Die Hard - Best Xmas Movie. ;)

[Captaindemotion]

^ I think they filmed a number of endings for DHWAV before settling on the one that ended up in the movie. The novelisation features an entirely different one.

I suppose they just found it hard to go bigger than Die Harder's downing of a plane with a zippo, without ending up in Terminator 2 territory - of course, that didn't seem to be a concern with 4.0.

 

[Lonemagpie]

^ I think they filmed a number of endings for DHWAV before settling on the one that ended up in the movie. The novelisation features an entirely different one. .

Yeah the DVD has a deleted ending as an extra, where Simon has escaped and McClane tracks him down to a bar to play Russian Roulette with a rocket launcher.

It isn't any better - in fact its a worse ending (at that range they'd *both* have been blown to bits)

But it's always bugged me that we get that bit where Simon's crew sees the cops coming, they all load up and cock all manner of automatic weapons, jump in their trucks loaded with gold, roll out...

And pull over as soon as a police car flashes its lights at them.

What the fuck? That's *it*?

So much for German efficiency...

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm watching it right now.

It's odd that when John enters the lobby of the building and talks to the gaurd the guard tells John how to look up his wife's name in the computer to find her. When John does the gaurd says, "Oh, 30th floor. They're the last ones in the building!"

Well why did John need to look her up in the computer?!

And the guard doesn't even check to see if John is invited to allowed to be up there. Just a "go on, up!"

 

[John Picard]

I'm watching it right now.

It's odd that when John enters the lobby of the building and talks to the gaurd the guard tells John how to look up his wife's name in the computer to find her. When John does the gaurd says, "Oh, 30th floor. They're the last ones in the building!"

Well why did John need to look her up in the computer?!

And the guard doesn't even check to see if John is invited to allowed to be up there. Just a "go on, up!"

Huh?

 

[Canadave]

I'm watching it right now.

It's odd that when John enters the lobby of the building and talks to the gaurd the guard tells John how to look up his wife's name in the computer to find her. When John does the gaurd says, "Oh, 30th floor. They're the last ones in the building!"

Well why did John need to look her up in the computer?!

And the guard doesn't even check to see if John is invited to allowed to be up there. Just a "go on, up!"

I've always just read it as the guard being bored and intentionally being a bit of an asshole.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm watching it right now.

It's odd that when John enters the lobby of the building and talks to the gaurd the guard tells John how to look up his wife's name in the computer to find her. When John does the gaurd says, "Oh, 30th floor. They're the last ones in the building!"

Well why did John need to look her up in the computer?!

And the guard doesn't even check to see if John is invited to allowed to be up there. Just a "go on, up!"

Huh?

Why did John have to look on the computer to see which floor his wife worked on? Couldn't the gaurd have just said, "If she's not on the 30th floor, then she isn't here. Everyone left is at a party up there. Give me your name. I need to call up there and make sure it's OK for you to go up."

 

[Aragorn]

Die Hard 2 edited for TV:

"Yippee ki yay, Mr. Falcon!"

 

[Data Holmes]

Die Hard 2 edited for TV:

"Yippee ki yay, Mr. Falcon!"

You know, I do love the Die Hard TV edits.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Die Hard 2 edited for TV:

"Yippee ki yay, Mr. Falcon!"

You know, I do love the Die Hard TV edits.

Almost as funny as the Lethal Weapon ones- "That's a real badge, I'm a real cop, and this is a real firing gun!"

 

[Daneel]

Yep, it's definitely my favourite Christmas movie. I just watched it tonight with my dad... great stuff.

It's screening at a theater tonight here in Toronto...!

Ooh, was that at Bloor Cinema? They often show some pretty cool stuff.

How do people rank the Die Hards anyway? For me...

1. Die Hard (by a distance)
2. Die Hard with a Vengence (badly edited and the ending sucks but Simon is a great bad guy and Willis/Jackson make a good team)
3. 4.0. More consistant than 3, and Justin Long is great as the sidekick, with Mary Elizabeth Winstead convincing as little Lucy McClane. Let down by over the top stunts, killing off Maggie Q too early, and Timothy Olaphant is a really dull villain.
4. Die Hard 2; Die Harder. It tries, but whereas 4.0 in particular overdoes things, 2 seems to under do them. Interesting plot twist (which I saw coming when the soldiers swapped mags) but really the limpest of the quartet. Amazing that a film where the badguys include Luthar Slone and a T1000 yet still come across bland...plus points for horribly murdering Chief O'Brien though

I pretty much agree with your rankings, and much of your reasoning as well.

Die Hard -- classic.

Die Hard With a Vengeance -- lots of fun, Bruce and Sam Jackson are great, as is Jeremy Irons, but yeah, the ending was quite a letdown.

Live Free or Die Hard -- also fun, if wildly implausible at times, and Olyphant can't really hold a candle to the previous villains.

Die Hard 2 -- not great... but not bad. Still pretty entertaining.

I'm watching it right now.

It's odd that when John enters the lobby of the building and talks to the gaurd the guard tells John how to look up his wife's name in the computer to find her. When John does the gaurd says, "Oh, 30th floor. They're the last ones in the building!"

Well why did John need to look her up in the computer?!

And the guard doesn't even check to see if John is invited to allowed to be up there. Just a "go on, up!"

I had the same thoughts when I watched it tonight!

 

[Aragorn]

Die Hard 2 edited for TV:

"Yippee ki yay, Mr. Falcon!"

You know, I do love the Die Hard TV edits.

Almost as funny as the Lethal Weapon ones- "That's a real badge, I'm a real cop, and this is a real firing gun!"

I saw an edited Stand By Me where during the "lard ass" scene, it was edited to the people were just chanting "lard" over and over again.

The worst edits are when it's a movie that wasn't edited for TV by the studio, so you just get a bunch of beeps during dialog and blurs for the R-rated visuals. I saw that happen once for Pulp Fiction, and when the guy accidentally get shot in the car, it just goes to black.

 

[Trekker4747]

If I were to rank them:

Die Hard - The classic, definitive, implausable situation action movie. Hell, this movie gave a re-birth to genre.
Yippe-Ky-yay, mother fuckers!

Die Hard With a Vengance - A movie that comes damn close to reaching the greatness of the first. The ending is a bit of a pre-mature ejaculation and I kind of wish the "Simon Says" schtick went on longer/wasn't a ruse for the hiest but make no mistake, Die Hard delivers.

Live Free or Die Hard: Proof that Willis still has it. The plot was a bit over the top and I really could've done without "Mac" guy as the world's worst sidekick and the movie is PG-13?! Come on!

Die Hard 2: Under-rated, IMHO. It's certainly not as good as the others, but if it's on I can certainly stop to watch it.

 

[Aragorn]

I'd rank them in the order which they were released -- 1, 2, 3 and 4.

I guess I'm the only one here who loves 2. 3 seemed like they just had a bunch of action sequences and tried to paste them together with a plot, but at least it felt like Die Hard. 4 was fun but it didn't feel like a Die Hard movie.

Notice a recent trend of actors who haven't had a hit in a while going back to the well with their franchise characters (Harrison Ford with Indiana Jones, Bruce Willis with Die Hard, Sylvester Stallone with Rocky and Rambo, Eddie Murphy is trying to get another Beverly Hills Cop made, though Mel Gibson turned down Lethal Weapon 5 and Mad Max 4)?

 

[Agent Richard07]

I guess I'm the only one here who loves 2. 3 seemed like they just had a bunch of action sequences and tried to paste them together with a plot, but at least it felt like Die Hard. 4 was fun but it didn't feel like a Die Hard movie.

That's pretty much how I feel. I liked 1 and 2, they were "Die Hard", but 3 and 4 felt like generic action movies with some action sequences strung together. Plus, I miss Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton and Reginald VelJohnson. I miss Christmas too, but I'll let that go because you can't set every movie at Christmas.

 

[Brandonv]

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who watches Die Hard this time of year. I always like to see the reactions I get when I tell people that Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie.

 

[Trekker4747]

I watched it again last night, with my buddy, and something jumped out at me that I never caught before. How did John know that it was Hans when Hans was pretending to be "Bill Clay?"

What tipped John off other than John just being awesome?

I'll also say that in the movie series' "plot arc" it's kind-of disapointing that John and Holly seperated and eventually divorced. On some level it kind of makes the first two movies pointless.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Before Die Hard 4, I would have agreed. I was very disappointed when first watching Vengeance to find out Holly had left him. But it kinda sets up his relationship with his daughter in the 4th one. Still woulda been nice to see Holly again though.

As for Hans, John's first suspicion when coming across him was that he was one of the bad guys, and I don't think that suspicion would have gone away as soon as Hans put on his act. Still, I haven't been able to rewatch this yet so I could be wrong.

 

[Trekker4747]

Before Die Hard 4, I would have agreed. I was very disappointed when first watching Vengeance to find out Holly had left him. But it kinda sets up his relationship with his daughter in the 4th one. Still woulda been nice to see Holly again though.

As for Hans, John's first suspicion when coming across him was that he was one of the bad guys, and I don't think that suspicion would have gone away as soon as Hans put on his act. Still, I haven't been able to rewatch this yet so I could be wrong.

Hans did, foolishly, seem to revert back to his accent -which John had heard over the radio and in person while in the elevator- which could've tipped John off.

 

[DWMarch]

That's pretty much how I feel. I liked 1 and 2, they were "Die Hard", but 3 and 4 felt like generic action movies with some action sequences strung together.

Die Hard is an accidental franchise. None of the movies, including the first one, started out as "Die Hard."

Die Hard was based on a book called Nothing Lasts Forever. The main character was Joe Leland, he was there to visit his daughter and she dies at the end. Wiki says the movie followed the book closely but I disagree. Aside from the basic plot there were significant differences.

Die Hard 2 started out as a novel called 58 Minutes. John McLane was shoehorned in. I speculate that studio execs must have figured the movie would make more money as a sequel to Die Hard rather than as an independent film.

Die Hard 3 started out as a Brandon Lee action movie called Simon Says.

Live Free or Die Hard was originally WW3.com and was based on a Wired article about cyber-terrorism.

I love that it's really nothing more than circumstances that made these into Die Hard movies. I don't know if there's any other franchise out there that came about in a similar way.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I agree that it's probably the best non-scifi action movie ever made.

If we include science fiction, some of the Schwarzenegger stuff from the 80ies/early 90ies (Terminators 1 & 2, Total Recall, Predator) would also rank pretty high.