Okay, I know Twoflower is the Tourist stereotype (though I think they can play that as more the silly American tourist than the Japanese tourist and still cast an actor of Asian descent -- insurance salesman on vacation struck me as the American in Europe plot idea) and the whole Agatean Empire is transparently stereotypical Asia, but this strikes me as more instances of making a mostly white franchise even more white under the banner of "sensitivity." Just more of a pretty nasty trend of taking out offensive Asian characters and not putting any good Asian characters in to replace them.
I tend to agree. Particularly because, judging by the comment thread, Twoflower mostly comes across as an obnoxious tourist and not specifically an obnoxious Asian tourist. So I don't think this is really an offensive character if played right. I don't actually remember Twoflower that well, unlike his luggage, so while I'd oppose whitewashing I don't have a real dog in this fight. I'll definitely go see the movie, but it's the later books that I vehemently love.
On a similar not, I was rather amused when reading Nick Fury, Agent of Shield to discover that one of his baddies was a stereotypically Asian criminal organization called "The Yellow Claw." I read in Wikipedia that in an appearance in a recent comic the leader "claims that the phrase "Yellow Claw" is actually a mistransliteration of the Chinese characters, and that his title is actually 'Golden Claw.'" Good call that.
[Update: Corrected the spelling of Sean Astin's name.]
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