The Third And Final Part Of My Review Of The Action Classic, Die Hard(1988) Starring Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, De'voreaux White, William Atherton, Hart Bochner, Robert Davi, And Alexander Goudonov. Directed By John McTiernan.
Trivia
# Hans Gruber is named after a mad scientist's henchman in the spoof spy film Our Man Flint (1966). "Hans Gruber" is also the name of the doctor Herbert West studied under while in Switzerland in the beginning of Re-Animator (1985)
# There are two FBI Agent Johnsons and a Harvey Johnson who were characters in the film. This is an in-joke aimed at co-star Reginald VelJohnson.
# During the FBI helicopter attack, Special Agent Johnson (Robert Davi) says, "Just like fuckin' Saigon, eh, Slick?" Agent Johnson (Grand L. Bush) replies, "I was in junior high, dick-head." In real life, Davi and Bush are 18 months apart in age.
# Bruce Willis personally recommended Bonnie Bedelia for the role of his estranged wife.
# When the bomb in the elevator shaft blows out the side of the building, the effect was accomplished by (a) collecting virtually every camera flashbulb of a particularly powerful type in the Los Angeles area and wiring them on the outside of the actual building to simulate the flash, and (b) by superimposing a shot of an actual explosive blowing a hole in the wall of an all-black miniature of the building at the appropriate location.
# The fireball in the elevator shaft was shot with real pyrotechnics using a miniature shaft; the camera speed had to vary over the length of the shot because otherwise the fireball would appear to change speed as it moved up the forced-perspective model. The effects people weren't sure exactly at what rate to vary the speed, so they rigged a manual variable-speed control and did several takes changing the speed at different rates and then picked the one that looked best.
# John McTiernan was originally going to make Commando 2, but Arnold Schwarzenegger turned the role offer down. Commando 2 was transformed into Die Hard (1988) and Schwarzenegger was the first actor offered the title role, but he again declined. Eventually Bruce Willis would get the part after Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, and Richard Gere were all offered the role.
# The bridge shown in Takagi's office is a work of Frank Lloyd Wright for the Bay Area in 1949.
# In the making-of featurette, director John McTiernan revealed that a vast majority of the exterior shots of the building showing explosions were real, full-scale explosions set off in and around the actual building.
# The entire Nakatomi building was supposed to be managed by a supercomputer and the scenes where McClane is trapped in an office and Gruber orders the windows to be shot out are supposed to be the computer room. The large dark object is the computer, modeled after an ETA-10 supercomputer. It is a model and a bit larger than the actual computer which was thought to look too small. The fiberglass model was later used by ETA as part of the marketing for the ETA range of supercomputers.
# Hart Bochner's line "Hans... Bubby!" was ad-libbed. Alan Rickman's quizzical reaction was genuine.
# The Nakatomi tower is actually the headquarters of 20th Century Fox. The company charged itself rent for the use of the then unfinished building.
# A full 18 minutes elapse before the movie's first gunshot.
# Much of the script was improvised due to the constant screenplay tweaks that were being made during filming.
# Bruce Willis was also shooting "Moonlighting" (1985) concurrently which accounts for why nearly all of McClane's scenes take place at night. Willis would shoot his TV series during the day and then come to the Fox lot in the evening to work on Die Hard (1988).
# Bruce Willis filmed Die Hard (1988) while starring in the TV series "Moonlighting" (1985). By the time the series ended, "Die Hard" was available on VHS. In one of the last "Moonlighting" episodes, Willis and a love interest are seen walking past a video rental store while an employee is tearing a Die Hard (1988) poster down from the window.
# John McTiernan turned the script down several times. He felt it was a nasty piece of work. When he was finally persuaded to take on the assignment, he was able to lighten some of the film's darker edges.
# The scene where Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman meet up was unrehearsed to create a greater feeling of spontaneity between the two actors.
# In the scenes where John McClane is required to run through a multitude of glass shards in his 'bare' feet after Hans has his men shoot out the glass partitions in the computer room, 'Bruce Willis (I)' is in fact wearing special 'rubber' shoes designed to look like his own bare feet. One can in fact see this if looking closely as his feet appear quite unnaturally large in some of these crucial 'barefoot' scenes.
For More Trivia Go To IMDB.com
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Cinema Zone-Die Hard With A Vengeance(1995) 2/4by OcpCommunications1,282 views
awesome fuckin' franchise. are you reviewing the whole franchise or just the one movie?
wayneluss 2 years ago
The Whole Franchise...And After I Review All Four Movies I'm Uploading My Music Video To The First Three Films Called John McLane Is Still Alive..(Left Out Die Hard 4 Because Fox Is A Bunch Of Picky Bitches Lately..)
OcpCommunications 2 years ago