They're planning to change Tetsuo's name to Travis? Barf. It's probably the least of the things they're doing to the story, but still...
Actually, I suppose the name change makes sense if they're going to have a white cast, but then what about Akira? Is he going to stay Japanese? I'd be feeling a little salty about it if what the article says is true and they turn Akira into the villain, but then keep him as the only Japanese character.
At this point, why bother calling it "Akira"?
Two of the major themes of Akira are adolescence, and the clash between the individual and civilized society. Tetsuo and Kaneda are 15 year olds in a violent motorcycle gang, and they're actually introduced to us committing violent acts against a rival gang. Kaneda gets involved with political dissidents through Kei, who doesn't appear much older, and the Espers are oddly childlike as well. Tetsuo's rage and uncontrolled transformations are symbolic of adolescence as well. Meanwhile, we see that the political leadership of Neo-Tokyo is weak, cowardly, and self-serving, and that the people are looking for any figure that seems to promise change, so much so that they follow Tetsuo during his rampage, even though it leads to their death.
The problem is that if you change the characters from wild youths to established adults, that changes the entire nature of the movie. Tetsuo only works sympathetically because he's a teenager who doesn't have a place in society, and when he gains his psychic powers, his only motivation is to go on a destructive rampage against those he thinks have slighted him - society, the government, his rival youths.
Another factor is, if you look through all different series of Japanese entertainment, the wholesale destruction of cities is almost a running gag. All the kaiju movies feature it, many anime series feature it, it's kind of a given that cities are impermanent, easily erased by the powerful. In the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami, it's sort of clear why that is.
The American psyche isn't geared the same. New Orleans is still being rebuilt, still something of a mental scar on the landscape. Even Ground Zero in Manhattan, which in some ways, society is still trying to recover from.
When you change those factors, you don't have the same story and with it being so widely different, it's less harmful to not saddle it with the baggage of something it no longer is.
