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The Inevitable Downfall of Die Hard
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May 14, 2025
The first Die Hard movie is a near perfect film. Everything about the story, characters, and plot are well crafted and deliver on everything set up. Though as Die Hard sequels kept being produced, each iteration seemed further and further away from what the original Die Hard created. But how exactly did the Die Hard franchise crash and burn this badly?
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Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs
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It's probably a bit of an understatement to say the original Die Hard changed the American
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action film genre. The movie barreled through walls and rocketed television actor Bruce Willis
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into a bona fide movie star. Die Hard changed what an action star could or could not be
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But with each subsequent sequel, the franchise turned into the very thing it had worked so hard
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to redefine. Welcome to the party, pal! When Die Hard was released in 1988, action movie stars were a particular breed
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From Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando to Sylvester Stallone in Rambo, this style of hero was almost infallible
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They seemed void of fear or self-preservation, often mowing down enemies with reckless abandon and infinite bullets
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Put simply, there was an absence of realism. That all changed with Die Hard
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Who are you then? Just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench
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The pain in the ass. Directed by John McTiernan, Hot Off Predator
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from a script by Jeb Stewart and Stephen E. DeSouza, Stewart's writing up to this point had been focused more on thrillers than action
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That experience made Stewart lean more on character, using his own experiences to craft the protagonist, John McClane
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But Stewart's McClane was fashioned as an everyman, someone in the wrong place at the wrong time
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He was intended to be a counterpoint to the muscle-bound archetypes popularized by Schwarzenegger and Stallone
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both of whom were weirdly offered the part. Luckily for all of us, they landed on Bruce Willis
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Known mostly for the sitcom Moonlighting, Willis brought his own working-class South Jersey childhood to McClane
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A gallows sense of humor, resentment for authority, and complete lack of entitlement
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This was a character that reflected the audience and gently whispered, you could do this too
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Got invited to the Christmas party by mistake. Who knew? The setup is also quasi-relatable
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A husband on the outs with his estranged wife visits her on Christmas Eve in hopes of reconciliation The movie is immediately telling us that McClane is not the traditionally perfect hero There are aspects of his life outside of the action
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that are in shambles, and that's a huge aspect of John. Not just in the idea that he is flawed
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but that he is working to improve it. He's making a sincere effort
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That's something the filmmakers also established in the very first scene with McClane
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We immediately learn he's terrified to fly, but is doing it anyway
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This isn't quite like Indiana Jones being afraid of snakes, which is often played for laughs
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I hate snakes, Zach! I hate them! This is an action star with a genuine anxiety in order to make him both relatable
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while also revealing more about his character. That effort and work ethic are what initially sets Die Hard's plot into action
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After a group of thieves take over the Nakatomi Plaza building where his wife's office party is located
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McClane works, mostly on his own, to save the day. And throughout the runtime, we see him struggle
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Every obstacle seems more impossible than the previous, until, thanks to McClane's established perseverance and hard work
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he succeeds. And the audience loved it, more or less guaranteeing us a sequel
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which we got in 1990 with Die Hard 2 Die Harder. Supposed to stay in your seat until the plane reaches the terminal
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No frequent flyer mileage for you. While the first movie had been adapted from a book by Roderick Thorpe
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the screenplay here is adapted from an entirely different book, by a different author, this time adapting Walter Wager's 58 minutes. Like a lot of sequels
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Die Harder goes bigger while still trying too hard to replicate the original. Instead of an
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office building, we are in an airport. It's again Christmas Eve, but instead of thieves
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there's an overcomplication of villains with plans that hinge on coincidence. While Die Harder is
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riddled with wonderful action scenes, it's the first step in a descent that every following film
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in the franchise would follow. It's a sort of cliff notes on one-liners
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returning catchphrases, and giant set pieces. Too bad, McLean. I'm going to like you
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I got enough friends With so many spinning plot plates and exposition we start to lose a lot of the franchise heart The same could also be said of the third film
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1995's Die Hard with a Vengeance. This would be original director McTiernan's first
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and only return to the franchise working off a script by Jonathan Hensley
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For the first time, Vengeance wasn't based on a book, but an already completed script called Simon Says
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Vengeance followed John chasing a bomber throughout New York City. It's another McClane versus everyone scenario, this time with the help of a business owner
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Zeus Carver, played wonderfully by Samuel L. Jackson. In an attempt to mine our affection for the original Die Hard, that bomber is revealed to
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be Simon Peter Gruber, brother of the original's villain, Hans Gruber. It is, at most, a tenuous
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connection. I threw his little brother off the 32nd floor and now he's throwing me towers out in LA
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I guess he's a little pissed off about it. Part of the problem these initial sequels had was their steadfastness on picking random books
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and screenplays to shoehorn in McClane. We're left with what feels like a puzzle piece jammed
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into a jigsaw that doesn't really fit. I'm out here playing kids games in the park. Hey
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you want to focus on the problem at hand? McClane's charm in the original was built around
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his interactivity to the circumstances put upon him. These first sequels feel like McClane forcing
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himself onto the circumstances because that is how the scripts were written. There is some
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incredible action and practical stunt work in these movies, but with the studio demanding
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moments become bigger and bigger, our emotional connection gets smaller and smaller
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I know what I'm doing. Not even God knows what you're doing. That becomes increasingly more problematic with 2007's Live Free or Die Hard, also known as Die
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Hard 4.0 because Willis thought it sounded techie. This outing was directed by Underworld's Len
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Wiseman. This time, McClane was pushed into a plot involving hackers and cyberterrorism. There is
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nothing here that really connects him to the plot other than happenstance Wiseman also desperately wanted to highlight practical special effects and stunt work And that great It wonderful to highlight in effects but with such a focus on the action set pieces we lose John
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The character had previously struggled. He worked against odds to escape one gunman
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and was now almost a superhero or mythological idea. The feelings of concern and relatability we had held so clearly
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were completely gone with each increasing superhuman feat. I'm afraid of flying
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Yeah, I used to be terrified of flying. Really? Yeah. Took some lessons, you know, face your fears, that kind of thing
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Yeah? Did it help? Not really. The same could be said of the franchise's last and final installment, A Good Day to Die Hard
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Released in 2013 and directed by John Moore, it was the first Die Hard to be written ground up for John McClane
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To put it kindly, for all the complaints about the previous film's scripts, this one is by far the most convoluted
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Do you think I understand a word you say? The screenplay is simply all over the board
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with a focus on passing the torch to John's son, John Jr.
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while also elevating the action to the very muscle-riddled action stars the original rebelled against
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The steadfast of introducing a character to take the mantle from Willis
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strains our connection even further. What a shame your father won't be alive to see you promoted
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Neither will you. Die Hard's strength has always relied on Willis and its realism
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By the time we reach a good day to Die Hard, both those ideas are lost
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Instead of building upon John McClane as a character, the franchise rested on Willis' charm and personality
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While its initial outing touted an everyman, every subsequent sequel pulled the reality of the tension away
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to make way for quips and bigger-than-life stunts. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time
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Helba, you'll be going. Mother. We were lucky to have 132 minutes of perfect action
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when we needed it most. So come to the coast, get together, have a few laughs
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and spend time with the best diehard
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