WhileI fully acknowledge that the Avatar world is not and has never been ENTIRELY East Asian based and am fully aware of the fact that other cultures have played a part in influencing and inspiring the show, I think the casting for the movie was insulting to say the least... Most of the customs and traditions that we have seen in the show are blatantly heavily rooted in East Asian cultures (so much so that I think the people trying to state otherwise are being deliberately ignorant and/or will never believe the show is dominantly East Asian based until the episode where Zuko sings a song about how much he loves Tokyo), the fact that there wasn't even ONE Asian American actor/actress in the movie's main cast is in my opinion, VERY inaccurate. Someone can't just heavily borrow from and use East Asian culture to bring a story/TV show to life but not include any actors/actresses of East Asian decent in their live action movie adaptation of the show, to me, there's a problem there. Oh, and I'm not buying into the intelligence-insulting tale that there were NO decent Asian American actors/actresses whom auditioned for main parts in the movie either (especially considering how average the acting in the movie from the whole cast actually ended up being). The worst part of this situation is, some people are actually trying to say that the lack of Asian American talent in the main cast is justified...

Now for the record, I'm not trying to say that East Asian cultures are the all and everything of what inspired the cultural norms and traditions that we see in the show, but really, it's no secret that the most consistent, dominant and noticeable influences and themes on/in the show came right out of places such as China and Japan. The customs, the names, the writing, the art, the martial arts, the music, the buildings and settings, the fashion(s), the foods and so on - all that we see in the show is heavily rooted in East Asian (and Inuit) culture(s) to a certain degree. Yes, there are other cultures involved in the influencing and inspiring of certain areas of the Avatar world, that's clearly obvious, but the dominant influences on the show's overall story come from the culture(s) and customs of East Asian countries and Inuit tribes. The things we see on the show haven't just been freshly squeezed from East Asian and Inuit culture without any other cultures having a part in the influencing of the Avatar world, but let's just be serious, the creators of Avatar were noted for travelling East Asia to get the inspiration(s) for the Avatar world's arts and locations, heck, Nickelodeon themselves have even described the show as a "fantastic (East) Asian-based world"... The fact that not even one Asian American was part of the main cast, to me, is simply a slap in the face to the culture(s) the show got its story and themes from, and the ridiculous, almost painfully unrealistic notion that NO Asian American actors/actresses were "good enough" to get lead roles (as opposed to the previously cast Jesse McCartney) is even more insulting...It isn't up for debate that the appearance of a movie cast can be crucial and at times, very important (depending on what the movie contains/is about, of course). Yes, this is technically nothing more than a live action movie adaptation of a Nickelodeon cartoon, but this is about Hollywood's repeated cultural insensitivity in general, more than anything... Would people have a problem with the casting of Black guys as medieval knights, or the casting of White guys as Zulu warriors? Hell yeah, so why can't people be upset about this movie's physically inaccurate cast? Does a movie cast's appearance matter more than their ability and talent as actors/actresses? Absolutely not... Does a movie cast's appearance matter in cases where a certain culture is being represented and/or borrowed from to create the essence of the movie's story? Yes, yes it does...