Ever since Disney published the official trailer for the film, several fans of the original have blasted the company for the drastic change in the physical appearance of one of the most beloved characters they’ve ever created.
On the flip side, there are those who support Disney’s effort to provide representation to people of all backgrounds. Nevertheless, just two days after being uploaded to YouTube, the official trailer was “disliked” over 1.5 million times, causing Youtube to deactivate the option. This is alarming, considering the video has garnered 661K likes in the past five days. Twelve years ago, the executive producers over at Paramount Pictures faced similar backlash when they cast most of the principal roles for the live-action version of The Last Airbender with White actors/actresses even though the original cartoon series was fictionally built upon Asian culture and characters.