Which is basically to stop blaming Sony and look at the larger issue here. Also, if you have to blame someone, blame the theaters for pulling out and not Sony.

man, i have so much respect for george clooney

which is not ...........a thing i would ever have envisioned saying

And then talk about the fucking hacking instead of the movie.

silverycitibanklights: Really? Haha. I like him a lot. He, Ben Affleck, and some others I've come to realize are really educated, well informed activists for great causes.

Ahah well, I mea

n

this is a change from when I was like ...twenty

and much less aware

I'm glad I was wrong in having originally thought it honestly seemed to be mostly commercially based, the decision to pull the film

Not as glad that the film industry apparently capitulated, since a threat isn't the same as actually being able to do something, but I do understand why they would have.

This country has been very susceptible to 'terrorism' and the thread of terrorism or attacks for thirteen years now

threat*

silverycitibanklights: Ahaha, got it. I'm sure he's grown a lot.

As have I, ahah!

It's been a journey together.

On which note I also really appreciate Ben Affleck.

midcirclenine: It really irritated me that so many people jumped to criticize Sony when they were responding to others' kowtowing first. In the midst of dealing with these awful leaks. One of the things

Clooney says that I love is his remark about how they embarrassed Sony first, then attacked them directly and how powerful that is.

silverycitibanklights: Tbh I only came to appreciate him a couple years ago. I had the fortune of interviewing him for his film Argo and I was so impressed with his passion and very apparent

Yeah that was an excellent point

education/knowledge-base on the subject material. He wasn't just reading cards; he really knew a lot and could discuss it at length. It was really amazing to watch unfold.

Yessss

oh wow that's really cool

I had that experience with The Town

not that I

spoke to him, just that i read about it a lot and it was obviously he'd worked really hard and really knew his subject matter

*obvious

jesus

I am so tired :| BUT YEAH I am a fan.

Haha, yeah!! He gets really passionate about projects and really pours his heart and soul into them. It's honestly really refreshing to me to see Clooney doing the same with this Sony hacking situation.

Because. Someone has to.

This bit about how literally no one would sign this petition is not surprising but it is

really disheartening

Agreed. When that kind of powerhouse you know his network must be amazing can't convince people to get on board, it kind of adds a level of futility to the situation in an, as you said, disheartening way.

(whoops strikes)

I liked this article too: Sony Responds To President Obama's Criticism: "We Had N...

this was an interesting read

tbh though, to me, this self-interested fear is not 'fear of physical attack' it's 'capitalist fear of loss of income' at its heart

sigh

Agreed, although I think physical fear is also a consideration. Dwarfed by far of bad publicity.

physical fear of terrorists is just alarmist at this point, riled up by the history of Bush's constant TERROR ALERTS

Jon Stewart pointed out that hyperbolic threats is what North Korea does. they've also threatened, a lot more directly, to turn Washington, DC into a "sea of fire"

no one took that seriously, but this is serious?

it just sounds like a convenient excuse to get out of taking the financial risk

and, wrapped in the financial risk, the personal reputation risk if the hackers turned on them.

the Interview's producers being privately tasteless is just a normal human trait. movie theatres uniformly refusing to show it, and no one signing Clooney's statement of support, is aggravating as hell

for the money-obsessed mindset it reveals

it doesn't surprise me, which is what's so aggravating about it, lol. continuation of a trend.

Oh I don't think anyone involved has a real fear of physical terrorism. But a fear of invasion of privacy can very quickly turn into a fear of physical violence. People are crazy with their death threats.

And while, yes, the theater chains are clearly money obsessed, I think their mind is more on the publicity than the money directly. Which, yes, goes back to money (bad publicity = suffering), but I think

there's a degree of ego or pride to it as well. It's about legacy building, etc.

It also relates back to what Clooney said, only in reverse. Once one or two bowed out, the rest followed.

it's stupid though because being the ONLY theatre showing a certain movie is obviously a fantastic publicity move

or being, say, the only person that signed his thing

I changed my mind. I don't think it's just publicity/money. If something happened? No one wants to be the guy responsible for that on a

personal level. Then factor in the blame/publicity. No matter what they do, it's the wrong choice. Every option can be related to "doing

it for the money, " which isn't fair. Do I think the theaters should have kowtowed? No. But I understand why they did.