Though I've complained about it before (never on here), I feel I haven't been given enough of a soapbox before, so I'm going to shout it into the blogosphere.
So I love all 4 Die Hard movies. If I had to rank them, it'd probably be 1,4,2,3. All are great though. There's endless chatter about how the second and third aren't as good as the first. When the fourth was released, this chatter shifted in the direction of, the fourth one really goes back to the spirit of the original, like the previous sequels were unable to do. This is my take on that.
The first Die Hard was so great because of the volnerability. Of course, John McClain can't be shoeless in all four. And no, he can't meet another cop over the radio and talk about their flaws and desires. You really only can do that once. They did that so well in Die Hard that it may have doomed that movie to really only being able to maintain quality for one film. That's a standard the others can't live up to. I hate to say that because I would not want to live in a world with only 1 Die Hard film.
The other thing is that in the first film, McClian is so reluctant to be the hero. Not just the wrong place at the wrong time, and even moreso the fact that he doesn't want to be there (God knows his hangover played that up in Vengance really well), but he is reluctant to do what it takes to be the hero. The first man he kills he is simply wrestling with when they fall down a flight of stairs and it kills him. This takes place well after sneaking up behind the entire terrorist group, with a loaded weapon, and watching them kill a man without stopping them. He runs away saying to himself "You should have stopped them John, why didn't you do anything John?." Most of the kills in this movie are not because McClain takes action and kills the men, but because he simply manages to overpower them with one move in the fight...and that move happens to kill them. This reluctance to kill someone is what the other movies lack. 5 minutes into Die Harder he doesn't just kill a man, but vicously. He goes on like this shooting at and attacking terrorists (even blowing up a plane of them) for the whole movie. In the third film, Die Hard With A Vengance, McClain manages to go about 90 minutes without killing -or even attacking- anyone....simply because he isn't confronted with theives posing as terrorists. It's not till McClain reaches the boat that he has a chance to fight. And boy does he.
Now we've reached the fourth installment, Live Free Or Die Hard. At first I saw it as a return to the original. McClain starts by throwing a fire extinguisher towards the enemy and shooting it, causing it to burst and fill the hallway with smoke for him to run into a room. The other effect is a man being thrown out the window by the force of the explosion. He falls a few stories to his, presumable, death. I can still call this reluctance because rather than shoot the men, he bought himself time. One man happened to die, but this can't be put on McClain's shoulders per se. I am suspending dibelief though because I love the franchise, and this movie, and would like to believe this is as true a story as the original.
Unfortunately moments later McClain punshes a hole in the wall, pulls a man's head through it, and uses the beam in the wall to snap the man's neck. That is up there on the vicious scale of a kill.
Having gone through this.....I just want to understand what happened to McClain in the year between the first and second movies, while he was getting back together with Holly and spending more time with his children, that turned him into this blod thirsty killer that refuses to hold back?
~J
So I love all 4 Die Hard movies. If I had to rank them, it'd probably be 1,4,2,3. All are great though. There's endless chatter about how the second and third aren't as good as the first. When the fourth was released, this chatter shifted in the direction of, the fourth one really goes back to the spirit of the original, like the previous sequels were unable to do. This is my take on that.
The first Die Hard was so great because of the volnerability. Of course, John McClain can't be shoeless in all four. And no, he can't meet another cop over the radio and talk about their flaws and desires. You really only can do that once. They did that so well in Die Hard that it may have doomed that movie to really only being able to maintain quality for one film. That's a standard the others can't live up to. I hate to say that because I would not want to live in a world with only 1 Die Hard film.
The other thing is that in the first film, McClian is so reluctant to be the hero. Not just the wrong place at the wrong time, and even moreso the fact that he doesn't want to be there (God knows his hangover played that up in Vengance really well), but he is reluctant to do what it takes to be the hero. The first man he kills he is simply wrestling with when they fall down a flight of stairs and it kills him. This takes place well after sneaking up behind the entire terrorist group, with a loaded weapon, and watching them kill a man without stopping them. He runs away saying to himself "You should have stopped them John, why didn't you do anything John?." Most of the kills in this movie are not because McClain takes action and kills the men, but because he simply manages to overpower them with one move in the fight...and that move happens to kill them. This reluctance to kill someone is what the other movies lack. 5 minutes into Die Harder he doesn't just kill a man, but vicously. He goes on like this shooting at and attacking terrorists (even blowing up a plane of them) for the whole movie. In the third film, Die Hard With A Vengance, McClain manages to go about 90 minutes without killing -or even attacking- anyone....simply because he isn't confronted with theives posing as terrorists. It's not till McClain reaches the boat that he has a chance to fight. And boy does he.
Now we've reached the fourth installment, Live Free Or Die Hard. At first I saw it as a return to the original. McClain starts by throwing a fire extinguisher towards the enemy and shooting it, causing it to burst and fill the hallway with smoke for him to run into a room. The other effect is a man being thrown out the window by the force of the explosion. He falls a few stories to his, presumable, death. I can still call this reluctance because rather than shoot the men, he bought himself time. One man happened to die, but this can't be put on McClain's shoulders per se. I am suspending dibelief though because I love the franchise, and this movie, and would like to believe this is as true a story as the original.
Unfortunately moments later McClain punshes a hole in the wall, pulls a man's head through it, and uses the beam in the wall to snap the man's neck. That is up there on the vicious scale of a kill.
Having gone through this.....I just want to understand what happened to McClain in the year between the first and second movies, while he was getting back together with Holly and spending more time with his children, that turned him into this blod thirsty killer that refuses to hold back?
~J
freud:
i've never seen ANY of them