Last year, following the SXSW premiere of Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, I had an interesting chat with John Cho, Kal Penn and Neil Patrick Harris about the ethnic stereotype humor in that sequel, as well as their thoughts on movies focused on the discussion of race in general. In a way, I think the first two Harold & Kumar movies did as much as is needed in terms of making fun of racism — and, more broadly, any kind of stereotyping or racial profiling — so my first thought after learning that a third installment was in the works was that it should just be a simple stoner comedy with little or no concentration on the ethnicity of the two main characters.

However, now that this third film has a title, and that title is A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, I’ve changed my mind. Sort of. Instead of playing the race card, I hope that writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg go for religious satire. After all, it’s set during the holidays, and considering most ignorant Americans would assume that Harold and Kumar aren’t Christian (they may or may not be), the movie could tackle that sort of stereotyping. Then again, I would love it more if they actually went with the “Harold & Kumar Babies” idea that Cho proposed last summer.

Anyway, while I spent the day dreaming of my ideal White (Castle) Christmas movie, everyone else was wondering how Penn’s Obama administration job will affect the making of this sequel. Check out other bloggers’ thoughts on AVH&KC after the jump:

• Sean at Film Junk sees this movie as a backwards move for the actors:
  

  John Cho and Kal Penn’s careers seem to be slowly moving away from these characters. Cho plays Sulu in J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek, while Kal Penn has now actually joined the staff of the Obama administration…shouldn’t Cho and Penn be looking ahead to better things instead of returning to this low brow franchise one last time?

• Roger Moore at Frankly My Dear… agrees the actors’ latest gigs should put them above this thing:
  

  And these two are willing to do another bong-hits-and-burgers comedy? It’s to come out Christmas 2010.
  An incredibly greedy, short-sighted move. Both should be above all that. they’ve aged out of the roles, the second movie sucked (and wasn’t exactly a blockbuster in theaters). Ugh.

• Adam Rosenberg at MTV Movies Blog isn’t so sure that Penn will actually be returning:
  

  A title is all we have to go on for the moment, as the WB announcement made no mention of the film’s plot or casting. As hard as it is to imagine anyone other than Penn and co-star John Cho…stepping into the shoes of the titular stoners, it’s a distinct possibility given the public nature of Penn’s new job in the White House Office of Public Liaison.

• Spencer Martin at The Playlist still assumes Penn is on board because of the initial greenlight of the flick last year. He also makes an educated guess about the sequel’s plot:
  

  The story broke last summer that the duo were set to reprise their roles in a third film, but the “plot” was kept under wraps, we now assume it will have something to do with Christmas, weed, angst-filled relationships and Neil Patrick Harris having heterosexual sex.

• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba guesses even further:
  

  There’s going to be another Harold and Kumar film: A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas…It’ll be Christmas related (duh): I imagine it’ll be about a magical Yule log that you can smoke and smoke and smoke.

• Perez Hilton makes a suggestion and an assumption about Penn’s new job:
  

  We guess Kal Penn isn’t as important to the White House as he thinks he is in his role there?

  Note to writers: Please include a scene where Santa does blow with a certain red-nosed reindeer…AWESOME.

• Mark Graham at Vulture is curious about how Penn will find the time. (Also, his post wins the best photoshop of the day contest, hands down):
  

  While we could not possibly be any more excited to see NPH and Santa Claus trade bong rips, what we’d really like to see is the e-mail Penn is going to have to send to Obama to request six weeks off to shoot the film. Better not take any sick days this year, Kal!