Damn the way some people are going on about this casting they would've
Pretty sure that none of the characters names will be changed. And PEDRO isn't just a good actor he has a ton of genre bonafides from NARCO's to GoT and to a little show called THE MANDO. This seemed like a no-brainer from a casting perspective as the race of Joel is completely irrelevant to the story being told.
Not even just that; I think (at least IMO) it's more about if someone can pass as a character's visual aesthetic, rather than if they match their ethnicity 1:1 (especially for character who literally are not human beings canonically speaking).
Like Pascal for example, he can pass as a live-action Joel as he more or less looks the part. He looks like he'd make a Joel who's faithful to the visual aesthetic of Joel, especially with the facial hair and all. The person they have now casted for his daughter, I think she can visually pass for a faithful live-action take on his daughter from the game, IF they dye her hair blonde and style it maybe to how the little girl had it in the game.
I think some people forget that ethnicity is not some black or white thing (pun not intended). There's
plenty of black people with variations in skin tone and facial features, same goes for whites, Asians etc. and that's not even bringing into the equation people of immediate mixed heritage. The way some folks seem to view it you'd think everyone would look like stereotypes from old propaganda posters or something.
All in all from a POV of them being pretty faithful to the visual identity/aesthetic of the game characters I don't have an issue with either of these castings. It's not like Lance Riddick getting casted as Wester in the new RE series (btw, I'm a big fan of the guy especially his work in The Wire, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell he doesn't look like Wesker from the games :S), for example. So I really think some people should chill on this otherwise they're just starting to prove their critics were right.
I think he got banned because either (a) the mods are scared of offending the crazy left or (b) we’re going back to being pre-exodus GAF.
Or maybe he was just acting like an asshole and it's not a good look to let a dude who calls non-whites "poor minorities" run amuck?
I mean come on, there's sensible disagreement, and then there's stuff like that comment.