X-Men Origins: Wolverine made approximately $87 million dollars ($160 million worldwide) opening weekend. On Twitter I noticed people saying they were going to see the movie multiple times…and this movie leaked on the internet weeks before opening weekend. Piracy is a problem but the majority of people who pirate would most likely not go see the movie in the first place. True fans that pirate just wanted to see the movie early and would want to experience on the big screen. Is there money lost due to piracy? Sure…but money is made from piracy as well. Piracy is a business expense that comes with the digital age but to truly accept that, and find ways to overcome it without inconveniencing true “fans”, copyright owners have to step away from “what I could have made” thinking and look at the situation objectively…which is hard because they have a conflict of interest.

Just like Stryker did in the movie. Look how crazy he was.

What is a Conflict of Interest?

Wikipedia has a good definition:

More generally, conflict of interests can be defined as any situation in which an individual or corporation (either private or governmental) is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity in some way for their personal or corporate benefit.

Here are some examples of conflict of interest from the same article:

• Self-dealing, in which public and private interests collide, for example issues involving privately held business interests.
• Outside employment, in which the interests of one job contradict another,
• Family interests, in which a spouse, child, or other close relative is employed (or applies for employment) or where goods or services are purchased from such a relative or a firm controlled by a relative. For this reason, many employment applications ask if one is related to a current employee. If this is the case, the relative could then recuse from any hiring decisions.
• Gifts from friends who also do business with the person receiving the gifts. (Such gifts may include non-tangible things of value such as transportation and lodging.)

Now that we have a basic definition let’s get back to Stryker. In the movie, Stryker is a religious fanatic. He killed his wife and mutant son (not shown in the movie) because he felt the birth of his mutant son was a sign from God to destroy mutants. Stryker, holding military positions, had a conflict of interest. His desire to kill mutants over-shadowed everything and was fueled by the positions he had in the military – giving him power to do things outside normal realms.

That’s Easy to See But What About This?

Ok, Stryker is an over-the-top example of conflict of interest. Easy to see, right? Ok, let’s try a more subtle example.

Alan meets a girl (Crystal) and he thinks she’s really cool. He’d like to get to know her better and of course, have sex with her. Crystal thinks Alan is okay and would like to get to know him better to see if he’s boyfriend material. Crystal decides to Google Alan…and she finds his MySpace and Facebook profiles. She sends a friends request, which Alan accepts because he “can’t” say no and still want to get to know her (without angering her) can he?

Crystal looks at the MySpace page and notices there is a woman with the first top left friend slot. She looks at the comments and sees the same woman making comments that imply they are a couple, or dating seriously. Next, she goes to Facebook. The MySpace girl isn’t a friend on Facebook but there is another woman posting comments daily. Crystal knows what that means because she’s done it herself. She looks at both profiles and the relationship status is Single. Crystal becomes angry because she specifically asked Alan if he was single and he said yes.

Next time Alan called her, Crystal asked about the two women. Alan said nothing was going on, they were just friends…and implied Crystal was “tripping” (he is single…he’s not married). While he explained Crystal was looking at the two profiles, looking at what the women said, and thinking Alan must think she’s stupid.

See the conflict of interest? In case you don’t…Alan desire to get to know Crystal better overruled being honest so Crystal can trust him. She called him out and he continued to lie.

Conflict Of Interest Takes You Down the Wrong Path

Stryker’s desire to kill mutants took him down the horrible path of killing and destroying innocent people. Alan’s conflict of interest caused him to lie to a girl that might have been “wifey” material. You can always tell a conflict of interest…

… because the person won’t let it go.

No matter how many people tried to reason with Stryker, he wouldn’t discontinue his mission. Alan, when confronted with his situation, continued to lie about it. In both cases, it’s end-game. To “stop” Stryker would have to give up his military position and reform. If Alan wants any type of relationship with Crystal those girls need to disappear – not hide from view – disappear.

What Alan doesn’t realize is that as long as those two other women are around it is a reminder he lied to Crystal. They were important enough to lie about. How can Crystal forgive him for lying if the women he lied about are still around? Hiding them from view isn’t good enough because when they reappear, unless he blows them off, it reminds Crystal again he lied to her. If Crystal is important, he’d remove the one girl from the top friend slot (if she’s not his girl she shouldn’t be there in the first place), set things straight with both women (ie: blow them off cause they have different agendas) and never put himself in that position again.

How often does a single guy do that? Let’s say almost never and move on…

Spotting the Conflicts….

The more efficient you become spotting conflicts of interest, the more time you’ll save wasting your time on people who are in direct conflict with what you want to achieve. Stryker wasn’t trying to help anyone, he was trying to destroy mutants. Anyone siding with him thinking in the end good would prevail was wasting their time. Crystal, looking for boyfriend material, was obviously looking in the wrong direction at Alan. In Crystal’s case, she spotted it quick and if she walks away the time she’ll waste trying get to know Alan (while he gets it together) she could be spending on a man that already has it together. No one is perfect but lying is not a trait one should look for in the person they want to get involved with. In life, we’ll always be confronted with conflicts of interest…the strong people remove themselves from them because they realize, in the end, it won’t work.

You can’t “win” with someone that has a conflict of interest because pleasing themselves overrules doing what is right.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: The Quick Review

The movie was good, definitely geared towards people not familiar with the comic. For those unfamiliar the movie has unexpected twists and turns where the balance of action/story is more balanced. For those familiar with the story (like myself) you might walk away wishing their was more action. They did a decent job staying true to the original story lines. I enjoyed it and I recommend going to see it.