Sony Cancels The Interview Over Hacking Threat - Update

[Hairless Mammoth]

It's sad that terrorists, who may just be kids from many of the western countries, including Canada and the US, have found out the best way to ground planes, ruin someone's night at home by getting m4 carbines pointed at them, or stop a major motion picture that mocks a country that treats its citizens worse than cattle is to just make a call or send a message with a few sentences.

I once saw a post-9/11 PSA that showed a row of houses and said terrorists set out to change the US, then faded to a new shot of the same houses with flags now on every house with the voice over adding "they succeeded." Whenever I hear about one of these threats or something about the TSA being way to extreme and grounding planes because a parent didn't want their 5 year old seeing an R-rated Tyler Perry movie being shown right in front of him, I remember those last words of the PSA and cry a little. They did succeed.

Sony, you need to release this somehow in North America before the year ends. Whether it goes online for sale or rental, it gets a limited release with armed security and bomb sniffers, or you "leak" it and do nothing to stop its propagation. It's not just you getting bullied now; it's the entire world getting pushed around by cowards who won't even reveal themselves. It North Korea is behind this and the movie starts a war, I will not blame you. The have been sable rattling for decades, without proving they have any reason to use that army for anything but delivering food to starving North Koreans.

 

[Mr. Q]

So... terrorism works, and now the next pack of fanatics who want to force them to pull a product they dislike will know exactly how to go about it. Bravo, Sony.

considering hackers casually name-dropped the 9/11 attacks

Pushing around a private company is one thing, but an act of state-sponsored terrorism by NK on US soil would be an open ivitation for the USA to come in and show them exactly how worthless the fourth largest army in the world is in 21st century warfare.

Quite honestly the sooner someone does get around to overthrowing the NK regime the better it will be for everyone, including the North Korean people themselves.

This act not only proves Sony to be incompetent but gutless as well. Even with all the hoopla caused by the hackers, Sony could have shown some integrity and released the film. Regardless of it was good or bad, it should stand on its own merits. It should not be censored due to the actions of a shit-hole country propped up by the son of a brain-dead dictator who's legacy is a lifetime of oppressing his people and living a bull-shit fantasy life that trumps what Will Smith's kids are living right now.

Sony, for proving to be the worst at what you do, I hope your company goes under and never comes up. I hope every IP you have goes back to its proper owners or ends up in the hands of people who could do better. Because this spineless act just showed how truly pathetic you are as a company.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Well. Looks like we all need to welcome our new North Korean cultural overlords. I for one look forward to the north korean censors deciding what we can and can't watch! /s

Seriously though, fuck North Korea and fuck those bastard hackers. Maybe we could get as up in arms over this actual censorship as we got over Valve making it slightly harder for edgelords to buy that shitty murder simulator? Pretty please?

 

[Makabriel]

I'm pretty sure Sony has information none of the public has that has caused this decision. Pretty sure it was discussed on MANY levels. It's called a business decision and I'm sure there were plenty of legitimate reasons.

*runs away from the oncoming retaliation.

 

[teknoarcanist]

Snip

I like how you call sony the victim and then blame them for if they showed the movie and got attacked it would be their fault. If the probability of a threat is that low still requires you to outright cancel the movie then you could ban every single movie in history through the internet.

Seriously, threaten a massacre you could stop politicians speaking, movies, books and music being banned from showing.

Your essentially allowing a terrorists dream because of your own paranoia. I really think you need a perspective on the precedent you set with this.

I repeat: just weeks before, the same WORLD GOVERNMENT making the threat FOLLOWED THROUGH ON A PREVIOUS THREAT AND LAUNCHED ONE OF THE LARGEST CYBERTERRORIST ATTACKS IN HISTORY.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

You shouldn't roll over from threats by terrorists. It just shows that you are weak and it will work in future. We are all cowards.

 

[EmperorZinyak]

Wait what? There's no way that North Korea could follow up with this threat. If they did, the whole U.S cruise missile supply would be unloaded on North Korea. Even North Korea knows that a movie isn't worth starting a war over. Now the whole world will laugh at us for buckling under another empty threat from North Korea.

 

[Dango]

Considering it's abundantly clear that this is North Korea at this point, isn't their basically nothing to fear, what the hell is North Korea gonna do?

 

[Blazingdragoon04]

Snip

I like how you call sony the victim and then blame them for if they showed the movie and got attacked it would be their fault. If the probability of a threat is that low still requires you to outright cancel the movie then you could ban every single movie in history through the internet.

Seriously, threaten a massacre you could stop politicians speaking, movies, books and music being banned from showing.

Your essentially allowing a terrorists dream because of your own paranoia. I really think you need a perspective on the precedent you set with this.

I repeat: just weeks before, the same WORLD GOVERNMENT making the threat FOLLOWED THROUGH ON A PREVIOUS THREAT AND LAUNCHED ONE OF THE LARGEST CYBERTERRORIST ATTACKS IN HISTORY.

What exactly are you basing the scale of this cyber attack from? What source or sources is saying this is one of the largest? You need scale and sources here.

Anyways, I for one find this entirely a cowardly move, and like others have mentioned in the same vein as the episodes of South Park that have yet to be released online. It's a shame when a bunch of people can bluff and bully online because they don't agree with what an art form is doing/saying/depicting. Start censoring art and you have a whole mess of other issues on your hands as a result.

Honestly though I think it's truly a failing of the modern world that such a place like North Korea still exist: A psychopathic, trigger-happy country with a mass of people kept in the dark about the outside world and so brainwashed at this point who knows if they even know how to reintegrate into mainstream society even IF they were liberated. Certainly makes me glad I live where I live, but... for the love of all that's good world, could you at least step it up and get this insult of a country, if you can even call it that, in line? They're like the screaming 5 year old in the candy isle that just hasn't been disciplined enough and is throwing a tantrum because it can only have 3 candies instead of 400.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Conspiracy theory time!

What if this is just their ploy to make more people go see the movie when they decide to show it anyway? They've been in a financial nightmare with their movies for a while now, and this doesn't even look that good. So, maybe they're only hyping it up?

 

[Dark Knifer]

Snip

I like how you call sony the victim and then blame them for if they showed the movie and got attacked it would be their fault. If the probability of a threat is that low still requires you to outright cancel the movie then you could ban every single movie in history through the internet.

Seriously, threaten a massacre you could stop politicians speaking, movies, books and music being banned from showing.

Your essentially allowing a terrorists dream because of your own paranoia. I really think you need a perspective on the precedent you set with this.

I repeat: just weeks before, the same WORLD GOVERNMENT making the threat FOLLOWED THROUGH ON A PREVIOUS THREAT AND LAUNCHED ONE OF THE LARGEST CYBERTERRORIST ATTACKS IN HISTORY.

So hacking ability= Military might and ability to ship terrorists through USA borders striking specific targets and what not?

Guest AL-kaida was taking tips from luzsec and anonymous then.

You didn't even acknowledge my point of how threats like these would lead to catastrophic loss of everything in the arts and politicians could be kept cowering in their doorsteps if they reacted to every single threat they have.

And north korea have been threatening America for decades and a cyber attack against a single movie studio is the best they can do? I don't think I should be that paranoid about a force like this and paranoia is exactly what they want. I refuse to give them that.

 

[Zontar]

If I was Sony now, I'd spam the shit out of it.
Get it on DVD and into shops as quickly as possible, have it on iTunes or maybe even see how much Netflix might pay for exclusive rights.
3million DVD sales equates to about $50million enough to put them about even.

The studio would need to sell closer to 8 million given the portion of the sale the studio gets, but dame would I buy up 3 copies just out of spite to the reds. I can always give the extra one after all.

On a more serious note, this really ticks me off. My Christmas is going to be alone this year due to scheduling, so I was hoping to see The Interview after going to a Chinese buffet. Now I need to find another movie, and honestly the only other one I know of coming out on that day is one I have absolutely no interest in watching.

 

[scotth266]

You know, I had absolutely no desire to watch the movie until this moment. Is this some sort of reverse-psychology marketing stunt? Because if so, well played.

 

[vid87]

And here I thought the Dennis Rodman thing was the apex of weird, but now we live in a world where a Seth Rogan comedy altered foreign policy. Go figure.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

You know, I had absolutely no desire to watch the movie until this moment. Is this some sort of reverse-psychology marketing stunt? Because if so, well played.

Conspiracy theory time!

What if this is just their ploy to make more people go see the movie when they decide to show it anyway? They've been in a financial nightmare with their movies for a while now, and this doesn't even look that good. So, maybe they're only hyping it up?

It's totally not an impossibility, but making actual threats against the public is the kind of desperate move even Sony hasn't sunk low enough to make. No executive would do something like make terrorist threats to save a company when they have a golden parachute and the chance to go to or start another one. It's too big of a risk of getting exposed and ruining the company's and one's personal reputation (along with the jail time/paying to get out of jail). If it even was someone on the inside trying to get the company back to its glory days, they would have to be extremely careful how they orchestrated it. I guess they could have somehow got in contact with a hacking group to let them do all the dirty work, but things could still come back to bite them.

Still, I do hope law enforcement doesn't rule that out as a possibility. Even people hired to run multi-billion corporations can do some nasty (and stupid) stuff just to increase profits by 1%.

 

[Buizel91]

TERRORISM WINS!

FATALITY!

FLAWLESS VICTORY!

ACED!

PENTAKILL!

AN ENEMY IS UNSTOPPABLE!

hehe i could do this all day xD

 

[List]

It's still an act of rank cowardice, don't get me wrong, but what's scary about it is that NK has seemingly found a way to game the U.S. legal system to get their way.

All people really need to do get money from sony if they chose to show the movie is someone shouting "BOMB!". The following panic/stampede will cause injury then followed by the law suit.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

SNIP

I repeat: just weeks before, the same WORLD GOVERNMENT making the threat FOLLOWED THROUGH ON A PREVIOUS THREAT AND LAUNCHED ONE OF THE LARGEST CYBERTERRORIST ATTACKS IN HISTORY.

Well, that doesn't mean that North Korea has some of the best hackers in the world; it means that Sony has terrible Internet Protection, like most major companies (And countries like the US) do. I mean, Lizard Squad hacked both Sony and Microsoft this year, are we going to call them great hackers now?

Anyways, this saddens me because it means that the Terrorists won. And not just individual terrorism, but State-sponsored Terrorism. State-sponsored Terrorism from the piece-of-crap country that is North Korea. North Korea should really never win anything, especially not a Censorship crusade. I hope the UN or at least the USA/Japan respond to this intensely (More Sanctions, maybe even an Oceanic Embargo).

 

[Tony2077]

its funny that its a movie like this that is getting so much attention

 

[Fox12]

FUCKING A.

Sony, you must be kidding me with this shit. I've never been more disappointed in this company. Good news everyone, terrorists win. Fuck life.