North Korea

North Korea Calls for UN Security Council Investigation of CIA Torture. A basic attempt at deflecting criticism of its own human rights record.

You know the question of whether NK was involved with the Sony hack crack?

As per the NY Times, they were involved.

Huh. Color me surprised.

Ditto if true. I mean, Sony could've easily kept the film in theatres, riding the wave of free advertising for it. (God knows it'll need it: by the reviews and the clips I've seen, the film just plain sucks.) Or done straight-to-DVD. Or, to really screw with the hackers, just open-sourced it. Sooner or later it's going to make its way via pirated Chinese copies up to North Korea anyway. In other words, this easily could have backfired hard for NK, if indeed they were behind it.

I wonder if Sony are just going to sit on the film, wait for all the attention around it and events to die down then quietly release it in cinemas or direct to DVD/digital.

The statement does say "we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release", which leaves room for them to release it at a later date. I think they're probably just going to sit on the film until the FBI gives them an all clear on the threats being empty.

Keep in mind that Sony were goign to have serious trouble finding cinemas willing to show the film, several big names had already said they wouldn't show it before Sony pulled the plug.

edited 17th Dec '14 11:22:19 PM by SilasW

I can only hope it does get released, and becomes a commercial success, even if it isn't very good. Otherwise it means a bunch of online thugs and trolls have successfully censored the USA's film industry. The wider implications are more threats, other controversial films get canned due to fear and fewer people will dare to challenge North Korea or other despotic regimes.

Sounds like the US government is treating this as a very serious issue though - good.

edited 17th Dec '14 11:48:43 PM by betaalpha

Yielding to terrorists is bad, yielding to some third-rate shithole at the end of the world is worse. The US started wars over lesser matters, and with this one, if provoked, nobody's ever going to bother. Any allies North Korea has, they will drop them like a hot potato if Norks get caught red-handed doing any stupid shit like terrorist attacks.

edited 19th Dec '14 3:57:59 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

North Korea Is Not Funny

I think that's a pretty specious argument, to be honest.

The amount of "meh" I have for that article is resounding.

Counterpoint: Nazi Germany was not funny either. Charlie Chaplin and The Dictator, however, were extremely funny. Nuclear annihilation is not funny; Dr Strangelove is wonderfully morbid black hilarity. A well-executed satire of North Korea has the potential to be hilarious. The keywords are "well-executed", however; from the clips I've seen of The Interview, they fall well short.

All Sony has done this time through is to promote some North Korean intelligence apparatchik whose idea for annoying the US and earning brownie points with the Dear Leader just panned out beyond his wildest dreams. There's a word for what happens when a country kills citizens of another country, and considering that North Korea didn't declare war over its nuclear shenanigans, it sure as hell wouldn't have done anything this time through that would have aroused the US's ire (as opposed to amusement and schadenfreude at Sony).

It's important to note that Sony is a Japanese company, and that even before this started, apparently Sony HQ in Japan was concerned about this film provoking North Korea.

Something about the North Koreans killing Japanese prisoners held there in retaliation, if I recall correctly.

edited 20th Dec '14 1:18:25 AM by Cronosonic

NK refused the FBI's allegations that they are behind the Sony incident and are asking for a joint investigation to prove their innocence.

Well, that's a good casus belli too. The civilized world needs to send a message: "any barbarity you are going to commit now will alienate you. And then, we'll come to shit fire and piss brimstone all over you, until nothing remains."

The fact that we're civilized doesn't mean we should be meek and inept, you know.

The problem with that is the ultra-patriotic part of the Chinese population is more likely to view it as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere version 2, and cry foul murder or worse accordingly. Besides, China values that buffer/doesn't want the refugees...

edited 20th Dec '14 7:09:23 AM by Krieger22

Solving every difficult international issue with "we war yuo" is not helpful.

Well technically the U.S. is still at war with them.

@Achaemenid: Agreed.

edited 20th Dec '14 9:23:27 AM by Aprilla

So Sony have stated that they're going into alternative release methods, also they've pretty much put the blame on the cinemas, saying that they only cancelled the release because nobody was willing to show the film.[1]

Also North Korea has said it wants to work alongside the US to investigate the hack, insisting that they weren't behind it.

Actually they are only at war with South Korea, the American lead intervention was technically a police action, not outright war. They still don't have formal diplomatic relations with Washington though.

Yeah the US hasn't declared war since WW 2, also if North Korea is still at war with the US it would be at war with the UN, since the UN was technically the actor that entered the war.

It's bluff. Presumably they want access to the evidence so they can doctor it.

Yeah I had to kind of laugh at the "Let us help you or there will be consequences!"

It's like if a Mc Donald's asked "Do you want fries with that or do you want to die?"