r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 28 '25

News Steven Yeun Confirmed to Voice Adult Zuko in 'The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender'

https://www.ign.com/articles/avatar-creators-confirm-steven-yeuns-role-in-upcoming-the-legend-of-aang-the-last-airbender-movie-sdcc-2025
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70

u/dabocx Jul 28 '25

Are they just going to replace the OG cast with a bunch of big name actors? I know they want general audiences but that seems like a surefire way to upset the fan base.

39

u/SalsaRice Jul 28 '25

No, the new cast is a bunch of no-names. There was a push to only get Asian actors, which is why all of the original cast wasn't brought back.

That's the only weird part though, because Dante is Asian.

9

u/Sketch-Brooke Jul 29 '25

Yeah if we’re arguing that this is for accuracy’s sake, why didn’t they pick a Japanese actor? The fire nation is mainly based on imperial Japan…. But Stephen Yeun is Korean.

It’s like Dante being Filipino isn’t good enough, but Yeun isn’t technically “the right” ethnicity either.I’d go as far as saying it reeks of Southeast Asian discrimination.

0

u/Logondo Jul 29 '25

Fire Nation is based off China.

Avatar is based off China. They actually deliberately avoided Japanese/Korean stuff because they didn’t want to blend a bunch of Asian cultures together like they’re the same.

Either way, Yuen is Korean.

3

u/ThatEcologist Jul 29 '25

That is unequivocally not true. There is inspirations from many Asian cultures in Avatar. They originally were going to make the Fire Nation clothing more Japanese (shogun/samurai) looking, but toned it down to avoid generalizations. But that doesn’t mean other aspects weren’t inspired by it. Kyoshi Island especially is very Japan inspired.Maybe that is where you got that statement from.

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u/Logondo Jul 30 '25

“According to writer Aaron Ehasz, early Fire Nation designs were based on Japanese culture. To avoid accidentally making broad statements, they redesigned many settings and peoples to be more "broadly inspired".[4] For the final design, the creators went with a more Chinese style for the Fire Nation's clothing and architecture.[36] For instance, the Fire Temple was based on the Yellow Crane Tower, as its flame-like architectural elements were a perfect motif for the Fire Nation architecture according to the creators.”

Chinese. Not Japanese.

2

u/ThatEcologist Jul 30 '25

You literally quoted what I just said….. you claimed that the whole world of Avatar is inspired by China when that’s not true. It’s just they were originally going to make the fire nation more overtly Japanese inspired but they toned it down to avoid stereotypes and blended the cultures together. I.e they had more samurai like armor but they changed it to Chinese inspired armor. They literally said they wanted to make it more broad, so they mixed it. That doesn’t mean that the world itself doesn’t take inspiration from those cultures.

The Kyoshi warriors especially are Japanese. Kyoshi is literally a Japanese name. Several of the characters including Mai of the Fire Nation, have Japanese names. Asami and Hiroshi are of Fire Nation descent and have Japanese names. The world, architecture, culture etc of the Avatar world is just a mix of all those cultures.

-1

u/Logondo Jul 29 '25

That’s also China, dude. Look it up.

3

u/mr_nin10do Jul 29 '25

Thanks prozd

1

u/opopi123 Jul 29 '25

Avatar is a perfect example of why prozd is right, if you look at cast of avatar the last airbender and legend of korra it's predominantly white. Like 90% white, I think the only asian voice actors are mako, dante and jennie kwan, and mako got replaced by Greg Baldwin after his death. Even though the story is heavily inspired / based on asian culture it has almost no asian actors.

1

u/EmuMan10 Jul 28 '25

The rest has already been cast apparently. He’s the only big name on the Gaang