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Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

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Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#391

Post by insane_dreamer »

sega_sai wrote: post #212

Reading the comments -- it is amazing how quick it takes to from allegedly a democracy governed by a rule of law to a corrupt oligarchy. I personally understand the reasons, but it's a bit "funny" given all the grand-standing before about the founding fathers, checks and balances etc.

> all the grand-standing before about the founding fathers, checks and balances etc.

Trump exposed what looks great on paper (checks and balances) as being worthless if you're willing to break all conventions, use the government as a tool against your political enemies, and have a strong enough political base to beat the Senate (ultimately the only ones with the power to stop you) into submission.

What all of this really exposed is that laws and constraints don't mean anything if there's no actual way to enforce them at the highest level.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#392

Post by nottorp »

mingus88 wrote: post #25
noahbp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Paramount+ user interface on my Samsung TV is horrendous. It frequently crashes after displaying ads, forcing me to re-open the app and watch ads again. When watching ads does succeed (all 3 minutes of them…) and playback of my show begins, it shows the enormous pause button, the giant fade-to-black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and covers up the subtitles, as though I had pressed ‘Play’. And trying t…

IMO no 3rd party app is worth using on those devices. My parents pay over $300/mo for an Xfinity bundle. It includes everything (phone, internet, and all streaming services on one bill) The paramount+ app on the Xfinity box took TEN MINUTES to load a show. This is after crashing three times back to the logo. Xfinity warns that it’s a 3P app and they aren’t responsible for it but it should be criminal to take the mone…

Hmm speaking of that, what happened to google's Chromecast?

I couldn't care less about the "casting" functionality but I use the (3rd gen?) version with a remote as a netflix/hbo/prime terminal. I know it's google, but it works much better than any random android box.

Problem is, what do I do when it dies? I heard they discontinued it and they put out a more expensive box out instead. Or did they, being google, cancel it?

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#393

Post by toyg »

thayne wrote: post #317
dabockster wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failed merger and similar clawback clause between Kroger and Albertsons is currently destroying a significant part of the supply chain for food in the Pacific Northwest. Grocery stores that have been open for 50-75 years - stores where whole neighborhoods and towns were built around - are closing forever, leaving those areas as food deserts. Either way, this entertainment merger is going to get ugly. Consumers ar…

I don't understand how that kind of clause can be legal. Its existence puts anti-trust enforcement in a catch-22, either they allow the merger, which reduces competition, or they reject it, and the acquiree is decimated, also reducing competition.

> I don't understand how that kind of clause can be legal.

Arguably they promote a chilling effect around acquisitions, which does help competition: "don't try to buy something unless you're prepared to deal with a possible fallout" should result in fewer attempts at consolidating dominant positions.

I'd almost be tempted to posit that such a clause should become mandatory for deals over a certain threshold (e.g. $1bn), with amounts determined according to certain parameters.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#394

Post by rvba »

hulitu wrote: post #358
fainpul wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, Alien, Predator, Jurassic Park etc.

I'm still waiting for the "Alien vs Jurasic park". It must be a very entertaining movie. /s

Best you can get is Aliens vs Predator vs Terminator comic book (if you are 10 years old you can like it, it is betterr than most AvP stuff but that is a low hanging bar)

I mean the franchise didnt get anything top tier apart from Aliens labirynth and the vP 2 game from.. 2001?

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#395

Post by HighGoldstein »

MotiBanana wrote: post #347
mike_h wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s the largest individual donor to the IDF.

That’s misleading. You can’t directly donate to the IDF—people give to NGOs that support soldiers’ welfare, not combat operations or weapons. And while Ellison has given millions to FIDF, there’s no evidence he’s “the largest donor,” and no public ranking shows that. You can dislike Israel without inventing facts.

Why do you have such an issue with the donation to the IDF? I understand disputing that he's the largest donor, but I doubt he has ever written a big cheque directly to Trump (or in fact anyone except his family) either, is it also unclear whether he's a Trump donor?

Even if there were no mechanism for donating to the IDF available to the general public, do you believe someone like Ellison couldn't easily give money to whomever he wanted?

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#396

Post by giraffe_lady »

renegade-otter wrote: post #276
NickC25 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>supposedly My man, you don't have to mince words here. This hostile bid is backed by Jared Kushner, who is the President's son in law. One Rich Asshole owns Paramount, and is most certainly supporting the bid here. This deal would also leave CNN in a very vulnerable position (they are owned by WB), which is exactly what Trump wants.

One thing that is remarkable is how fast American media companies are folding or getting scooped up by the oligarchs in order to bring the sacrificed carcass to the ruler. Even Putin did not have it this easy - took him years.

It took decades, this is the late stages of an organized and intentional process they've been working towards, and spending vast amounts of money on, since the 1990s if not earlier.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#397

Post by giraffe_lady »

dragonwriter wrote: post #320
chii wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying party X plans to do something but that's not the whole thing being said. Party X may have been planning on something, but party Y threw a wrench in the middle, causing party X to have to make some response. By implication, party X believes party Y to be throwing a wrench, hence, party X must act. Therefore, party Y also must be planning something that counteracts party X's desires. If it weren't so, party X…

The thing that contradicts Party X's desires can just be not doing the thing Party X wants done, it doesn't have to be doing an equal and opposite thing. This seems like a variation on the fallacy of the excluded middle.

It's closer to so-far-unnamed fallacy of "the right has no agency." Everything they do is in response to something done by the democrats or the left or whatever and so they aren't responsible for their actions.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#398

Post by staticman2 »

bananaflag wrote: post #272
AlexandrB wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a bad example. The problem with Episode 8 was not lack of creativity. Episode 7 was a complete retread of "A New Hope" and a bigger offender. At least blue Jedi milk is new .

Episode 8 was a retread of Empire Strikes Back (ships chase through empty space while the main character trains with the old master on a wild planet). It seemed subversive just because ESB was subversive relative to ANH.

Episode 8 was subversive because it had self aware moments "trolling" the audience throughout like Luke mocking the idea Rey (and the audience) thought he would pick up a lightsaber again.

It also has weird "subversive" dialogue about sacrifice being bad that doesn't really fit what's happening in the movie itself where sacrifice of two characters saves the day. Which is "subversive" in the sense that a movie with dialogue saying "this is a shitty movie plot" is subversive.

It also rips off the ending of Return of the Jedi by killing the main bad guy so is "subversive" in that it trolls whoever was stuck making episode 9 without a functional villain.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#399

Post by Larrikin »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #226
ndiddy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the film industry originally worked like the streaming industry does today. Besides just creating films, the major studios distributed them through the theaters they owned. If you wanted to see a Paramount film you had to go to a Paramount owned theater, if you wanted to see an MGM film you had to go to an MGM owned theater, and so on. In 1948, this distribution scheme was ruled to be in violation of antit…

So you want to pass a law that no one can produce content and put it on their own website?

No, just media production companies on their own streaming service. There is no reason to pretend that billion dollar, publicly traded companies are poor college kids just trying to get noticed on the Internet for their quirky videos.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#400

Post by Forgeties79 »

tialaramex wrote: post #389
Forgeties79 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rewatched Watchmen (show) recently and just wow. It hasn’t aged a day and is truly a masterpiece.

I remember when it hadn't come out and there were mostly images and speculation I was really concerned that Lindelof had no idea what he's doing. A friend who watches a lot more TV than me insisted when it did release that it was very good, and reluctantly I agreed to watch Episode 1, and I knew immediately he got it and I was hooked. Watchmen is about masks, what masks mean, what it means when people wear masks, and…

I am so embarrassed to admit I didn’t know about Black Wall Street or the Tulsa massacre. And when I learned about it I was shocked I didn’t know about it.

And you’re absolutely right, it’s all about masks and he gets it.

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