Hans Gruber: You have me at a loss. You know my name, but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child. Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne. Rambo. Marshall Dillon. John McClane: I was always kind of partial to Roy Rodgers, actually. I really like those sequin shirts. Hans Gruber: Do you really think you have a chance against us? Mr. Cowboy? John McClane: Yippee-ki-yay christmas music. Christmas music. Matthew: Hello and welcome once again to the Intermillennium Media Project podcast. My name is Matthew Porter. Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. Matthew: I'm his dad, he's my son, and it is the holiday season. Ian: Ah, a time for family, a time for warming yourself by the fire, a time for being thoughtful about what you have and. About the other people in your life. Matthew: That's right. Ian: Those all apply to this film, right? Matthew: I think so. I think that Yeah, yeah. It has all of those themes and more. And and yeah, holiday media, that's, that's a part of our traditions as well. And here at the Intermillennium Media Project, we have a tradition of recognizing the holiday season in our podcast. Sometimes it's a stretch, like with Holmes for the Holidays. Or or Christmas with Conan But sometimes we get very traditional Maybe i'm just because i'm getting older. I'm thinking more traditionally last year we talked about a trio of rankin bass animated christmas specials And this year we're going with another solid part Of the American Christmas canon. Traditional Christmas movie. Ian: I agree. Traditional Christmas movie. It's set during the season. It has elements all throughout it. You've read the title of this episode. Matthew: Yes, and fortunately, it also matches thematically with last week's episode about the Towering Inferno. Ian: That's right. This year, it's skyscraper Christmas. Matthew: That's right. Ian: That's what we're doing because it's Die Hard. Yes. A movie I knew was coming at some point in our watch list. Absolutely. I knew you were going to do it at some point. Yeah. And it's a film I'd never seen. Matthew: And I knew I wanted to show this to you and a couple of years ago, We watched the, the TV series, or parts of the TV series, Moonlighting. And I wanted to make sure to show you that before showing you Die Hard. Because, before Die Hard, Moonlighting is how most of America knew Bruce Willis. That he was the, kind of the wisecracking comedy guy. Yeah. And this movie absolutely changed his career. Ian: I can understand why. Bruce Willis is, I mean, it's a full, it's almost a reinvention. Matthew: And yet it doesn't remove anything that he had in Moonlighting. He's still the wisecracking guy, still the smart aleck. It just adds action hero to all of those other things. Ian: Exactly. He's this affable everyman who just happens to know how to fight. Matthew: And that definitely affects whether you like this movie or not, just as it would affect whether you like Moonlighting or not. My dad, for example, He could not stand Bruce Willis. Ian: Oh! Matthew: That kind of sense of humor, that smart aleckness, that cockiness, that turned him off completely. He disliked anything Bruce Willis was in. So he was not a fan of Die Hard, not a fan of Moonlighting, not a fan of any other movies that he was in. And yet I don't know. I've, I've always enjoyed them. So that's one of those areas where we differed. That and Blues. Ian: Oh, there's, there's some movie out there that Pop Pop just must have disliked completely. Matthew: I bet. Ian: Oh. Oh, goodness. But, I can I will say, they try so hard to make him such a rougher character at the very start of this film. Matthew: They do. They do. Ian: There's a lot of pressure to give him that establishment of, like, beaten down man with problems. That makes more sense knowing what the rest of it is. Like, knowing what you had to begin with in terms of, public perception and what you're fighting against, that changes why you're pushing the way you are. Matthew: Yeah, they knew why people would, see Bruce Willis and come to that movie, but they also wanted this to be a different kind of movie. They wanted this, they wanted him to be able to carry an action movie because that's what ultimately sold it. Yeah. And, and part of what, the way they used that, I think is as an action hero, they had to show him as being hyper competent in so many ways. They had to show him as being smart, as being as for the most part, caring about people when he could do something about it. And knowing a lot about weapons, knowing a lot about tactics. He was a, he's the characters, a New York City police officer find who finds himself in an LA skyscraper. And they have to balance that with something. And what they balance that with is he's horrible at his own relationships, and he doesn't have his own life together. And they deal with that over the course of the movie. But, but you're right. They, they try to make him more of a, a rough character with lots of problems. Most of those problems don't really have a lot of consequence in terms of what he has to do when it comes to this this situation he finds himself in. Ian: But it does help establish a little bit of that, like, knocking him down. You start him out saying, This is how big he's got, we're knocking him down this many pegs to begin with. But that means he's got abilities that are that many pegs up. Yes. Matthew: Yes, Ian: and that means that when they want to throw. Oh, yeah, he can handle this weapon. He can do this thing It's in his wheelhouse already because they've established that , John McLane is a New York City Police Department detective Hmm His skill set feels very different than just that, in a notable way. Matthew: I'm sure there's a story Bible out there that I have not read as far as what his background is and for all I know he's got a military background before he went into the police department, or he has background in, in SWAT training or something. But yeah, he, he seems to be able to deal and use whatever weapon or equipment. He comes across and part of that is he's obviously got training. Part of that is just he is very intelligent in that sort of way. He can figure things out quickly. Which makes him such a great character in this sort of lopsided movie, this, this asymmetric confrontation we have him in. Ian: Yes, because he is, he is the man who, he, I, he goes to an event in Los Angeles to hopefully reconnect with his wife. And then, the building is attacked, and he gets separated, and that gives him this opportunity to be the man working his way through and taking this group of terrorists. Thieves? What's going on here? Taking them down from, within their controlled environment. They've turned this tower into their, their location. But he's able to sneak around and attack them from the inside. Matthew: There's a group of bad guys who are, Extremely well organized, extremely well equipped. They have training and planned this out to the most minute detail. And there's a group of people who are the few people in this high rise, because it's Christmas Eve, the building is not even complete, there's still seven floors under construction there at Nakatomi Plaza, and everybody else is hostages. And then there is John McClane, the one person who has freedom of movement around this place. He starts out with very, very little. They make a point of essentially having him stripped down as him. He's wearing a pair of pants an undershirt, his watch, and his service weapon. And that's it. Ian: He's not even wearing his socks. Matthew: Not even wearing socks and shoes. Ian: But that is one of the, the funniest foreshadowings, I will say. Because one of the few things I know from Cultural is the The him dealing with glass on his feet. Yes, is a big part of this. And and that scene is so painful, but Knowing just that as one of the iconic moments having someone at the airport suggest to him The way the best way to get yourself calm when you've gone traveling is to take off your socks and shoes And just grip the carpet. Matthew: Yeah, make fists with your toes Ian: And it's like That's kind of hilarious, because I know how this is going to go wrong later. Matthew: And it's this little thing that both sets up this, this circumstance, makes him even more vulnerable. But it also shows something about his character, that he's curious and willing to try things, and he's actually, he gets a few minutes, and he's cleaning up, he tries it, he's there with the carpet, making fists with his toes, and he says, Well, what do you know? It works. Fists with your toes. Ian: Yeah, he's like it it functions. Matthew: Yeah, so he'll try things He's not said well, he's not gonna ignore some advice just because well, it's a random guy in an airplane who gave it to him Ian: Okay, I'm going to note this early on. One of the things I really noticed is this is Bruce Willis taking a character who I get the feeling in other actors hands would be a lot closer to Snake Plissken from Escape from New York. Matthew: Yes. Ian: He's taking a character that in the hands of another actor might be kinda like, I'm a bad cool guy, yeah. And he's playing him with that same sort of like, Yeah, you know, that advice from the airport works. Kinda like friendliness. Right. That's a huge part of it. Matthew: Yeah, there is that, that vulnerability. And he was, he was not the first, A casting choice they made for this movie. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger turned it down. They considered Clint Eastwood for this role. And that would have been a very different movie, especially given the age differences and everything else. But again, if you saw one of those guys, who have been in so many action movies before, and they were in this, you wouldn't really feel much of a sense of, of of concern for them, of any real stakes. It'd be interesting to see how it plays out, how they win. But if you've got Arnold Schwarzenegger or, or Clint Eastwood in this, there's no doubt that they're gonna win. With somebody we haven't seen in an action movie, playing a character, yeah, he's a wise guy and a smart aleck, and we wouldn't necessarily get along with him, not everybody would, but, you know, But he's still showing himself to be smart and vulnerable. Then yeah, we worry about him. The stakes seem higher because we don't know if this guy can survive anything. We know, we know Conan can survive anything. We don't know about this guy. Ian: Yeah, we are not sure. He is, he is at risk properly. Yes. At all times. Matthew: Yep. The are always high. Not only for him, but also for all these hostages He's trying to rescue and they include his wife and they set up the fact that things are not going great between him and His wife she got this great new career advancement opportunity But it brought her to LA and he wouldn't leave New York Because he still needs to single handedly clean up, New York And then he kind of comes to realize he was being a jerk about that over the course of the movie But it starts out, he's vulnerable in that position too. He's messed things up with his wife. He knows it, but he doesn't know really how to fix it. Ian: And now she's going by a different last name while at this job, and things are on that level of shaky ground, but that also becomes a plot point. Yeah. Because , when everything happens, he's the man on the inside now, and he's trying to protect her, but it's not evident to the bad guys who they have and why he's doing this. It's another interesting parallel because recently we've done movies like Alien, and in some ways, John McClane gets to be the thing crawling, he is the thing crawling the vents, attacking random members of this crew and taking them down. This is a reversal of that where we get to follow the thing that stalks in, in the hallways. Matthew: You're absolutely right, this is Alien. I think even mostly the, the first movie, maybe to some extent the second. But yeah, this is Alien and the protagonist is the alien. It's like this thing we we have a job to do and there's this thing that keeps trying to kill us are the job we have to do is to you know, complete our criminal enterprise. But yeah, that's right. It is the same structure but reversed. I love that. Ian: It's the same structure. Yeah. That's one of those things like I know so many little moments of this film that I got to finally string together watching it this way. But little bits of him crawling through vents and such and I had that idea of his character because of those But I also am tainted by knowing later characterization. Yeah seeing him in this one It's a very different and everybody is a lot more down to earth in that sense. Matthew: And it's one of those movies where you have to back up and realize this was the first of its type, at least in that generation. It became, as you've mentioned even on other podcasts that we've talked about before we saw this movie, Die Hard on a fill in the blank or Die Hard but it's set in fill in the blank. It became a genre. You've got movies that are, and we can talk, probably we'll talk about this more in Revive, Reboot, or Rest in Peace, but It's, it's sometimes hard to step back and realize, oh, this is the diehard that started all of that. Ian: Yeah. Matthew: And we've talked about the casting a little bit in terms of Bruce Willis being our, protagonist, John McClane. It's worth mentioning some of the other cast members who we've sort of mentioned so far. His wife being played by Bonnie Bedelia. That is a role that needed a certain strength because she's pivotal in some of these scenes that, come up where we're seeing more of what , the bad guys are doing. And I think she's really good in that role. And then, of course, we've got Alan Rickman playing Hans Gruber, the leader of the bad guys. And this is the movie that absolutely made me realize it is so important to have a good bad guy. To have a villain and antagonist who is smart, who is capable, who's, who's kind of appealing in ways, as Alan Rickman knew how to be. Because you're, you're, he can't, whenever he's on screen, you are riveted, you've got to watch him and listen to what he's talking about. So he is able to hold up that half of the movie. In a believable way, and in a compelling way, opposite Bruce Willis, and they have, they, rarely within this whole movie do they have any contact other than talking over the radio after McClane steals one of the radios from the bad guys. Ian: You want evidence of just how much pure presence Alan Rickman has in this film? When I watched this movie for the podcast, I sat with one of our cats, And every time Alan Rickman spoke and was on screen, this cat, head pivoted, looked straight at the screen, would not take her eyes off of it. She was glued to the TV as much as I was. Alan Rickman's out there projecting so much just charisma into the screen. the role of Hans Gruber, that humans, animals, the entire world just focuses in for a moment. Matthew: Oh, that is cool. I mean, Ileana knows, she knows what's up. Ian: Oh, absolutely. But , he puts so much effort into it. Hans Gruber is there interacting with so many different groups. He's interacting with John McLane via the radio. He's interacting with his hostages. He's interacting with the rest of his team, especially the tech specialist that they've got. Matthew: Yes. Theo. Ian: Theo. And he's radioing out and talking as the negotiator with the growing police presence outside. Because this is not a quiet action. He's got these interactions with all these different groups. So more connective tissue of this story, more moments where information passes from one side to the other, all go through Hans Gruber. And we get to see him go be mad, be, be concerned, be, actually, kind of understanding to his prisoners, it's a few points. It's like he's, he's very multifaceted because they give him opportunities in all of these different scenarios to show these different aspects, which is important for your villain. It's if your villain is always in one location doing the same thing. They're not going to be able to show off as much as they give Alan Rickman the chance to show off here. Matthew: And he does a better job than maybe anybody else in playing , that mastermind role. Where he has a plan. Everybody in his team has been trained in this plan. And it seems clear that Gruber is the one who, who came up with this plan and is managing the whole thing. And they give us that fact without revealing what his plan is. They do a great job of just letting us know as much as we need at any given time. So there's a constant feeling of revelation as we learn more about his plan and what they're doing and why they're doing something we saw them do ten minutes earlier. Suddenly it makes sense. And when something doesn't go exactly the way he wants it to, he's trying to get a code out of somebody and they won't give it to him and he winds up having to shoot them. It's, he's put out, but he just moves on to the next checkbox. He's so cool about that. And that is so powerful because later on, when things go more and more dramatically, not according to his plan, we see him begin to unravel. We see him attempting to maintain control and cool and failing. Ian: Yes. Him being this calm level head that knows all the Because he's not just, this is I was kind of, kind of being sneaky before because that's part of the point. He's presenting outwardly one kind of event going on in Nakatomi Plaza, and internally it's a separate one. It looks like a terrorist attack. It is a robbery. , Which is so clever, but that's because he's playing what he knows the terrorist response playbook is from the police, from the FBI, all of these layers. He's got that planned. And so he's woven his robbery of a great deal of bearer bonds into this pre existing playbook by the authorities and is trying to make everything run smoothly there, and that means all these little changes, all of these stuff, are things, contingencies he's planned, but we watch him go from plan A to plan B. To C, to D, to E, to F, to G, and he goes down that, and we watch as they get thinner. Matthew: You get the impression, yeah, he's got a flowchart in his head. Okay, if we get the code, then we do this. If we can't get the code, then we do that. Eventually, it still brings us around to the same part of the flowchart, and we progress. But then things go completely off the page, thanks to John McClane, and he has no way to respond to it. And you're right, he has this planned out so that there are elements of stealth in that he doesn't want it known that people have invaded the building and taken over the plant of one of the bad guy team at the front desk to replace the concierge who's supposed to be there so he can deal with anybody who happens to come in, things like that. But he knows we can't keep this a secret all night. And we, therefore, we don't necessarily want to, we'll deal with the fact that people are going to know about it by letting them think what we want them to think about who we are and why we're here. And he has some great lines where he's just kind of announcing demands about freeing political prisoners around the world and it's, I don't know, I read about them in Time magazine. But it's it gets the response he wants it gets the FBI involved because he knows the FBI playbook and that at a certain point in this kind of situation, the FBI will do this. And this at that time is what he needs because it's all based around that. Ian: And Honestly, that's a great example him doing this, like, does this entire dramatic thing and then just hangs up and you see the personalities shift. The performance turn off. That's the thing. Alan Rickman is playing a bad guy who performs. He's playing someone who is also an actor. There's plenty of later moments It's easier to talk about Alan Rickman's character than it is Bruce Willis's character because honestly also Alan Rickman's character is violent Occasionally and brutally Bruce Willis is constantly bringing violence against a large number of These thieves repeatedly. Yes. And that's part of the point. This is a very, very violent film, I'm gonna say. Matthew: Oh, absolutely. It is violent. There is sudden violence and intense violence. I wouldn't say it's super gory when it comes to that violence. Mm-hmm . But it is, yeah. It's sudden and shocking some of the times that the violence comes on screen. And a lot of that, of course, is at the hands of McLane. Ian: Yes. Matthew: We get enough of that violence from the bad guys to show how dangerous they are and how how focused they are on their outcome, but they don't have to use that violence as often as McClane does. Ian: , I do appreciate that early on the first thing he's trying to do is he's constantly trying to get contact with the outside world. That's his entire goal. McLane never acts like he can do it all in his own, right? Just part of that relatability aspect. But he is doing things like get the fire alarms to go off so it gets emergency services, try to make a phone call out. Try to wave down the one patrol officer that came to investigate one of his previous attempts. See if he can't scan across the radio frequencies to get anyone local. Things like that. Matthew: And what he's facing is so ridiculous and so unprecedented that when he finally gets a radio signal out and is able to contact police dispatch using one of the walkie talkies that the bad guys had. They don't believe him and they tell him, Look, this is for emergency use only. If you don't get off this channel, we're going to have to kind of send somebody out to arrest you. Yes, please send somebody out to arrest me. I'm right here. Ian: And even that doesn't work at first because of Hans Gruber's attempts at defending it, but It literally takes shoving one of the armed robbers out the window so that he lands on the patrol officer's car. Matthew: Right. To Ian: get the patrol officer's say. Matthew: Eventually they send a patrol officer out and it's Reginald VelJohnson. who plays Powell the police sergeant. He goes, he talks to the bad guy who's pretending to be the front desk guy, and everything seems fine, so he's gonna leave, meanwhile, the dead bad guy whose radio is being used oh no, or one of the, one of the dead bad guys he, he encountered later, I think it was yeah, he throws him out the window on top of the police car in order to to get the cops attention. And then we get, that leads to an interesting parallel to the way the plan is developing inside, is that we see this evolving police and emergency response presence outside. We go from this one police sergeant to a bunch of patrol cars to a deputy chief. to eventually the FBI, all with, different plans, all with more and more firepower and weaponry and supposed tactical knowledge. So everything is escalating outside even as it is escalating inside. Ian: That kind of adds to this pressure pot scenario of the events going on. To compare it to the movie we watched last episode, if the Towering Inferno was about trying to get out because of this threat inside, and everyone outside was trying to do their rescuing, there's a lot of people outside who want to get in in die hard, and they can't for other reasons. So that becomes this, There's a different directionality Matthew: and it's it's interesting that we've been talking for for almost a half an hour And we've talked about the setup. We've talked about the characters We haven't talked much about a plot so to speak and that's because I you mentioned a towering inferno That is a very episodic movie where we get all these vignettes once the setup in some ways Die Hard is also a very Episodic movie you talked about the fact that you had seen different scenes and different pieces from it, but you hadn't seen it in Front to back as a movie before it is it is a very a very episodic movie in that you can take very clearly Identifiable chunks out of it and they play out as their own little stories and conflicts But they are stitched together very well to create this bigger narrative again, because we keep at the end of every one of these something new is revealed about the bad guys plan and Something else changes about McLane's situation Ian: Yeah, it Die Hard is very video game like in that sense too. There's like these individual levels and these individual little sections. Matthew: And yeah, I've heard that as a criticism of this movie and other movies. I don't think that is necessarily a criticism. It is a story structure that we often see in one medium, but we can see it in other media as well. Ian: It's it works for this and it allows them to have that pacing of You know, that communication back and forth, it's very chess like also, where there's pieces in places that move to other locations, and there's threat and danger in the movement, but then there's contemplation after each side has taken their move. Matthew: And every move or sequence of moves by each side closes off some options for the other side. Where one of the first guys that McClane takes out has a bag with a block of C4 and a whole lot of detonators, far more than he needs for this block of C4. And that then becomes a MacGuffin, but the fact that MacLean has now deprived the bad guys of these detonators becomes something that limits what they can do and changes what they have to do because they have to get those back. MacLean is trying to use the roof as a way to communicate with others. Gruber moves some of his pieces to the roof so that that's denied to to MacLean and he has to find another way to move around the board. It is very chess like, you're right. Yes. Ian: And, and, and in a similar way also chess, also chess and also video game, like, there's parts and pieces that are going away, you're losing options and such, but you're getting this, this distinct idea of like, certain things are used for certain aspects. Because taking out certain members of Gruber's team limits him in, in, in ways, and there's this control of areas going on that I think plays out very well, where you're describing that like controlling the roof aspect, but I'm also thinking of like, when McClane finally gets that officer outside to be able to start gathering people up, you watch as Hans Gruber pulls people back from the front and changes stuff around because he's got to respond. It's a, it's a chess game from multiple angles. Yes. There's more than two colors on this board. There's black and white and a green faction and red pieces and it's like wait, what? And, and blocking off one set for one group doesn't mean another group can't also move in there. Right. And that's part of, part of what makes this more, very fascinating as things shift. Matthew: And I think it is what drew people to this as a formula for making later movies as well because, By limiting the space in which the movie takes place, you can focus on details and really get into what is happening where and why this one floor or room or something is so important and why control of that becomes critical. Ian: That's why a lot of the pop culture versions are diehard on a not with a not as a it's on a right because it's diehard as a film structure is a way to apply a tense narrative to a location because it is a battle of territory. Matthew: Gruber and McLane change as McLane learns more about the the bad guy's operation and he does some really interesting tactical things like finding a place where he can overhear a conversation and also listen in on the radio he stole and get their names and the fact that he knows their names rattles them somewhat and on the other hand Gruber learns things about McClain and then can try to use those. Although, as you pointed out, the movie is very clever in setting up the fact that his wife has a different last name here at Nakatomi Plaza. So he's not able to use it. It takes a while. It's become at the very end. They're able to kind of use that, that trump card. Ian: But we get these, these classic scenes of, the shootout In the the office building with all the glass paneled walls, which leads to the floor covered in glass for the bare feet moments, there's some amazing and classic stuff about, sending a man to kill him and then Bruce Willis, you know, wings in, catches the enemy off guard and just leaves a note, now I've got this type of gun, like, taking the weapons off of the enemies he's defeated, very video game like in that sense too. Matthew: And the other thing that happens as this develops, and as we learn more, is we learn more about the bad guy's plan. We go from the, their cover story about being terrorists, which is how they're manipulating the FBI, to the fact that they're really after the 650 million of bearer bonds that are in the safe, and they've got six or seven different locking mechanisms they have to get through. So that's kind of their ticking clock. It takes them a certain amount of time to get into the safe, though they're confident they can. But we also learn about other parts of the bad guy's plan, which Both escalates how bad we realize they are, and how high the stakes are, because part of their plan, we realize, why they needed all this C4 and all those detonators, is their plan is to arrange for the FBI to send helicopters to pick them up on the roof and bring them and hostages to an airfield, and as that's happening, they're going to blow up the roof of the building, killing all the, hostages, and making the FBI think that all the bad guys are dead as well. And by the time the FBI figures that out, the bad guys are long gone, with the bearer bonds out of the van in the basement. Ian: Faking their death and running out the other direction. Matthew: So they're gonna kill dozens and dozens of people just to cover their escape from this heist. Ian: Yeah. Matthew: Yeah, these are seriously horrible people. Ian: And McLane kind of finds out these pieces, tries to inform, tries to fight back. As the pressure outside of the, of the law enforcement gets more and more, they become less willing to work with John McClane inside. Matthew: Right. Sergeant Powell, he's on the same, he's on the same level as McClane. He knows, he figures out just from the way McClane talks that he's a cop. And that he's somebody on the inside we can trust. And then his boss, the deputy chief and all, they, he doesn't trust McClane, doesn't want anything to do with him, thinks he's getting in the way. The FBI, of course, they don't care about anybody. They just have their playbook. And that does not go well, because we see that anything that the police are attempting to do, Gruber is prepared for. Even to the point of knowing that the local police have an armored breaching vehicle. And when the police try to bring that through the front door, Gruber is ready with a couple of guys with rocket propelled grenades to take this out. Ian: Yeah. They brought a lot of firepower. Yes. Matthew: They brought a lot of firepower and it's very carefully planned. What do we need to use when? Ian: Mm hmm. Matthew: They're not just going in and shooting things up. Ian: And that's part of why McLane's, taking individual items one by one and defeating people who are trained specialists with one weapon. Comes important because it means that that's adding to McLane's arsenal as it goes, but it also means McLane when he uses up all the ammo he has for one type of gun. It's out. Yes, he is. He's running on this limited resources, taking what he can out of Hans Gruber's plan. Matthew: And the movie is paced fairly well in that McLane encounters a new set of bad guys and has to take them out around the time he needs to take their guns anyway, because he's out of ammunition. Ian: I know there are games out there where If you are running low on a specific ammo, the next box you find will have it, and the next enemy you defeat will drop it. And I'm like, that feels like very much the same rules and logic that Die Hard run on. Matthew: Yes, I think so. Oh, you're out of ammo? Here's a bad guy to get to. To to confront and if you succeed you can take his gun Ian: exactly and he's carrying a duffel bag full of two of checks your inventory thing a that you're low of but we've gotten kind of the plan there. It's it's a it's a very interesting heist and it's a very technical heist. There's so much more hackery stuff going on with the intense digital security of Nakatomi Plaza and such Matthew: And that's where Theo, played by, Clarence Gilyard, is so important, because he's handling all that tech stuff. Everything from the electronic and digital codes, to running the drill that's getting through the physical blocks on this vault. Everybody else is part of the military operation. To control the space, to control the hostages, to set the charges, and to deal with the police response. Theo is the one who's actually getting them into the stuff they're trying to steal. Ian: Theo is kind of a, an embodiment of the ticking clock in that sense. Matthew: Right. He's the one reporting back to Gruber. Oh, I'm through five of these. We got two more to go, but that next one's gonna take a while. Ian: And I kind of want to go straight to the end of the story, but there's some other major settings we've got to acknowledge about Die Hard. Matthew: Yeah. Ian: It is a movie that is about police officers defeating these bad guys, and these bad guys are sufficiently bad in their depiction. This is a movie that really hits differently nowadays, because of its depiction of police officers, I'll say. Matthew: It, it very much is. It is written very well to create this feeling of the police are the good guys. But it is still, it's, it's one of those movies where our only hope is a cop who's not really constrained by the rules. I. e. John McClane running around this building. And even though he does show some restraint in terms of how he deals with people, eventually it's, well, it's everybody or the bad guys and I'll do whatever I need to. And then there's another very specific character point. Ian: Very specific. Matthew: Regarding Sergeant Powell, Reginald VelJohnson's character, who's on the outside talking to him. Ian: Because part of the establishment between John McClane and Powell is this, you know, immediately understanding each other as officers. But McClane says, why are you working the patrol and such? You've got all this experience and Matthew: such. You're on your way home after your desk job. Why are you riding a desk? Ian: Mm hmm. And we learn that Powell had fired upon and killed a young man in a, in a, an event that is depicted with a lot more focus on what the consequences were mentally for Powell's character. Matthew: Yeah, and he describes this, and we see all the remorse in this character. Again, I think it's well written and well played by Vel Johnson. But yeah, he shot a 14 year old boy who was holding a ray gun. He said something like that at the time, or a toy. But, yeah, it's presented, oh, this poor, and he's on a desk job because he can't bring himself to use his service weapon anymore. Yeah, having this, oh, this poor cop, the terrible the terrible consequences for him psychologically of the fact that he shot a kid. In L. A. Ian: Yeah. Matthew: Yeah. It's hard to take that as the, oh yeah, this is, maybe he'll find a way back someday, sort of, sort of mood that, the movie was designed to make us feel. I don't think they would have written it this way if, if they were writing it today. And it's it's hard not to stop the movie at that point and think, really? Really is that, is that how, is that the most important part of this event in, in this cop's past? Is how tough it was on him? Ian: Yeah, I was that was really real. I had to pause to that was just my goodness. It's it's something you can't avoid dealing with nowadays. We can't really talk about diehard without discussing that. Yeah, because what we've got is yeah, a one officer with this. Oh, my, my sad story is this thing which feels so badly handled about who should be The one we're really concerned about in that scenario and what the consequence and how this is trying to make us feel about it. And we've got John McClane being constantly referred to as an, as about being an officer in this situation and making him doing all these violent actions, defeating these people kind of glorified in that is really disturbing. Matthew: And they set that up at the very beginning on the airplane. Yeah. Where his plane has landed, he's getting his stuff together and leaving the plane. He has his little chat with the guy who recommends the, take your shoes and socks off and make fists with your toes on the carpet. And the guy sees that under his jacket McClane has a, a pistol. Ian: Mhm. Matthew: And startles a little bit and McClane notices him, him noticing and says, It's okay, I'm a cop. Mhm. And that line, that is, that line is sort of defining the tone of this movie in many ways. It's okay, I'm a cop. You can trust me to do whatever, whatever I decide to do. It's okay, I'm a cop. Yeah. And there, there are counterpoints to that in the movie. In that we see, as things move up the chain to police who have greater and greater authority over more and more things, they are shown not to be competent to deal with this situation. And yet it's not that, cops are not the be all end all. It's that the bureaucracy, it's almost as if the cops who have playbooks are the ones who are incompetent. But if we can have a couple of good cops on the grounds with guns doing whatever they see is, is necessary, That's what's going to get things done. Ian: Yeah, this movie gets remembered a lot more for the, you know, Yippee ki yay, Mr. Federal Bureau of Investigation. But, a lot less for the, It's okay, I'm a cop, aspect. And, one of those has aged much, much more harshly, and, And Matthew: that doesn't mean I can't watch this movie and appreciate what it does well, but it's, it stands out. Ian: It stands out. It says something about how things went later and what they did later. I almost feel because of that. So that's something we'll have to acknowledge, but I wanted to mention that now. Yeah, Matthew: that definitely needs to be acknowledged. And, and before getting into kind of what the end game is, it's also something else to mention about Gruber's team. Because he's got a wild card in there as well, because of something McClane did. The first bad guy that McClane takes out, near the beginning of the movie, has a brother also on the team. Yes. That brother is Carl, played by Alexander Godunov. And Carl is kind of a berserker. He's a rage machine. We see him in a few places almost messing with the plan by moving on to his next step, well, before the rest of the team is ready. And not really listening to the rest of the team when they, they tell him, No, wait, we gotta do this step by step. And then, of course, when his brother is killed, In a fight to the death with John McClane, getting revenge for his brother and killing John McClane himself personally is more important to him than the plan. He still follows Gruber's instructions to the extent that he can, but his goal now is to take out McClane, not necessarily to successfully complete this robbery. And that of course, creates all kinds of problems for Gruber as well. Ian: So even Gruber's internal faction is not always Moving in the same direction. Gruber's there playing his chess game that we described earlier, but he's got a knight that just moves however it wants across the board. Matthew: And in some ways that's another example of what he has to deal with, with McClane Interfering with his plan. None of the bad guys, there was never any thought that they were in serious danger. They had this all planned out so well, and now, not only is McClane taking them out one by one, but the fact that he's taking them out, and he started with Carl's brother, is messing with the plan in other ways. But we do eventually get to the end game, McClane is at the last minute able to get the hostages off the roof where the bad guys have herded them as they're expecting these FBI choppers and it doesn't manage to stop them from blowing up the roof and that almost kills McClane. Which is where we get this great scene of him swinging from a fire hose that he tied himself to. And shooting his way through a plate glass window two stories down. Ian: Which is just a wild moment. Matthew: Some very good action scenes in this. That's one of the Ian: Very good action scenes. This is a movie built out of good action scenes with very, very good character dialogue scenes in between. Yeah. But those action scenes are excellent. And action scenes can be hard to talk about on a thing on a medium like this because How do we do a play by play of the punches? But, that's a fine example where we're watching him, like, prepare to deal with this and then it still goes wrong and he has to react quickly and that swing maneuver is so iconic. Matthew: And it's also another way in which the movie escalates as it goes on. It's well paced in that way as well. We start the first encounter that McClane has with the bad guy, Carl's brother. It's essentially a wrestling match. And then we go from there to gunfights. And we go from there to rocket propelled grenades versus the LAPD's breaching vehicle. And then eventually we get to the roof filled with C4 that explodes and takes out FBI helicopters. The spectacle and the breadth of devastation from all this violence keeps getting bigger and bigger. Ian: And now we've got, McClane has defeated Gruber's grandest part of the plan there. And there's this final, standoff where, Gruber is, threatening Holly, John McClain's wife. And we've also got Carl standing there menacingly ready to fire. And kind of, Carl's kind of mad he's not getting to shoot John McClane, because Gruber's now kind of personally wanting to be the one to shoot John McClane. Matthew: Well, Carl, he's actually left behind. It wasn't Carl there. Oh, he, who is it then? He had a fight with Carl, and Left Carl hanging from a chain from the ceiling in one. Yes, that Ian: was Carl Matthew: Yeah, so as far as we know Carl was taken off the board as well And I think it's the guy who was the the fake desk guy Who's one of the few guys who wasn't involved in all the violence? Oh, yeah yeah, there's there's Gruber and like the last guy remaining of his team and Gruber has a gun to Holly's head Ian: But McLane McLane is able to pull his concealed service pistol and defeat Gruber. Matthew: is this great standoff, a lot of great dialogue as these two are finally facing down, and it looks like Gruber has won, that McClane is putting down the machine gun that he's got, but the pistol he started with at the very beginning, which has one round, or is it two rounds left? Ian: Two rounds, because he takes out the assistant and wounds Gruber. Matthew: That's right. Ian: That's right. Matthew: And, and so he comes full circle, where it's the, the weapon that he brought with him is the one that he's able to hide and then pull out at the last second. Ian: This is a scene that is so iconic because Gruber holding on wounded to Holly and McLane unclasping Holly's watch so that Gruber falls to his death. Matthew: And they talk about that watch early. I hadn't really remembered that till this, because that watch is a symbol of what she went to LA for without John. She got it for landing some big deal for the Nakatomi Corporation, and it was a, it's a symbol of of what is keeping her there, or keeping them separate. And it's unclasping that, and getting rid of that last handhold that Gruber had on Holly, as he's dangling out the window, is what finally sends him to his death. Ian: That falling scene is something that I know has been recreated in other pieces of media as reference a couple of times. So I'm like, Oh, goodness. Matthew: As we see Hans Gruber just falling and flailing, falling backwards through space off the top of the Nakatomi building. Something interesting about that shot. Don't know if you've heard this, Ian. Ian: Okay. Matthew: We get this wonderful shock and horror on Alan Rickman's face as Hans Gruber as he realizes he's lost his grip on Holly and he's actually falling. They were in, I gather they were in a tall soundstage or something. They had, you know, blue screen I don't know if he was, it was just on a, like a breaking cable, or if he was falling into bags below, Of course, it was a face shot. They couldn't have a stunt double do it. So they, they reassured him with all of this safety stuff and everything is going to be fine and we're not, we're going to count this down to three. I'm gonna count to three and then we'll do the drop and don't worry, you're on a cable and all. Okay, here we go. You ready, Alan? One. Boom. And let go early. They let go early. So that was genuine shock and surprise. On Alan Rickman's face. And it worked so well. I love that story. I don't even know if that story is true, but I've read it so many times I want to think it is. And I bet after the fact, Rickman, I hope, appreciated the fact that it got an amazing. shot for him and an amazing performance. I don't know that he was happy with the guys who did this, but but there you go. Ian: Yeah, it was so effective though looks so real Matthew: and my guess he was falling maybe, you know, 30 feet, but of course they've got the composite in shot of how far down it is from this 32nd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza Ian: And when you're dealing with an actor with that much background and such, I mean, a fall from 10 feet can do a lot. So, 30, I can imagine, you're scared out of your mind to begin with. Matthew: And that leads us to the usual aftermath scenes of all of this, when the hostages, those hostages who have survived, not all of them do, the hostages are being taken to safety. And McClane is reunited with his wife and finally gets to meet. Sergeant Powell, who's, he's been talking to his buddy out there on the street. Ian: Oh, and Powell also, like, Is the one who shoots Carl, isn't he? Matthew: Yes, because they, they do save that little bit of a shock for us. Last time we saw Carl, he was dangling from a chain wrapped around his neck, but it turned out, hey, Godunov is indestructible. So, as everything seems to be wrapping up, Carl, half dead with a machine gun, barges out of the front door, gunning for McClane. And as McClane dives over Holly to protect her, we hear a shot ring out, and it wasn't Carl shooting anybody. Ian: It was Powell. Matthew: Yes, it was Sgt. Powell. Powell got his shoot back. Hooray. Ian: Yeah, it's a classic beat. That classic, like, it's not like, Oh, is it over? It's not a kind of moment. It's so classic. This one has that extra awkward and Matthew: it works really well for the story. And VelJohnson plays it very well. There's so much emotion going across his face. He's not thrilled that he was able to shoot in the line of duty. And yet, it's it's hard to criticize it in terms of how it functions in the movie. But, taking it in a broader context, you gotta wonder, is this, is this what we're celebrating? And Ian: it, it has Holly and John ride off in their limousine to the sunset. Matthew: Yep. Ian: There are some, we didn't even Matthew: talk , Ian: he mentioned ine. We didn't even talk about the limousine driver. Matthew: We haven't haven't mentioned Argyle, Ian: , Argyle in the basement. Cutaway, who also is the guy who gets to defeat the tech guy for Gruber. Matthew: Yes. At the beginning of this, listen, he, he brings McLane from the airport and he becomes McLane's. Exposition interlocutor, and it's in talking with Argyle, who, and he's sitting up front with Argyle, he's not sitting in the back of the limo we learn because of the pestering questions from Argyle, what's up with McClane, why is he here, oh, your wife is out here and you're still in New York, oh, what's that all about? You're trying to make things work or what? And then Argyle spends the rest of the movie trapped in the parking garage under the building which the bad guys have sealed off. And he's in the limo at the bar and and talking to his girlfriend on the, on the telephone. Ian: He's, he's always doing stuff. Yeah. Matthew: But when he sees the bad guys trying to escape with the van full of bearer bonds, he uses the limo to stop the van, crash into it and punch out the other guy driving. And that was Theo driving? Ian: I think so. I But yo, there's a whole other character in there with a whole other comedy relief thing going on. Yep. Matthew: And the other kind of C or D storyline we get in other character is the. TV news reporter, a local reporter who hears the initial exchange between McLane and the the emergency dispatch and knows there's something going on. And we see him using more and more horrible and underhanded ways to try to get information about McLane and get this scoop. And it's very much a isn't the media a horrible nuisance? Which again, that's a message that Deserves more discussion than it gets in this movie, but it functions for the sake of the story. Ian: Yeah and it works Matthew: and it gives holly a great scene where she gets to punch out the The news reporter at the very end for putting her kids in danger. Ian: That is a good one Matthew: So a lot of moving parts in this movie Ian: a lot of moving parts. I think it all comes together, I think that's something we talk about in our final questions though. Matthew: I think it is. I think we're moving towards our final questions. So stay tuned for those where we talk about whether we recommend screening this and how we feel about its future. But in the meantime if you are enjoying the Intermillennium Media Project podcast and you want more of it, please go to immproject. com where you will find all of our back episodes. And you'll also find links to help you subscribe using Apple podcasts or whatever your favorite. Podcast catching tool is, and if you want to help support the IMMP there at immproject. com, you'll also find a link to our Patreon where you can support us and starting at 3 dollars a month, get more audio content from bonus episodes. And you'll also find a link to our store if you like coffee mugs and t shirts and other fun things like that. And finally, you'll find our contact page. We would love to hear from you. And you can reach us on our Discord, or you can reach us by the U. S. mail at our P. O. box, or by the email that you'll find there on our contact page. And Ian, where can people find you? Ian: I can be found as item crafting on Blue sky.social item crafting live on Twitch or item crafting.com. I do crafting and let's play videos on my Twitch streams and sell stuff on my Etsy shop. Matthew: And it's an interesting combination on that stream. On the one hand, we've got Alien, on the other hand, we've got the chow garden. Yes, very, very good mix of vibe there. Ian: Why thank you. I, if you like hearing us dissect things here on the podcast, come join me on the stream. You can hear me dissect everything with just as much insanity sometimes be it dark horror or the fluffiest Family friendly game you've ever seen. I do with a variety. Matthew: And you can find me at ByMatthewPorter. com where you'll find links to all kinds of things that I'm doing. You'll also find me on, on BlueSky as ByMatthewPorter and you'll also find me as ByMatthewPorter. com. at Mastodon. social over on Mastodon. And you'll find me on YouTube as ByMatthewPorter. The main thing I do there, among others, is the Draft House Diary, where I record a record of every one of my many visits to the Alamo Draft House. A review of the movie, a review of the food, the theater experience. Sometimes it's my local theaters, sometimes it's elsewhere in the country when I'm on the road. And sometimes it's me standing in the parking lot reviewing the movie I just saw and confusing the daylights out of the security guys at the mall. Ian: Or the goat yoga. Or the, Matthew: the, the goat yoga crew in the the bar box next to the Alamo. Speaker 4: So Final questions, screen or no screen? Ian: This was so well done. I think I've gotta say screen. It was a good action film. If this is what you're looking for, it's wonderful. And, we made the jokes earlier. It's got some Christmassy vibes. They discuss the holiday season. It's a plot point to it. This is a holiday movie. It's a holiday action movie. But it's a holiday movie . I'm saying screen. I'm not saying it's gonna be the best movie you've seen it's a it's a popcorn action flick, but it's a good one Matthew: It is and yes, it is a Christmas movie. It's not made to celebrate Christmas But the fact that it is set at Christmas is not a mere coincidence The bad guys planned this because the building was gonna be mostly empty a lot of ways that it fits into this story and yeah, I say screen as well It is it's a product of its time and but that has both positives and negatives. There's something about that 80s action filmmaking. That works very well. And one thing we haven't really talked about is the director of this movie, John McTiernan, who has made some amazing action movies, and this is right there at the heart of what he's good at. He made the original Predator. After this, he made the hunt for Red October, which, some of the same cast. He made the last action hero, the 13th warrior. He is a really well established director who can put action together into a movie that still has a momentum besides its action beats. So I, I definitely say screen this movie. It's worthwhile for its own sake and also for its place in recent cinema history. Ian: Mm hmm. And what a place that is. Matthew: Yes. And that brings up our next question, which is revive, reboot, or rest in peace? Ian: Well, every time we've got a property that kept going afterwards, I discuss that and my goodness. So, Die Hard in 88, followed by Die Hard 2 in 90. Mm hmm. Which ups the stakes a little bit more and then die hard with a vengeance in 95 also directed by McTiernan that ups the stakes a little bit more and he joins the FBI Instead of staying a police officer, which is part of what I'm saying Like he's It keeps growing. Live Free or Die Hard in 2007, which goes a little bigger and is much more tech based. Good Day to Die Hard in 2013, which is a full on international incident involving deep cover CIA and such. This film series keeps getting crazier, and if it wasn't for Bruce Willis expressing the direct desire to retire John McClane character. I think it would keep trying to grow. Matthew: And I believe, I haven't seen it, but in that last movie, they bring in his now grown son. Ian: Yes! Matthew: I think as a way to keep this series going, even without Bruce Willis playing John McClane. Ian: Yeah. Matthew: I don't know that it succeeded, I don't think that movie was really well received, but it was an interesting attempt to do that. Ian: It reminds me, unfortunately, of the Fast and Furious franchise. Keep on getting crazier. Matthew: Yes, yes, it outgrows its initial really solid premise to be more and more ridiculous, and have John McClane become more and more of a non human superhero. Ian: Very much so. Matthew: It started out he was so vulnerable and relatable is what was at the heart of this movie. The less that is the case, and more he's just somebody who's super powered, And also super messed up and depressed. That's not as interesting because neither in not in both directions. He's going farther and farther from being a relatable human being So yeah, I am not a fan of the sequels of this of this and I the second the first sequel Die harder set in an airport and the fact that the bad guys were taking over an airport and that was interfering with With landings and putting everybody on these planes in Jeopardy. That was interesting and that was well done. I thought, well put together. After that, they kind of lose me. Ian: Yeah. It's been in so much media. There are so many video games of it. I was describing how much. There's a pile of those and a lot of them are just retakes of the first. Really? Yeah. There's a lot of diehard games set in Nakatomi Plaza, apparently. Matthew: So that's kind of the legacy of Die Hard itself as a franchise. But then we've got something else we alluded to earlier, which is the fact that this gave birth to a whole subgenre, most of which you could describe as diehard in a blank, like Under Siege with Steven Seagal. Diehard on a naval vessel. Diehard on a boat. And the sequel to that was Diehard on a train. And so many of these. I read a book that was essentially diehard. in the assembly and launch facilities for the space shuttle. It's like, you think of an interesting environment that can be contained. You've got some kind of a diehard story there. Ian: There's so many. Goodness. Matthew: Diehard in a podcast studio. I Ian: honestly, because of that, I mean, let's see, a revival would be, can you keep it going? They've done that. A reboot would be a new version of the Nakatomi Plaza story. Seems like they've done that in other medium. I'm going to say rest in peace, just because there are dozens of diehards. Yes. Diehard refuses to die hard. Please let it rest. Matthew: Yeah, I would say rest in peace. We don't need any more diehard movies. And I know that saying rest in peace is not going to stem the recurring tide of Die Hard adaptations into other settings, one of the funniest and most fun references back to Die Hard is, I think, in the TV series Brooklyn Nine Nine where our main character the reason he became a cop was he was obsessed with Die Hard and he wishes he was John McClane. And there's a later episode a few seasons in. when they visit L. A. and he gets to see the building that was used, for Nakadomi Plaza. And that's, that's fun. It's, it's well written in that show, but it's also a fun nod to the, the cultural impact that this that this movie had. Ian: He looks at, he looks at Fox Plaza getting to be all excited. Matthew: Yep. Ian: Oh goodness. Well, this was fun. I've known that you were going to show me this movie for a long time. It's one of those classics that I kind of expected to be on the list somewhere. I should have known you'd do it for Christmas. Matthew: If we're going to talk about it, we might as well talk about it for Christmas. Ian: Absolutely. Matthew: So I hope it was a good Christmas surprise, and, and listeners, thank you so much for joining us, and as we head into Christmas, I hope that you have a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate around this time of year, be it Yule, or Saturnalia, or Hanukkah, or the Solstice, New Year's coming up, I hope it is fun, and peaceful, and safe, and happy for everybody listening. Ian: Absolutely. I am hoping the same. And we'll of course be back next year. Matthew: That's right. Ian: With more episodes. And I actually think, we're talking about all these versions of Die Hard out there. You know what dad? Matthew: Yeah? Ian: I've got one for you. Huh? How about die hard on a space station with brightly colored animals? Matthew: Oh animals, so we're not talking among us. Interesting interesting. Ian: We'll have to see about that Matthew: Well, I will look forward to that and listeners. Thank you for joining us. We hope you'll be back with us then Ian: In the meantime, go find something new to watch. Matthew (singing): Nakatomi Plaza, Nakatomi Plaza, Nakatomi Plaza, let me say it once again. Nakatomi Plaza, Nakatomi Plaza, Nakatomi Plaza, that's the tower that knew me when. I crashed your company holiday celebration. And it became a hostage situation. I never really planned for a confrontation. Now there John McClain driving me insane. Nakatomi Plaza. Nakatomi Plaza. Not the Burj Khalifa Tower of Pisa or the Shard Nakatomi Plaza. Nakatomi Plaza. Nakatomi Plaza. He just dies hard.