The Last Airbender hit the big screen Thursday and was almost immediately panned by every critic imaginable.  But hatred for the film actually started some time ago, when casting first took place.

Racebending.com, an advocacy group for the “just and equal opportunity in film and television,” has been voicing their hatred for the film since 2008 when a casting call for the lead character, Aang, said actors were to be “Caucasian or any other ethnicity.” In the original cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the races of the characters are never discussed but it’s widely believed they are all of Asian descent. The controversy continued when Entertainment Weekly leaked the cast choices of the lead characters and all of them were white.

 Protests started to get organized that December.

In early 2009, Jesse McCartney was then replaced as Prince Zuko by Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel due to “scheduling conflicts.”  This caused even more of a stir – now the “good guys” were all white and the “bad guys” were ethnic.

M. Night Shyamalan decided to speak out about his casting choices this past March and continues to do so.  In an interview with The Early Show (video below), Shyamalan explains that the movie is actually one of the most culturally diverse today, with actors from all over the globe.  The Air Nation was cast with folks of all nationalities, tying into the idea that they were nomadic in nature.  Since Dev Patel was cast as Zuko, Shyamalan felt the Fire Nation should reflect his looks as well.  The Earth Nation is mostly comprised of Asian and African actors.  Caucasian actors were represented in the Water Nation. He attributes the misunderstanding to folks misreading the original anime.  ”I think there’s a little misunderstanding about anime. Anime in and of itself is an art form where the features are ambiguous- they have European features, they have all kinds of ambiguous features.  When we watched the cartoon [Avatar: The Last Airbender], I saw my daughter was in it [referring to Katara of the Water Nation].”  See more of his video interview below.

Dante Basco, who voiced Prince Zuko in the cartoon, has decided to throw his opinion out there as well.  On his blog, he says that while he would have loved to play Zuko on the big screen, he respects Shyamalan’s vision of the character.  ”My first gut feeling is, the best actor should be cast for the job no matter race… But maybe that’s just an ideal that is unreal when it comes to making a movie, and making a big budget movie at that…. The fact of the matter is, in Hollywood… it’s not fair.”  However, the actor does feel the casting was mismanaged and roles should have gone to underrepresented Asian actors.  ”In this day and age, in America 2010… I just don’t think it is at all viable for white actors to play ethnic roles… at least until they let us play white roles.”

Still, at the premiere yesterday there were protesters outside, picketing the film. Peter Sciretta of Slashfilm tweeted a photograph of the group outside the Arclight Hollywood. However, despite the anger towards the film and the bad reviews, it still managed to pull in $16 million in sales on its first day showing signs that the movie might be a hit.

So will you be seeing The Last Airbender or boycotting?