July 4th, 1990. I was 9-years-old at this time and I was kicking it with my dad. My dad loved taking me to the cinema. On this particular weekend, he was super-pumped. He had the choice of seeing Die Hard 2 or RoboCop 2.
“Which one would you rather see?” my dad asked me.
Are you kidding? I wanted to see RoboCop 2 more than anything. I remember a few years prior to this when he brought home the first film on VHS. My 7-year-old mind loved every second of it. Violence and robots – what more did I need?
We arrived at the cinema and to my utter disappointment, RoboCop 2 was sold out, even though it was in theaters for a week or two already. I wasn’t hip to John McLane at this point so there was no part of me that was interested in Die Hard 2. There wasn’t any f*****g robots in this movie. Who wants to see a movie without robots? That’s just stupid, like putting a song and dance number into a Spider-Man film and then calling it “the best” of the trilogy.
To my surprise, Die Hard 2 was actually quite exciting to my 9-year-old world. That movie blew up a plane full of innocent travelers without blinking. The villain liked to practice his karate skills naked but who doesn’t? Oh, and look! It’s the dad from Family Matters!
Why don’t we see more of this guy?
Last night, at the screening of Pirates 3, they showed a trailer for Live Free or Die Hard. The first few moments of it brought me back to 1990. After Die Hard 2 was over, I was more than curious to see the first one. When I finally did, I no longer understood the second film. So, he was a cop from New York who became a cop from Los Angeles, but is visiting Washington DC? Die Hard with a Vengeance made matters worse. He was a cop from New York, who became a cop from Los Angeles, but returned to New York to be a cop again. Why? When did this happen?
Back to the trailer… something about it really got to me. The PG-13 rating has more than pissed people off, especially since all the other ones had no problem being Rated R and making money. There is a scene in this trailer where Bruce Willis launches a car into a helicopter. As if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the pilot of the helicopter jumps out before the car hits it, insuring his survival. Why couldn’t the dude just f*****g die hard like the title suggests? It reminded me of that GI Joe cartoon from the 80s, where no one ever got killed. They just jumped out of their vehicles seconds before they exploded.
This summer has been pretty grim so far. Shrek was just more of the same. Spider-Man 3 raped my eye sockets without having the common decency to remove my eye balls first. Pirates 3 was just really long exposition for the inevitable Pirates 4. 28 Weeks Later was pretty good but the best thing I’ve seen so far (and granted it’s still early in the season) has been Knocked Up. Seriously, this is the funniest movie I’ve seen in a really long time.
Judging by what’s left to come (a certain Michael Bay film comes to mind), I doubt it’s going to be topped.
“this guy” a certain Reginald VelJohnson has been popping up as one of the actors used in the TV show “On the Lot”
What they did with the second “Die Hard” movie was take the characters from the novel on which the first “Die Hard” was based and transplant them into a movie using a completely different novel as the source of the story. Confusing as Hell, but I give them props for trying to make it work.
“Die Hard With a Vengeance” started as a spec script from an unknown (at the time) writer that had no relation to the “Die Hard” franchise. They liked it so much, and they wanted to beat another mad bomber flick to the punch, so they rewrote it as a “Die Hard” script.
I think John McClane must appear to the producers as a mythic character where you can transplant him into any situation and have him save the day, so they don’t care for the continuity so much as the legend.
Whoa, I had no idea I was younger than you! I was five at the time.
I thought we were going to get a review of Pirates 3 you blimy bastard!
😀