What do you think of the Avatar tv show, and how the movies changed the pronunciations of names?

The thing to remember about the show is that it was inspired by many real-world cultures, and not all of them are even Asian. None of the in-universe cultures were strict with adhering real-world counterparts, either.

With that said, they do write in Chinese in the show, and the main cast does have canonical Chinese names. Interestingly, here are their names in Japanese. When M. Night Shyamalan did the film, I don't know how many of these names and transliterations were canon, but Uncle Iroh might not have had the overcorrected name had they been.

I've heard that Sokka's name is based on the phrase, そうか (sou ka). His Mandarin name, 索卡 (Suǒ kǎ) is closer to this pronunciation than the Japanese localization, サカ (saka), which closer reflects the English pronunciation.

Unfortunately, since the show is more influenced by Chinese culture and there are fewer media-based cultural exports, fewer people will give the time to entertain the notion of their now canon names. Because there's a blend of cultures, too, even someone who knows one or two of these languages might not know that someone else's name comes from a separate language entirely.

There's not enough discourse for people to realize the mispronunciations, and fans will lend credence to an actor's performance over a creator's intent for something they themselves couldn't pronounce.

Anyway, I'd love if they went with as close to their intended pronunciations should be rather than what was originally presented to us. It would show a deeper respect to the cultures that are being used as inspiration. They don't have to be 100% accurate, but they should be closer to what their actual canonical names are. Ignoring the various real-world cultures because it's a fantasy show would be less cultural appreciation and more cultural appropriation (and I don't mean that in the technical term, since it's still cultural appropriation, regardless). That said, if you need to be a linguist to enjoy the show, then that would push fans away.

Sticking to the original pronunciation would be a way to appease the vocal diehard fanbase, who are already upset that it's getting a live-action production. People are so connected to what they hear first vs what the intended pronunciations are--The few times you want to avoid intended pronunciations would be when their names would be too similar to another word that makes it inappropriate. Apparently, Katara's name had to be changed in Greek because her name's the same word for curse (κατάρα). We're not having these issues with these names in English, of course, so give the names their intended pronunciation.

It's not a "fantasy" series in the same way that Drizzt Do'Urden is a Drow or that there are Dothraki with their own conlang. It's "fantasy" where Frodo and Geralt have real-world cultural counterparts and cognates that follow rules. Anyone who dismisses this because "all languages are made up" are missing the point of the cultural context within these made up systems. It means something to the people whose cultures are being referenced and being used for inspiration. This would also be a hot topic with so many ways to approach it. Good luck to the original creators adapting their work into a live-action medium.

Something I wanna bring up whitewashing in the movie is that the TV show was just as bad about it seeing how almost all of the core cast was voiced by white actors/actresses. The few main characters who actually got to be voiced by Asian actors (one of whom passed away) were also villains or at least antagonistic faction characters.

In general, the fact that the show and movie both touched on real-world cultures, places, and events (Lake Laogai, the genocide of the air-nation and the destruction of their culture, etc) but didn't actually take the time or resources to include the people affected by it is the larger issue, and the name pronunciation is another symptom of that.

Yes, it's a fantasy show, but something like say "Tenzin" is a real name people have and not something just made up out of nowhere. The fantasy races within the show are coded and based off of real cultures and even though the show is fantasy, fantasy writers still need to be conscious of racial coding in their work because the conflicts and events they come up with rarely aren't coming out of nowhere.

More authentic pronunciations would have been better if you're going to have a bunch of people who aren't Asian mix and match a bunch of different Asian cultures and then not actually include many of those same people in the writing and acting process. It really comes through that this was written and heavily influenced like white people when you have things like portraying a woman who was kidnapped and had her people seized by colonizers and is a literal camp survivor. There's also the fact that Asians, alongside many other marginalized groups of people are discriminated against very heavily in the entertainment industry.

I'm not trying to pick on Avatar specifically because this is an industry wide problem, but the show is also a good case study for seeing some of the consequences that come about due to those inequities.