why did they change the pronunciation of names in The Last Airbender?

So, lemme get this straight: He changes the pronunciation away from the way we've known for 5 years to something else to be truer to Asian cultures, then casts the three main protagonists white? And the fire nation Indian? What a bunch of BS. It was because he was lazy and had the arrogance to believe people will love his movies more than the cartoon.

According to M. Night, it was a creative decision based on the cultural origins of the words in real life. Apparently he didn't think about the fact that they were already someone else's creative interpretations of the same cultures... :-/

You can read it in his own words here (he starts talking about it right before the picture of Aang):

http://www.ugo.com/movies/changes-to-the-last-airb...

I read an interview with M. Night Shyamalan and he said that the names were being pronounced wrong in the cartoon. Apparently some of the people in the cast, those who have similar names and cultures, complained and said that the cartoon pronounced the names wrong. So that's why. Technically they pronounced it right but I like the way the cartoon did it better.

LMAO @ other answers. omg i noticed that to it bugged the hell out of me through the WHOLE movie, it also bugged me that he changed that the princess's father died ( he didn't in the cartoon) and in the cartoon she couldn't be with sokka because she was in an arranged marriage... not a big detail, but it added to the annoyance of the movie... i don't think i will be seeing books 2 and 3....

I just saw the movie and the name pronouncing annoyed me in the beginning but I got used to it -_-

I watched behind the scenes with director, the reason was to make the names pronounced correctly according to the Asian names. It makes it weird, i like the other way better

I saw the interview with m. Night shithead and he thinks that the names should sound more Asian since he's Asian