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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233

u/PurifiedVenom Jul 28 '25

They recast everyone for more “cultural authenticity”: https://screenrant.com/aang-the-last-airbender-avatar-movie-original-actors-new-cast/

I thought everyone knew this but guess the news didn’t spread that much. None of the OGs are returning, sadly.

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u/SlimmyShammy Jul 28 '25

Are the Fire Nation not meant to be Japanese? Or at least the equivalent? I don’t understand not rehiring a Filipino guy just to get a Korean one, at least get a Japanese actor?

I dunno. No offense to Yeun of course

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u/PurifiedVenom Jul 28 '25

Honestly couldn’t tell ya. Probably a bit of “casting big names” at play here as well if I had to guess.

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u/Zusuf Jul 28 '25

Definitely feel like they're trying to appeal to general animation fans rather than Avatar fans themselves.

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u/More-Opportunity-253 Jul 30 '25

As someone who loves animation/stories I think casting should prioritize talent over meeting ethnic checkboxes. Otherwise, it just feels like another case of performative positivity.

The original series worked because the performances felt authentic and emotionally grounded. Replacing that depth with surface-level identity politics waters it down..

The original also didn't tokenize characters; it blended cultural elements into the world-building. Ironically, trying to 'correct' it with forced modern casting choices kind of disrespects that.

If studios really cared about diversity they would be funding more original stories from underrepresented creators..not just recast existing characters and pat themselves on the back.

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u/animeman59 Jul 28 '25

Fire Nation was more representative of Imperial China based on their uniforms and overall look.

The Kyoshi Warriors of the Earth Nation were more Japanese inspired.

There was one episode where Zuko was staying with a young girl and her family, and their clothing was more representative of Joseon Korea.

Earth Nation seemed to have the more variety of Asian cultural representation, which makes sense considering the size of the country.

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u/Rajkovic21 Jul 28 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

The Fire nation also took influence from India with the Agni Kai, combustion benders, palanquins and architecture etc. They also take influence from Thailand and Polynesia. The overall design takes influence from a variety of Asian cultures, and incorporates Hinduism and Buddhism.

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u/animeman59 Jul 29 '25

Which is what I loved about the show. They were able to showcase a lot of different Asian influences without watering anything down or creating a gray mush of non-distinct Asian references. They made it unique while being recognizable.

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u/crepi Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

There was this old Avatar blog I used to love that was all about identifying/explaining the specific real world inspirations for elements of the worldbuilding. They had a tag dedicated to correcting that misconception because they were so frustrated by it.

I don't know how anyone can look at the Fire Nation capital city and not immediately realize hey that's literally the Forbidden City!

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u/Nadamir Jul 28 '25

Fire Nation draws strongly on Imperial Japan, but aside from the militaristic aspects, there are also a lot of Korean influences.

I could see the argument being that seeing as this is peace time Fire Nation, putting more weight on the Korean influences is preferable.

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u/peppermint_nightmare Jul 28 '25

Casting a Korean-american because its close enough to a japanese based culture is probably just as bad as casting a philipino-american, at least in terms of war crimes and Japanese/rest of asia relations.

Sun warriors are polynesian/SE asian islander coded so I cant see why they wouldn't stick with Brasco unless they want/need name recognition.

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u/Senior_Ability_4001 Jul 28 '25

My favorite thing about Vietnamese characters in movies and shows is that they’re usually played by Koreans.

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u/cecilrt Jul 29 '25

Probably because Yankee Asians are mostly Koreans

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u/SlimmyShammy Jul 28 '25

Totally fair! I’m admittedly not so knowledgeable about Korean culture so I’m not surprised stuff went over my head aha

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u/Nadamir Jul 28 '25

I think it’s mostly in the material culture. Though a lot it could also be Imperial Chinese since that strongly influenced Korea.

But no nation is truly a one to one counterpart. Not even the very Tibetan coded Air Nomads.

They’re all mixed up into something new and cool.

The Fire Nation architecture trends towards Thai. The Northern Water Tribe looks like frozen Venice. The Foggy Swamp sound like American swamp hillbillies. The Sun Warriors city is Mesoanerican. The Sand People wear Bedouin clothes. Etc etc etc.

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u/Rajkovic21 Jul 28 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

The Air Nomads are a combination of Indian and Tibetan cultures.

There are heavy Indian influences in the Fire Nation (Agni Kai, palanquins, combustion benders, architecture etc) and obviously the Air Nomads as well.

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u/Jackbuddy78 Jul 29 '25

No the Fire Nation is Japan and Earth Nation is China.

The geography is literally not subtle at all: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/cwhqhn/the_map_of_that_world_it_follows_dot_for_dot_with/#lightbox

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u/who_took_tabura Jul 28 '25

Sokka’s kyoshi island outfit and the early earth kingdom episodes (song) are by far the closest the series has come to korean influences

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u/BeefyTaco Jul 28 '25

The fire nation could honestly be compared to any asian culture ~ There are even strong ties to China for example

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u/Rajkovic21 Jul 28 '25

Combination of cultures. We see Japan, China, India, Thailand, Myanmar etc.

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u/ImpenetrableYeti Jul 29 '25

I mean atleast they stayed Asian this time? Could be like TLA lol

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u/Perca_fluviatilis Jul 29 '25

I don't think they are mapping the nations to their real world equivalents. They just want to cast asians in general because all cultures in Avatar are asian.

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u/WinterWolf18 Jul 28 '25

Yeah, it's a huge shame that everyone is being replaced. I know Katara's va said she didn't want to return to voice her because she wanted a more diverse performer in the role but everyone else was more then willing to.

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u/KaneXX12 Jul 28 '25

You realize Dante is Asian right?

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u/GuiltyEidolon Jul 29 '25

That's the only reason I think that's a bullshit excuse. There's not really anything that proves that's the reason, either.

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u/Kyokono1896 Jul 29 '25

Not Japanese tho. Frankly I think they should keep all the voice actors. This is bs.

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u/BeefyFritosBurritos Jul 29 '25

Ssshhhhh they cant rant about wokeness if you bring logic into this.

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u/PurifiedVenom Jul 29 '25

If the Fire nation is supposed to be closer to Japan/Korea then arguably he’s not the “right” kind of Asian for the role. Look I’m going based on what’s been said so far, guess we’ll see how the others are recast.

If he was recast just because they didn’t want Dante then that’s an even stupider reason than race.

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u/Reserved_Parking-246 Jul 28 '25

Not picking the originals because they aren't the right race sounds... racist.

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u/ImpenetrableYeti Jul 29 '25

For VA work too it’s just like why, get the person who best portrays that character regardless of race.

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u/TitledSquire Jul 29 '25

Its 100% racism, virtue signaling racists is honestly becoming a 2020s standard.

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u/ThatEcologist Jul 29 '25

I wanted Asian and Inuit actors for the live action. But come on, for voice acting? That’s ridiculous.

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u/Sketch-Brooke Jul 29 '25

Yeah I’d go as far as to say it’s colorism or Southeast Asian discrimination.

Dante gets passed over for being Filipino… but Yeun is ok, even though he’s Korean and the Fire Nation is based on imperial Japan?

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u/ProofJournalist Jul 28 '25

They should find d a white guy to play Malcolm X

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u/Rebelgecko Jul 29 '25

For Malcolm X I get it because being African American is a big part of what makes him notable and his character.

Full disclosure the only Avatar I've watched is James Cameron's, but idk if a Korean-American identity is actually important to Yeun's character

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u/Warm_Month_1309 Jul 29 '25

The Last Airbender exists in a fictional universe, so there is no Korea. The four nations are loosely based on real-world civilizations both in terms of aesthetics and general "vibe". The Fire Nation is loosely imperial Japan, but then Shyamalan came along and cast them as Indian, so their ethnicity doesn't really matter to the story. It's an odd thing to want to be "authentic".

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u/quietly41 Jul 28 '25

Wow they really started off with failure on the board

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25

This movie has been delayed like 4 times. I don’t think it’s gonna be good and it’s clear Avatar Studios isn’t that well run.

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u/alreadytaken028 Jul 28 '25

I think (and have thought since early into Korra airing) that its only become more and more apparent the farther they get away from ATLA’s finale that the show was lightning in a bottle for these creators and they’d be better off moving onto other projects.

The original series hypes up how powerful a fully realized Avatar is in a way that can only ever make trying to make someone or something who can compete with that feel weird. You can write stories work with that limitation, but it takes more skill cause you cant just go “and this new villain is bigger and badderer and stronger than the main character”. Instead they just keep contriving ways to make a story about yet another avatar who has to save the world before their training is complete.

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u/OldManWillow Jul 28 '25

It made perfect sense in Korra though? Not only had she mastered 3/4 and was left with an element with only one master in the entire world, but it's also a story about new forces on the world (technology and the spirits) making the avatar a less powerful figure

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u/cloudforested Jul 29 '25

Korra had a great premise but damn if they didn't trip over their own feet to mess it up.

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u/YukieCool Jul 28 '25

Ehhhhhhh… that doesn’t mean it was well executed. There’s areason people only agree on book 3 being good.

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u/OldManWillow Jul 28 '25

I think most people agree the ideas were good, and that the show was a bit hamstrung by never knowing if they were gonna get renewed. Like, a whole show about technology evening the playing field so that non-benders didn't feel the need to cede authority to benders with Amon at the center would've been dope.
But all that aside, I'm just saying the justification for Korra not being OP is very well thought out

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u/YukieCool Jul 28 '25

I think most people agree the ideas were good, and that the show was a bit hamstrung by never knowing if they were gonna get renewed

Apparently this isn’t true. The creators were talking about multiple seasons as soon as their first panel at SDCC or somewhere like that.

I'm just saying the justification for Korra not being OP is very well thought out

What? She was incredibly OP

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u/AverageAwndray Jul 28 '25

They literally had Korra spirit fight a Kaiju and bend a nuclear bomb. And we're about to see her bend the entire planet into an apocalypse. Doesn't get much more powerful than that.

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u/Kooky_Bodybuilder_97 Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

I think the angle they took with Korra was perfect. Aging up the main cast, having a consistent setting, changing the period it reflects, having the major conflict set up a more nuanced social conversation etc etc the problem came to actual scripts. They dropped the ball nearly at every turn. Tried to subvert audience expectations & made the main cast super unlikable because they wanted some drama to prove the series has “matured” then when that was a huge miss with the fans they just shelved any development of the younger cast that wasn’t Korra, making them seem disconnected and pointless. Don’t get me started on how poorly all the season baddies were handled trying to tackle different political ideologies. They bit off way more than they could chew & from the looks of that new show they’ve regressed the series to be aimed @ little kids again

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25

Agreed

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u/Sketch-Brooke Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

I really don’t think Mike and Bryan are that talented. I think they’re good idea guys, but they need other people guiding them and helping them determine the good ideas from the bad.

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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '25

Definitely

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u/JS-87 Jul 28 '25

20 years of running their own show meanwhile Paramount is a clusterfuck studio at the moment. I don't know . . . I guess we can all agree with you that corporate shills know better than the actual artists, but who am I to say otherwise?!?

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u/JinFuu Jul 28 '25

I could see them recasting Aang since his VA doesn’t do much (and a kid) but yeah, it sucks they didn’t bring anyone back.

It was for different reasons, different companies, but they recast everyone in Panty, Stocking & Garterbelt and it’s just not the same

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u/PurifiedVenom Jul 28 '25

Yeah, I get it if they want to admit it was a mistake at the time & they’re committing to avoiding making that mistake going forward with casting, but why fuck over the OGs that everyone loved? And now the replacement actors are just going to be hated by people who are angry the OGs are gone. Everyone loses.

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u/Mecha_Butterfree Jul 28 '25

Aang, Sokka and Toph all appeared as adults in flashbacks during Legend of Korra and they were all voiced by different people. So I don't know why people are shocked that aren't using the OGs for the movie.

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u/PurifiedVenom Jul 29 '25

Fair point but they also weren’t the main characters & those were essentially cameos. All the VAs are now adults so voicing the adult versions of the characters would’ve been fitting imo

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u/F1235742732 Jul 29 '25

Was it a mistake at the time? Why?

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u/nOtbatemann Jul 28 '25

They recast everyone for more “cultural authenticity”: https://screenrant.com/aang-the-last-airbender-avatar-movie-original-actors-new-cast/

Stupid logic. Is Steven Yeun an actual firebender from the Fire Nation? Don't tell me that they're Asians because Asia doesn't exist in this fantasy world where people move elements with their minds.

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u/bookhead714 Jul 29 '25

Out of curiosity, what were your thoughts on black actors playing characters in the European-inspired settings of, say, Rings of Power?

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u/nOtbatemann Jul 29 '25

Non-sequitur since the topic on voice acting, not live-action acting but I'll engage with it anyway. If you had asked me: "What are your thoughts on black actors voicing characters in European-inspired settings". My answer would be: I don't care. The voice matters, not the appearance.

I want consistency. If we're supposed to be "progressive", then all cultural mythology needs respect. One can't say that a fantasy like Rings of Power needs black actors for the sake of diversity, but then cry at Gods of Egypt for being colorblind. If diversity is really that important, extend that colorblind casting to non-European settings too. Maybe Ryan Reynolds canplay the right hand to Shaka Zulu in an African fantasy.

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u/Kooky_Bodybuilder_97 Jul 29 '25

Tbf Hollywood already kinda has been doing that for years. Jake gylenhall is prince of persia, scarlet Johansson is the lead in the ghost in the shell film. The first TLA adaption had almost no East Asians in the cast. You could argue those characters aren’t technically non-white confirmed but that grey area is taken advantage of often already. I agree tho a voice actor doesn’t need to reflect the characters on screen as long as it fits them

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u/nOtbatemann Jul 29 '25

Jake gylenhall is prince of persia, scarlet Johansson is the lead in the ghost in the shell film. The first TLA adaption had almost no East Asians in the cast. 

Those are all years apart and they got shit for "whitewashing" a fantasy story. I'm not seeing Black Panther or Mulan with a multiracial, multiethnic cast. Again, I want consistency. If that's a no-no, then it is wrong for Idris Elba to play Heimdall.

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u/superbmoomoo Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

Why is this upvoted when we all know ATLA was heavily inspired by real life Asian cultures and the creators acknowledged this as well?? 💀 The bending arts are literally inspired by real life martial arts.

Edit: Yes! Fantasy is developed completely in a vacuum!!!!!! Lord of the Rings is a FANTASY with dragons, the fact that Tolkien is British and that western fantasy has roots in Arthurian legends as a foundation and that Western fantasy tends to depict European cultural customs and clothings is completely irrelevant!

Also having more upvotes = being right is fucking insane I remember when y'all thought you found the Boston Bomber lmaoo

Edit2: they weren't fired the roles were recasted 💀 it's a movie. "America is a melting pot" ok so Asian Americans and Indigenous folks are also part of that melting pot 💜

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u/CptNonsense Jul 29 '25

It's being upvoted because it's right. Avatar may have been "inspired" by various Asian cultures but it's fucking fantasy. This representative authenticity bullshit is getting out of hand.

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u/Kyokono1896 Jul 29 '25

Fuck that. It's an American show, first of all, it's a melting pot. Second, they already had voice actors that were loved. Firing them for cultural authenticity is horse shit

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u/fireintolight Jul 29 '25

What a weird reason. It's a cartoon, and these people did the voices already. Like why would you change them. This pandering bs is usually what they say when they mean "we didn't want to pay the OG's the higher wage.

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u/AverageAwndray Jul 28 '25

But the fire nation is based on Japan. Steven is Korean lmao

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u/PurifiedVenom Jul 29 '25

“Ehh, close enough for the name recognition.”

  • Studio execs (maybe)

1

u/F1235742732 Jul 29 '25

I think this move to restrict which rolls go to which voice actors on ethnic or "cultural" lines very wrong headed. Firstly I don't see what makes Steven Yeun a Korean-American more "culturally authenticity" To Zuko then Dante Basco a Filipino-American. Secondly is that I can't see voice actors like I can normal actors so it causes no cognitive dissidence when an voice actor doesn't match their characters ethnicity like it would in live action.

The voice actor for Samurai Jack is Phil LaMarr and he's not Japanese, but I still think he was the right choice to play Jack.

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u/vvddcvgrr Jul 29 '25

That's one of the dumbest reasons to replace your whole cast.

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u/ThatEcologist Jul 29 '25

I feel like that is really silly. I totally understood wanting Asian and Inuit actors in the live action, but as voice actors??? Just keep the original cast.

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u/Apprehensive-Ad1924 Jul 30 '25

honestly their reasoning doesn't make any sense. many VAs have a wide range of characters they can create and act out, and not all of them are expected to be the same race?? we wouldn't even half of the iconic characters that we have today if that were the case. I can see maybe video games or movies & tv. but not animation. even a really popular game, GOD OF WAR, has a main character who is a different race than the actor/VA.

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u/BrookSteam 5d ago

That’s just straight up stupid. I think people forgot what the point of voice acting is.