Sony pulled The Interview, ostensibly because of some Korean hackers. So next time an album, film, book or whatever is released and someone takes offence, a precident has been set. All to the backdrop of 139 children being slain because of some religious/political difference of opinion, which puts the Sony story in perspective, but how quickly did we forget about the Russians shooting down a passenger plane, or the massacre at the Chechen school ten or so years ago. To date my defense mechanism to all this has been to go about my own business, work hard, love my family, etc etc... I worry though that in the not-too-distant future these issues that seem "far away in a distant galaxy" will get closer and closer to home. And of course there's no point to this post and no silver bullet or answer. But do people not know right from wrong anymore? Or tolerance? Or the ability to laugh things off? Just let things slide? And what does it say about me, that in the light of Ebola, murder, terrorism and suchlike I'm most concerned about Sony's "self censorship"? Large glass of red for me I think...
They caved-in to limit further damage and protect the bottom line. I think they should have stuck to their guns and worked on their security.
there own dam fault to be honest you cant say they didn't know or think this would not cause controversy in the first place there idiots for going ahead & doing it
You know, Sony is the only foreign owned corporation of the "Big Six" corporations that own the "Big Ten" movie studios and doesn't also own it's own highly influential news network (News Corp). In addition it's the only member of the Big Six competing with American-owned companies in multiple industries and markets, with an annual revenue double that of it's nearest competitor in the Big Six. Maybe I'm paranoid, but $65,000,000,000 says that the notion of North Korea hackers making perfect scapegoats for industrial sabotage is at least worth some consideration.
From my understanding the media played the biggest part in getting Sony to pull the film, IIRC only a single message that may, or may not have come from the hackers threatened movie theaters, the media seems to have jumped on this single unconfirmed message and have blown it out of all proportion.
The Sony situation is pretty bizarre but a minor issue to me compared to the school attack in Pakistan. I was listening on the radio to a father speaking about the loss of his son and I was moved to tears.
It feels much more like industrial sabotage than bowing down to North Korean hackers. Or the cynic could suggest it's the best advertising campaign ever for a rubbish movie?
Sony's security being terrible before this hack and clearly not being improved from previous breaches, didn't help matters, I just bet this film will turn out to be rubbish anyway. They have shelved movies before but sent them down the direct-to-vid/DVD route without the same cries of self-censorship. It's a mixture of the studio being slack and the film's writers thinking they could go one better than a fictional character alluding to a real-life person which is what a writer would normally do to avoid being sued - when they filmed Patriot Games in the 1990s they damn well made sure it wasn't referencing Charles and Diana getting kidnapped as it was in the novel, which some people complained about in this country. Even if yes they are caving in and backing down, it just wasn't thought through from the beginning.
North Korea offers US joint investigation of Sony cyberattack http://rt.com/news/216255-north-korea-investigation-sony-cyberattack/ Grave consequences for not cooperating with them, that doesn't sound good, let's hope it's just the normal NK saber rattling.
To be fair I would have been tempted to do this after Mel Gibson made the patriot but I didn't think of it! If it is North Korea the best option would be for Sony to upload it to Pirate Bay! :-D
Pre-release reviews were already pretty damning, although of course I'm sure this didn't affect in any way Sony's decision to pull the film
What irks me is how Sony first said they pulled the film because lot's of cinemas expressed concern. Now they are going to release it, all be it to only a select few cinemas, they claim this is some kind of victory for free speech, and how they never gave up on releasing it. To me they have come across as very hypocritical.
