It does seem like a new thing to me. I mean, we remake Asian movies with white casts (Infernal Affairs, pretty much any Japanese movie that sounds interesting at all) - but there are two differences there. One - we do the same with movies from (e.g.) Sweden, and with English TV (and, apparently, Kath and Kim); two - there's no guarantee that there'd be a decent-sized audience if we just dubbed/subtitled them and showed them in the US.
Avatar is an American cartoon that already has an audience. A large enough audience to inspire a movie! I don't have much sympathy for it at other times, but surely the "change it for the market" argument is completely void in this case. People already know what they're going to watch, and they already like the characters as they are. & I'm pretty sure there are enough Asian kids in California who'd want to act that they could cast one movie.
Then the youngest, all of 7 years old, asked me whether this meant that he couldn't be Aang when he played Avatar with his friends from now on. :(((
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Avatar is an American cartoon that already has an audience. A large enough audience to inspire a movie! I don't have much sympathy for it at other times, but surely the "change it for the market" argument is completely void in this case. People already know what they're going to watch, and they already like the characters as they are. & I'm pretty sure there are enough Asian kids in California who'd want to act that they could cast one movie.
Then the youngest, all of 7 years old, asked me whether this meant that he couldn't be Aang when he played Avatar with his friends from now on.
:(((