I'm going to amend myself from my first post which got me in the shit. Looking at what I wrote again, I was in a foul mood and tired of having to explain why I was trying to keep an open mind about the film after trawling through a lot of understandable anger about the predominantly white casting of the film. After what I wrote later to rabican above, I realize that reflects how I feel a lot more accurately. In brief, I don't think Avatar's characters skew Caucasian in appearance; I do think there is a fusion of different races and ethnicities apparent in many of their appearances, to enhance identification for kids of all race, color and creed in the audience. I also think anime in general tends to sidestep ethnicity a lot, but I may be wrong about that too.
I don't know if I'm wrong to feel as I do about Avatar's cultural makeup, but that's how I take it and that's why I was open to the casting of a white kid for Aang. I do find it very fucked up that the other protagonists are all white, while antihero Zuko is the only one of a different ethnicity. In that respect, I totally agree that Shyamalan and co. seriously screwed the pooch by not making the cast as multi-culti as the original Avatar itself is. If you're gonna cast a white Aang, you better make sure the rest of the cast is a great mix of people from all corners of the globe. They didn't do that, and shit looks goofy.
In any event, I fucked up on my first post. I was irritable, I didn't express myself properly and saying the character appearances skews Caucasian is wrong. Rather, I think their appearances skew towards EVERYBODY. I hope the film works out, but after "The Happening" and "Lady In The Water," uh...well, we'll see.