does when they take certain animated IPs and turn them into live action. Winx was the absolute worst.
At the end of the day dragon ball lore doesn't exist in a vacuum if goku was never revealed to be an alien you might have a point but since he isn't the studio now has the wiggle room to cast him as any light skin actor.
And it makes since here to cast gohan as asian cause chichi is. Trunks is another toss up cause he could be potentially anything.
did you actually read what I wrote? because you just replacing my post with "words" makes me think you didn't. I explained fully my logic for why Goku should be played by an Asian actor if adapted for live action and it definitely isn't random that Trunks was Asian in that fanmade movie, so I'm not going to bother replying to you if you don't actually have something to say in response to what I said.
I obviously read it thats why i answered you, i did that for my benefit.
And as i said seeing as saiyans aren't even human they could have cast him as just some white guy and they wouldn't have been wrong. If gohan wasn't asian it'd be a different story.
Then your response doesn't make sense, nor was it obvious that you actually read it.
And as I said, Superman and by extension Kryptonians are almost always cast as caucasian humans and that isn't ever questioned. Somehow despite the fact that Superman is an alien, his appearance is never left up in the air for ambiguous casting. How do you explain that?
Because this is exactly why I explain Goku cast as some white guy to be wrong. You say "could have" as if it is hypothetical, but it is a reality. Goku is the main character from a Japanese work of fiction. And that work of fiction drew its inspiration from a Chinese legend. That's more than enough reason in my opinion to have an Asian actor be most appropriate to be cast as Goku, and it does become a case of whitewashing if those in charge of casting tries to make a case for a white actor and cast a white actor instead.
So no, casting some white guy was and is wrong and is seen as one of the many reasons why DB Evolution was a failure.
iirc those plot details were invented for the purposes of audition (character names were also altered)
You mean the character descriptions from the casting call? Yeah, the same day they were posted. They were fake placeholder descriptions that are apparently typical for auditions. They even had fake names for the characters. The blog that blew that up went out of their way to change the fake names with the actual character names before posting about it and then the internet ran with "they're changing the story".
I understand, thank you for clearing that up. I definitely got swept up in the discussion and came away believing the wrong thing.
Sounds like the character descriptions that leaked weren't accurate (or at least made to be like that to hide anything about the show) because the character descriptions IGN has seems to come from Netflix and match the original show:
Avatar: The Last Airbender: Netflix Live-Action Series Reveals Cast and Creative Team - IGN
Netflix has announced the cast and creative team for its live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
This rumor was from the casting call, which used fake fake character names and backgrounds so that the actors and media wouldn't know that they were going out for A:TLA.
The new show will be set in the same fantasy setting as the cartoon, with no high school shenanigans, etc. See also the concept art they released, which is clearly period-appropriate Aang near the Southern Water Tribe.