"The Interview" Christmas day release gets cancelled

[IamRAMBO24]

That's not the point.

The point is a foreign state basically was allowed to issue a 9/11 style threat to American citizens.

Hacked and released the social security numbers of American workers.

And they got their demands met. They got everything they asked for. That's the kicker here, they used a terror threat and corporate institutions caved out of fear.

If you can't see this setting any kind of precedent for the future or you don't think anyone else is looking at this and saying "hmmm", you are extremely short sighted.

I don't think it's that big of a deal either, but on *principal* this sets a horrible precedent and this has gone past the stage of being "haha, what a funny joke" phase.

Again, you're being shallow.

Fallacy: hypothetical.

The idea is if this happens, god forbid, we'll lose all future freedoms. You don't know about future threats, so you can't say for certain we'll lose more than lame movies with Kim Jong in it.

What is objective?

Sony was hacked; they are in under a lot of stress trying to control the damage. After speaking with their lawyers, they decided to put the weight on the theaters whether or not to release the picture. The theaters chose not to because they spoke to their lawyers and they said the same thing: if people die, they are liable.

From a business standpoint, they would be stupid to release the movie.

Objectivity #2:

There is a threat, so therefore it is the government's job to go after it. It is not Sony or the theater's problem. They are doing their best to protect their interest. It is the government's job to protect the people. If the people feel the terrorists are taking our freedoms away because of these threats, then the government needs to seek out these guys and flame them out. Calling Sony a p*ssy is unwarranted. If it is anybody who should get the pressure from this, it is the government. They need to do their job and protect the people's interest.

[IamRAMBO24]

If there is a school threat, you don't blame the teachers for closing the school down and criticize them because they are setting a precedent. The blame would be on the police if they do not act quickly and catch the perpetrator. Same thing with the Sony threat. It is the government's job to deal with terrorism. If they do their jobs correctly, then there won't be any future precedent. If Obama lays the smack down, then future terrorists would think twice about using empty threats on our people.

[Soundwave]

So now what?

Do we yank a movie from now on every time someone issues a threat?

Do we cancel a sporting event every time there's a cyber-threat?

Are movies about North Korea now off limits because everyone is too scared chicken sh*t to touch that subject matter? The Steven Carrell movie which had a plot involving North Korea also has gotten shelved.

Do we have to tip toe around some nut job dictator 5000 miles away with all of our media from now on?

I think Sony honestly was more scared of potentially more embarrassing private info leaking as the Dec. 25th release date grew closer.

There were still theaters willing to show the movie, it may not have been the main chains, but they could have given it a limited release if they wanted to. Plenty of movies open that way.

[tomtucker]

It sets a precedent.

If you're Russia or China watching this you are re-doubling your budget on hacking American interests.

And even though "Sony" is technically a Japanese company by its history, Sony Pictures (read: Columbia Pictures) is about as American as it gets. They made the freaking Wizard of Oz on the Columbia lot, and that has been in Hollywood since the 1930s.

This is an attack on an American film (regardless of how silly it is) and this group issued a threat that stated they would launch a 9/11 style attack on American citizens if the film was shown.

You also don't think North Korea isn't looking at this now and saying "well what else can we get away with?". When you bend over and give in, that's the only response you're going to get.

If you can shut down a movie, then you can shut down a newspaper, you can shut down a cable news network, you can shut down a Google, you can shut down a bank, etc. etc. etc.

exactly........don

[IamRAMBO24]

So now what?

Do we yank a movie from now on every time someone issues a threat?

Do we cancel a sporting event every time there's a cyber-threat?

Are movies about North Korea now off limits because everyone is too scared chicken sh*t to touch that subject matter? The Steven Carrell movie which had a plot involving North Korea also has gotten shelved.

Do we have to tip toe around some nut job dictator 5000 miles away with all of our media from now on?

I think Sony honestly was more scared of potentially more embarrassing private info leaking as the Dec. 25th release date grew closer.

There were still theaters willing to show the movie, it may not have been the main chains, but they could have given it a limited release if they wanted to. Plenty of movies open that way.

We've given up a ton of freedom because of terrorism, I think I can live without a Seth crap fest.

[IamRAMBO24]

There were still theaters willing to show the movie, it may not have been the main chains, but they could have given it a limited release if they wanted to. Plenty of movies open that way.

Sony did the right thing since they did not want to be liable for a massacre. They pushed it on the theaters to take sole responsibility for it's release, then when the theaters talked to their lawyers and canned it, Sony just blames it on them.

Smart move all around.

[KyleKong]

Obama spit the truth

[dunksby]

SMH dunking on a boy? A portrait of Kanye would be more accurate.

[Dresta]

Again, for some reason you're defining my opinion for something I wasn't talking about. I said they are terrible writers and I don't give a f*ck about some shithouse movie not coming out.

That doesn't mean I don't care about the first amendment.

Stop cumming in your pants about freedom of speech being violated when a corporation is hedging its' bet on a movie making money. They wrote the f*cking movie and were not stopped. They produced the movie with millions of dollars of someone's money and were not stopped. They were not fired from the f*cking movie for writing or performing these things. Man, such blatant violations of civil liberties!

The corporation is choosing a different release strategy because there are threats from 'terrorists', and it might cause financial losses for them. It's a God damn business decision.

You don't really understand things very well do you? Caving like this only makes people more likely to steer away from controversial topics in the future. It's not missing this film that is the loss, it is all the things that won't be made if any terrorist threat is enough to derail it. In the future, things will be played safer. Self-censorship due to perceived threats is still censorship.

You just have a terribly literal-minded understanding of concepts such as freedom and liberty, and no realisation that when you sacrifice these things over very unlikely security threats, you produce ripples which have far-reaching effects that cannot be so easily observed.

Voltaire's play Muhammed the prophet can't be shown in France without calling in the armed guard. Nick Cohen's You Can't Read This Book is a good analysis of where the far-reaching impact of this fear of terror has lead. There are many suppressions you're completely ignorant of, particularly in the UK and other countries without the 1st Amendment tradition.

You have no principles and will only defend people you like, how childish.

edit: Clooney, a guy pretty tied into the film industry seems to think this could have a big impact on the future and what films are produced (i.e. what you get to see):

DEADLINE: What kind of constraints will this put on storytellers that want to shine a critical light on a place like Russia, for instance, with something like a movie about the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the KGB officer who left and became an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin?

CLOONEY: What’s going to happen is, you’re going to have trouble finding distribution. In general, when you’re doing films like that, the ones that are critical, those aren’t going to be studio films anyway. Most of the movies that got us in trouble, we started out by raising the money independently. But to distribute, you’ve got to go to a studio, because they’re the ones that distribute movies. The truth is, you’re going to have a much harder time finding distribution now. And that’s a chilling effect. We should be in the position right now of going on offense with this. I just talked to Amy an hour ago. She wants to put that movie out. What do I do? My partner Grant Heslov and I had the conversation with her this morning. Bryan and I had the conversation with her last night. Stick it online. Do whatever you can to get this movie out. Not because everybody has to see the movie, but because I’m not going to be told we can’t see the movie. That’s the most important part. We cannot be told we can’t see something by Kim Jong-un, of all f*cking people.

DEADLINE: You said you won’t name names, but how many people were asked and refused to sign?
CLOONEY: It was a fairly large number. Having put together telethons where you have to get all the networks on board to do the telethon at the same time, the truth is once you get one or two, then everybody gets on board. It is a natural progression. So here, you get the first couple of people to sign it and … well, nobody wanted to be the first to sign on. Now, this isn’t finger-pointing on that. This is just where we are right now, how scared this industry has been made. Quite honestly, this would happen in any industry. I don’t know what the answer is, but what happened here is part of a much larger deal. A huge deal. And people are still talking about dumb emails. Understand what is going on right now, because the world just changed on your watch, and you weren’t even paying attention.

https://deadline.com/2014/12/george-...on-1201329988/

Had a pretty standard letter affirming solidarity with Sony and no one signed it - sure it has nothing to do with fear or cowardice - they probably weren't even fearful of getting blown up, but of getting hacked. There was no risk to the public, they were just protecting their own asses.

[tomSR.]

enjoy the girl power movies, PG-13 Terminator, and The Hunger Games.......noone will have the balls to make a controversiel movie after this crap.....

[Dresta]

These guys are really too much:

On Saturday, the North Korean foreign ministry said: "As the United States is spreading groundless allegations and slandering us, we propose a joint investigation with it into this incident."

"Without resorting to such tortures as were used by the US CIA, we have means to prove that this incident has nothing to do with us."

The statement said there would be "grave consequences" if the Americans rejected their inquiry proposal.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30560712

North Korea is trolling the US hard

[tomtucker]

those fukking assholes........

[KingBeasley08]

F*ck man, I didn't wanna watch this but if they put this back, i'm watchin this shit opening day. I'll even pay extra if I have too.

[BurningHammer]

These guys are really too much:



North Korea is trolling the US hard

"Without resorting to such tortures as were used by the US CIA, we have means to prove that this incident has nothing to do with us."

[KNOW1EDGE]

Not sure why North Korea is trying to front like they have nothing to do with it when we already have traced the sh1t and have proof.

Congrats to America for being total liberal vagihnas and continuing to slowly but surely tighten the noose on our freedom.