Eladin wrote:the defense has a technical case in that in this fictional world "asians" don't exist. regardless of how we perceive the characters, they couldn't be wrong...and some a-hole who made the original franchise had to ok the casting. it's pointless to blame hollywood for being as hollywood always is...blame the sellouts who allowed it to happen.
I doubt that it was necessary for the original creators to accept the casting. I will offer an example for perspective. Ursula K. Le Guin was kept out of the loop when the Syfy Channel made a movie out of her fantasy series Earthsea. She was very upset when she discovered that it had been whitewashed.
