There’s a new movie coming out in the USA on October 10th 2014 called The Interview.
The movie is getting a lot of press because of the unusual plot. In The Interview two journalists travel to North Korea and attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-Un.
This has obviously upset Kim Jong-Un and some North Koreans. Every major news company has released something covering the North Korean response.
Here’s one of the articles I read put out by CBC.
The North Korean statement went something like this, “If the U.S. government doesn’t block the movie’s release, it will face stern and merciless retaliation. The reckless U.S. provocative insanity of mobilizing a gangster filmmaker to challenge the North’s leadership is triggering a gust of hatred and rage among North Korean people and soldiers. The film’s release would be considered an act of war that we will never tolerate.”
So if the statement is to be interpreted accurately, the North Korean people are upset over the upcoming film’s release (I doubt many of them even know about it. I certainly didn’t until this news article popped up on Facebook as “trending.”)
Seth Rogen is apparently a provocative, insane, gangster filmmaker (Provocative for sure, but the other statements are just insults).
And the final point, North Korea will view the release of the film as an act of war.
If that’s taken seriously, then North Korea intends to declare war on the USA because we didn’t censor a film.
Granted the film is highly offensive to North Korea, but that’s only because the North Korean administration doesn’t understand how free speech works.
If we censor the film then what other films should we censor? Should Olympus Has Fallen have been censored because it portrayed the North Koreans attacking a fictional US President? No.
And perhaps that’s the point of it. Past movies of this kind have always dealt with fictional leaders of countries. The person at risk is never the real President or the Supreme Leader of North Korea. It’s always some random person in an alternate past or unknown future.
And I think Seth Rogen wrote his script with the actual leader because he knew this type of response was coming.
He knew the North Koreans would flip out and make a statement of some kind.
And he knew that other news networks would pick up the story.
And now his film gets free international publicity.
It may be provocative and insulting, but it was also a smart business decision.
Anyways, I doubt North Korea will attack the USA once the film is released.
More likely they will use this as their excuse to launch missiles at South Korea this year. There will be a tense standoff and then once again nothing will be resolved in the eternal Korean War.
That’s all for today!
-Mister Ed
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