Live Free or Die Hard: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Dec 27th, 2007 | Movie Rating: 
FADE IN:
EXT. NEW YORK CITY
BRUCE WILLIS embarrasses his daughter, because the concept of a super-badass action guy being unable to manage his home life is totally original and creative.
BRUCE WILLIS
It sure is rough just trying to be a regular cop as well as a divorced father. Luckily the cop part has gotten easier ever since this movie decided I should be some kind of superhuman cop.
POLICE CAPTAIN
(over radio)
Bruce, I need you to go pick up Justin Long. He’s a young hacker. The two of you couldn’t have any less in common, making for completely hilarious comedy.
BRUCE goes to find JUSTIN LONG. Meanwhile, some terrorists seem to upload a BOMB to a laptop and it EXPLODES. Inexplicably, the movie manages to actually go downhill from that.
INT. JUSTIN LONG’S APARTMENT.
BRUCE badasses his way up the stairs and into JUSTIN’S NERD LAIR.
BRUCE WILLIS
You need to come with me. After all, what would a Die Hard movie be without an annoying partner?
JUSTIN LONG
Um, good? Like the first one?
Suddenly, the same terrorists upload a bomb to JUSTIN’S LAPTOP, but they can’t detonate it without JUSTIN hitting DELETE, and he doesn’t. They are forced to run into his apartment with guns instead.
BRUCE WILLIS
(growling)
I’m going to have to shoot these guys.
(shoots the guys)
I’m so badass that I’ll make a joke about how nonchalantly badass I am.
JUSTIN LONG
(Matthew Perry impression)
The above scene repeats itself over and over until BRUCE and JUSTIN get to ANTI-HACKER HEADQUARTERS.
INT. ANTI-HACKER HEADQUARTERS
CLIFF CURTIS barks orders at people who are probably spending most of the day on MONSTER.COM, because nobody wants to work for such a DOUCHEBAG.
CLIFF CURTIS
The hacker terrorists are infiltrating our firewall matrix! Quick, reroute the protocol encryption!
RANDOM DRONE
Sir! They’re deleting the internet!
CLIFF CURTIS
Shit! Restore internet from optical storage backup system and randomize IP layer!
RANDOM DRONE
Yes sir!
BRUCE WILLIS
Uh, you guys seem busy melting the brains of audience members with any technical knowledge. I can bring Justin Long back later.
JUSTIN LONG
No wait. I know what’s going on. It’s a firesale. They’re taking down all of the computers in the country. They call it a firesale because everything… must… go.
BRUCE WILLIS
You expect me to believe that the same type of nerds that would come up with this plan would even know what a ‘firesale’ is?
BRUCE and JUSTIN fight with some HENCHMEN, but BRUCE KILLS THEM with the power of WISECRACKS.
JUSTIN LONG
Holy shit! This badassery sure is tiring!
BRUCE WILLIS
It’s called a workout, kid! Ever hear of it? Har har har!
JUSTIN LONG
Oh, because you are old and come from a time when kids got exercise, whereas I am young and come from a technology-driven world. Your comment is meant both to draw attention to the generational gap between us as well as condemn our current society for being so dependent on technology. Very cute.
BRUCE WILLIS
It’s called beating you over the head with a point! Ever hear of it? Hrf hrf hrf!
JUSTIN LONG
Right, and it is because we are so dependent on technology that these terrorists are able to pull of their evil plot! Except that, in reality, none of the stuff they are doing is even remotely possible. The worst that can actually happen is a massive power outage, which people regularly prove isn’t a big problem.
BRUCE WILLIS
It’s called exaggerating to the point of meaninglessness! Ever hear of it? Hurrrrrrr!
BRUCE and JUSTIN require the assistance of some kind of UBER-NERD, so they go see KEVIN SMITH, who lives in his mother’s basement because the film writers were working off 20-year-old stereotypes.
INT. KEVIN SMITH’S BASEMENT
KEVIN SMITH fatasses his way through the scene.
BRUCE WILLIS
I need to know who is behind the firesale.
KEVIN SMITH
I’m so sorry for being in this movie.
BRUCE WILLIS
Er, uh, did you say Timothy Olyphant? What’s he trying to do?
KEVIN SMITH
So, so, so sorry. Ugh.
BRUCE WILLIS
(whispering)
Stick to the script, Smith.
(loudly)
He’s shutting down the world’s computers so he can break into some kind of vault and get a whole bunch of bank information to steal money? The cad! How do we stop him?
KEVIN SMITH
I really don’t know what I was thinking. This movie isn’t even starring one of my friends or anything.
BRUCE WILLIS
Ha-ha, okay so we should get to the same vault and shoot the crap out of everyone? Sounds good!
Suddenly, TIMOTHY OLYPHANT appears on KEVIN SMITH’S COMPUTER, because computers are magical boxes that don’t follow any kind of logical rules.
TIMOTHY OLYPHANT
Hello Bruce. I see my efforts to try and kill you have failed. This only makes me more obsessed with wanting to kill you.
BRUCE WILLIS
Why? Why do you care about me so much? If you had just left me alone, I’d have dropped off the worthless hacker kid with Cliff Curtis and gone home.
TIMOTHY OLYPHANT
Despite the obviousness of your objection, I’m going to throw gasoline on the fire by kidnapping your daughter, thereby ensuring you will have to come to my base of operations and kill me.
That HAPPENS.
INT. BAD GUY LAIR
BRUCE and JUSTIN break into the bad guy’s secret hideout and kill lots of people. JUSTIN struggles with the concept of using a GUN, just so that you know he will shoot TIMOTHY at the very end.
TIMOTHY OLYPHANT
I’m shocked you would try to rescue your daughter rather than do what I say.
BRUCE WILLIS
I’m shocked they even bothered making this movie, so surprises all around.
They FIGHT. BRUCE is shot by TIMOTHY, and then TIMOTHY hovers over BRUCE waiting to kill him in order to give JUSTIN time to grow a pair of BALLS and save the day. JUSTIN finally picks up a gun and shoots a bad guy to prove how brave he is, giving BRUCE a chance to shoot TIMOTHY!
JUSTIN LONG
Truly a male has no worth unless he is willing to shoot another person in the back!
BRUCE WILLIS’S DAUGHTER
I’m attracted to you now that you shoot guns like my dad, because I obviously want to fuck my own father.
BRUCE WILLIS
Yipee-ki-yay, mother-golly-gosh-darner!
END
Wow. Was the movie really as weird as the script makes it look?
December 27th, 2007 at 12:39 pm0.0
0.0
-.0
Those were my reactions to reading this. Yep, definitely looks like a waste of time to see. Unless you’re a guy, in which case you will love it, because who cares about the plot anyway? You know you just went to see the movie to see things blow up.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pmThey totally ruined what made die-hard good. I don’t exactly know what that was, something to do with realism and John McLane’s everyman type character.
At one point in this movie he was actually standing on a harrier jet… in flight. At that moment I saw the die-hard series die.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:38 pmAmeer: It’s weirder. Bruce Willis attacks a fighter jet with an 18 wheeler in a long and pointless scene. The bad guys also reverse the flow of electricity at a power station which causes it to explode in a giant ball of fire, because electricity is highly combustible I guess.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:47 pm“Ameer Says:
Wow. Was the movie really as weird as the script makes it look?”
oh, god, no. No. It’s so much, much weirder. At one point, Bruce Willis destroys a jet fighter by throwing a piece of highway at it. No. Seriously. That actually happens.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:13 pmThis one wasn’t bad Rod, but you should’ve cracked more jokes about how they had to tame it down to a PG-13 rating and how awkward it made a lot of the film seem. The first one is so much better.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:40 pmIt was actually not a bad movie. Definatly no where near the 1st, but much better than 2 or 3. And considering how badly they could have fucked it up, given how shitty hollywood is these days, I’m glad it turned out the way it did. Good movie overall. Not one of your best scripts though Rod, u had much funnier ones. Golden Compass was awesome, I laughed my ass off!!!
December 27th, 2007 at 4:41 pmI dont know whether to laugh at the hilarity of this script, or cry at the fact that a movie this stupid actually got produced.
I think ill do both.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:31 pmWorst Die Hard ever. Fuck this movie. Fuck it good.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:49 pmThe first and the third were my favorites. I can kind of see why a lot of Die Hard purists hated the third, but I felt it was the only worthy follow-up to the original. It was entertaining, the bad guy was bad ass, Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson was badass.
This movies was fucking shit. I knew, knew, KNEW, they were going to fuck this up! How do you upload a fucking bomb? Obviously they went into his house before, and rigged his computer. Why not just kill him while he’s sleeping? Why send a motherfucking assassin squad to snuff Justin Long and draw attention to yourself?
Bitch all you want about Die Hard 3, but at least McClane didn’t ride a fighter jet in that one. Holy hell, what the fuck were they sniffing?
December 27th, 2007 at 6:58 pmI really enjoyed this film the first time around. Then when I thought about it, it dawned on me of how ridiculous it is.
I’m with MadShangi. First and Third for me.
Oh, and it was “Delete” that set the uploaded bomb off, not “Enter”… ;)
December 27th, 2007 at 10:51 pmBut I have to say: the thing that really, reaaaaally annoyed me was when Seth Bullock from “Deadwood” discovers all that info about MacLane and stuff like Nakatomi Plaza is never mentioned.
Just like the thing that really nagged me of the second was that he should have spent a good chunk of lines wondering how odd and coincidental it was for him to be trapped with terrorists during Christmas twice.
Had they done that, I would have happily ignored the blatant disregard for basic physics. As it is, it just looks like somebody got an unrelated script and replaced the hero’s name.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:17 amOkay Rod, if you’re so logical, explain to me how an “uploaded bomb,” has it’s own light hard-wired to the back of the computer. If these bombs are just some kind of virus or code, how are they installing their own L.E.D.s?
December 28th, 2007 at 6:39 amI had the misfortune of actually seeing this movie (if you can call it that) prior to reading Rod’s script. Just to clarify, when I know it’s going to be bad I wait for Rod to write about it first - this time I was not so fortunate. Anyway…..
Rod - Nicely done. Your script was a great deal less cliche than the original. I had a lot of trouble with the whole “bomb uploading” thing as well but I think everyone else’s comments put that grievance to rest. What I really want to know is why does Bruce Willis still get $20 Million a movie when all he makes is bomb after bomb? I mean, the only films he is in that do well are “ensemble” pieces. This is what I hate about Hollywood….no creativity anymore and they pay alleged “stars” anything they want to make shitty films.
Keep the scripts coming as they provide welcome relief to my otherwise boring and pastoral day.
December 28th, 2007 at 7:37 amI agree wholeheartedly with the ridiculousness of everything in this movie that has to do with computers and the Internet -it feels as if the script had been written in 1987, before people knew exactly what computers can do. Also, shots of people typing: so exciting!
Still enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I’m happy to see an action movie that doesn’t feel the need to philosophise about existence and the meaning of life (thanks for the trend, Matrix!).
December 28th, 2007 at 9:54 amFunny stuff, but what ending did you see? Justin Long doesn’t kill the bad guy; he kills the bad guy’s sidekick. Bruce does the job by shooting himself through his own shoulder blade. And you might be happy to know that they replaced the mutherf-er in the “Unrated” version, along with a lot of fs thrown in for good measure.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:37 amThey should have just called it “9/11 terrorism America STRONG God Bless United Orange Alert” or something.
Pfft. Fluff job of a movie which I refuse to see.
December 28th, 2007 at 2:16 pmI found Kevin Smith less annoying the second watch. LFODH was still the second best sequel of the summer (after Bourne). But that’s not saying much.
December 28th, 2007 at 9:45 pmThere was no Bruce Willis disco strut. That was a plus.
Have any of you people actually SEEN this movie? And if you have, for calling it so dumb, you sure didn’t follow it real fucking well. (a) They didn’t upload a virus that blew things up, they uploaded a virus that detonated C4 already placed in the computers. (b) They didn’t reroute electricity to cause an explosion, they rerouted gas lines, which may not make a whole lot more sense, but it’s little less far fetched.
I’m not going to try and say it was the greatest movie ever made, and yeah, it was pretty over the top. But guess what: it was entertaining! Crying because “it wasn’t enough like the old Die Hard” while in the same post bitching about how played out everything in it is Doesn’t make a bit of sense.
The only real bitch I had was it’s ultra patriotism. Which is really worse in the trailers and advertising than in the actual movie itself. Other than that, I thought the whole ‘firesale’ thing was pretty entertaining, if not entirely realistic. Pardon me but I actually enjoyed Mac dude’s comedic relief. And goddamnit, I like jets vs. semis and taxis vs. helicopters. Cars rolling through tunnels bouncing off of each other like pinballs. Lighten up already, it’s just a movie.
December 28th, 2007 at 9:48 pmDunlap, you are on the wrong website. You want analretentivesanonymous.com.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:46 am“It was entertaining” has got to be the biggest cop-out excuse to not use your fucking brain, beating “It was so bad it was good!” by a nose. What a cowardly way to weasel out of thinking. “It’s only a movie!!!” Oh well gee you got us there I guess standards don’t apply then.
Dunlap, you’re putting forth that as long as a movie has exploding trucks and gruff one-liners that you’ll not only pay to see it in a theatre with annoying members of the human race but defend it when the hype dies down and people realize how retarded this shit is? That as long as the stock stony-faced female kung-fu expert is present, anything is forgivable? Explain to me what the fuck kind of value system that is.
At least the last three Die Hard’s had a kind of real-world relatability to them. A movie doesn’t have to be entirely realistic, no, but it should contain at least some recognizable characteristics to either the world we live in, or the world it presents. And in the Die Hard universe, this entry is an adopted two-year-old with some horrible physical malady, two cocks coming out of the forehead or something. It wouldn’t be invited to family reunions. At the forty minute mark I wanted it to end because the movie was running razor blades across the wrinkles of my brain.
Even the second Die Hard, which ranks in closest proximity to Live Free because both criminally misuse the art of haxxorring and amount to mostly cliche dreck, at least FEELS like it’s actually John McClane running around and not a fucking videogame character.
Oh, saying that the patriotism in a movie is somehow more ridiculous than the thought that drivers won’t turn on their headlights and apply the brake when the tunnel loses power is a plain case of mental retardation. Grow a frontal lobe. As for the inconsistencies in Rod’s script, uh, “it’s only a script duuhhhhrrr it’s entertaining lighten up HAR!”
December 29th, 2007 at 12:56 amLance.
Dunlap might very well have the wrong website. THIS is a website for anonymous anal-retentives. And seeing as you didn’t realise this, YOU are an anal-retentive who is in deep denial and therefore blind to things like irony. Worse you use an expression you don’t understand to try to insult someone else.
Dunlap is a little less obsessive, antagonistic and critical than you. Look up anal-retentive, then look up irony.
Sean C etc.
December 29th, 2007 at 5:58 pmRe watch Die Hard. It’s not without silly stuff that defies the laws of physics, biology, chemistry and logic. (C4 taped to a computer monitor and a swivel chair and dropped down an elevator shaft will NOT explode, people!)(Falling 2 stories and then grabbing the edge of a ventilation shaft with your fingertips?)(a fire hose reel that first is and then suddenly isn’t heavy enough to counterbalance the weight of a grown man)(lots of talk about detonators on an open radio channel but the FBI aren’t one bit interested)(Los Angeles SWAT made to look like a bunch of retards)
As regards Rods script, remember that in the original 1988 film the sidekick exorcises some personal demons by shooting the last bad guy.
It might sound like I don’t like the original but its one of my absolute favorite movies. It’s not perfect and I don’t expect the sequels to be perfect or original as long as there is a continuity and a progression; building, airport, city, east coast. What did you all want, a scene for scene remake?
P.S. The F-35 shit did ruin it for me.
I personally wanted a better film not directed by a hack.
Again, “some recognizable characteristics to either the world we live in, or the world presented.” Hell, some RULES would have been nice, but instead we were treated to the juvenile world where the writers let their imagination run unchecked and unedited. OH NO HOWS MCCLANE GONNA GET OUT OF THIS ONE I KNOW FIRE EXTINGUISHER. The movie was also an hour and a half too long, but then again, where would the film be without the needless scene of Justin Long convincing the OnStar lady to turn on the car?
December 29th, 2007 at 6:22 pmOkay fine: me, and everyone else who enjoyed the movie are total fucking morons who eat their own excrement.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:55 pmI guess if wanting an action movie to be entertaining and have good action in it means that you’re automatically a brainless consumer, than I must be a brainless consumer. That’s fine.
But at least tell something: if a movie is always bad because it has some intellectual faults, than why the fuck does anyone here like the first Die Hard?
“why the fuck does anyone here like the first Die Hard?”
For one, Bruce Willis was allowed to say ‘fuck’ more than zero times.
For two, reread the script above.
December 29th, 2007 at 7:13 pmTom;
I followed your suggestion, and looked up anal-retentive. Strangely, your picture was there, which I didn’t expect.
Ironic, don’t you think?
P.S.: Look at Dunlap’s posting again. That’s not ironic, it’s not comedic…the poor guy’s serious about liking this movie that much(which he’s entitled to). It irks me that people come onto a site like this, read a joke script righteously bashing a movie they like, then tell all of US to “lighten up”. WTF? Anyone who has to bust everyone else’s balls about something like that is definitely the one who has to lighten up first.
Maybe you thought is was unfair for more than one person to disagree with him and wanted to jump in and help the underdog. That’s sweet. Know what–go play hero somewhere else, pal.
Yippee-kai-ay, mother-golly-gosh-darner!
December 29th, 2007 at 7:39 pm(Okay…last line copyright 2007 Rod Hilton. Credit where credit’s due)
Do you not see a difference between Live Free and the rest of the series? Because there are differences aplently.
Director John McTiernan has little to lend to his name but the 1st and 3rd Die Hard films because for some oddball fucking reason he can make it work. He somehow knows his shit those select instances (and Predator… maybe Hunt for Red October). You seen the bulk of his films? Rollerball and The 13th Warrior are prime examples of how that fucker suddenly gets retarded (note: both are worse than Live Free), yet with Die Hards 1 and 3 it’s like a marriage in heaven. Shit’s genuinely suspenseful, shit’s deliciously violent, and it’s presented in such a way that is (most importantly) immersive. I watch 1 and 3 and I forget that I’m watching them.
Renny Harlin tried to imitate whatever it was that McTiernan got ahold of (magic dust?) and even managed to pull off some neat-looking imagery, but neat-looking imagery doesn’t make a film. I can FEEL Harlin’s boredom during the dialogue scenes in Die Harder and I can feel Len Wiseman’s during Live Free. And if there is an indication that the director is bored, I am also bored. The movie loses credibility from there.
I just don’t understand why this nonsense is tolerated. Cinema has been around for just over 100 years but is anybody learning? God no. I’ve only been around to see about 20 of those years and I’m constantly digusted. The same crap is making loads of money, the same talentless directors are rich beyond our wildest imaginations and the same monuments to mediocrity are earning undeserved average ratings of 7.7 on IMDB, even making it onto the Top 205. 3:10 to Yuma? Scarface?! CRASH?! FUCKING REALLY?!!
I didn’t start out calling anybody a moron. Die Hard 4 itself, as it stands, is a brainless, stupid entity that exists only to make me angrier. If you take pleasure in things exploding, as so many people do, fine, orgasm to images of cars missing McClane by inches, but in no way am I going to join in, or worse, remain silent about it, because the last thing I would want you to believe is that I’m enjoying this bullshit too. Fuck Live Free or Die Hard.
December 29th, 2007 at 7:42 pmI think Sean nails it. The problem with Live Free or Die Hard isn’t just that it’s ridiculous - as many point out, the first one is also ridiculous.
The first movie is silly, but there’s a charm to the silliness, because the movie is a lot of fun. It has great action scenes. It has a relatively good script. It’s suspenseful. Most importantly, it’s relatable - John McClane is just in the wrong place and the wrong time, and he winds up a hero because of it.
The first movie can be forgiven for its silliness because it makes that silliness work by centering the film around characters we care about and a number of excellent action sequences.
In Live Free or Die Hard, the silliness is still there, but the charm is gone. McClane is no longer an average cop, he’s some kind of fucking robot. Because of this, the action sequences are less suspenseful and less powerful (you know, all the time, McClane will win, so when a jet is coming after him, instead of wondering if he’ll survive, you’re just waiting patiently until the scene writes itself to a close).
To throw salt on the wound, this movie DOES ratchet up the crazy level significantly. I know that Die Hard wasn’t exactly an educational film for physics class or anything, but in this movie THE DUDE FUCKING LAUNCHES A CAR AT A HELICOPTER.
Like Sean points out, Len Wiseman is EMULATING Die Hard, but he’s not extending it in any way. It’s the exact same problem that plagued Terminator 3: someone got the mechanations of the original film down, but without any of the heart that make it work the first time. Yeah robots are fighting, but its BORING at a visceral level. Same thing here.
December 29th, 2007 at 9:03 pmOkay. What you guys just said makes a lot more sense. All I’d been seeing were comments about the movie’s unrealistic stuff. Hardly anything was said about characters or sympathy. But it sounds like you actually do care more about the story.
Thanks for answering. I’m glad to have that cleared up.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:56 pmOh, and this script’s caption sucks. Rod, you weren’t even trying.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:57 pmI second Sean and Rod, although Sean’s lament about the state of cinema after a century overlooks the obvious. You know where movies like this make 99.9% of their gross intake? A moron watches a preview, says, “a new ‘Die Hard’? Killer.” And starts beating it to explosion footage.
December 31st, 2007 at 2:43 amRod, you shouldn’t give your opinion of the film mid script. You never used to do that. It doesn’t read like an abridged script if you say things like “the movie manages to actually go downhill from that”. That kind of statement makes you seem arrogant and it breaks the illusion of me actually reading a real script. The only clue we should get as to what you actually think of the film should be in your star rating at the top.
December 31st, 2007 at 1:44 pmRod, I know I say this every time you post a new script, but I’ve never wanted a film abridged more than I want Juno abridged. Please. Please. Please.
December 31st, 2007 at 1:56 pmhttp://imdb.com/title/tt0467406/board/nest/93409854?p=1
OH GOD. OH. OH GOD. Sorry for the double post…but…MUST…ABRIDGE…
December 31st, 2007 at 2:33 pmkevin smith didn’t need to be in this at all, and as a matter of fact he doesn’t need to be in anything at all. if the world didn’t have his dumbass movies where his friends just argue about star wars it would probably be a better place.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:20 pm“(you know, all the time, McClane will win, so when a jet is coming after him, instead of wondering if he’ll survive, you’re just waiting patiently until the scene writes itself to a close).”
Did u really think McClane was going to lose in the first one? That’s all action movies
December 31st, 2007 at 11:13 pmThe first time i saw LFODH, it was at theaters. i wasn’t in a technical mindset (”ME WANT SEE PRETTY BOOM! OOOOOHHHHH! AAAAAHHHH!), so the godawfully retarded rape of technology pretty much escaped me (yes i realize this is like not seeing an elephant trampling through a room). i enjoyed the movie simply because it was a retardedly awesome clusterfuck of explosions. when i saw it on dvd though, well, i frothed at the mouth a little:
MOVIE: “SIR, THEY’RE STEALING THE INTERNETS” “WHICH ONES?” “ALL OF THEM” ME: …what? MOVIE: *TAXI LAUNCH* ME: …WHAT? MOVIE: *STUPID COMPLETELY NON-SENSICAL IRS BULLSHIT* ME: WHAT THE FUCK?! MOVIE: *CHINESE GIRL LIVES AFTER BEING HEAD ON SMASHED BY A GODDAMN SUV GOING AT LEAST THIRTY MILES AN HOUR* ME: AHJSFGSWAHARDFDAD!!! HUARK! *THUD* MOVIE: “REROUTE GAS TO THEM WITH THE POWER OF THE INTERNETS” *FOR NO FUCKING REASON THE GAS STARTS EXPLODING* ME: *FROM THE FLOOR* AAAAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!
seriously, i actually said “AHJSFGSWAHARDFDAD”. the second time through, i did enjoy the movie, but only in the same way i enjoyed Plan 9 From Outerspace (if you actually don’t know what that is, i envy you).
in conclusion, fuck you hollywood.
January 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pm“Did u really think McClane was going to lose in the first one? That’s all action movies”
Well. Yeah. Even though we know that in action movies the hero usually wins, the first Die Hard made you feel like MacLane was actually suffering, that there was real danger in every scene, that every hit he got took its toll.
Now, it’s not even that this MacLane has become somehow a mixture of Jason Bourne and Wolverine, something he wasn’t in the first movie. Well done, a superpowered Bruce Willis still could make you feel like he is actually a real person. This movie doesn’t. We are talking about something so OTT that he’s almost a Tex Avery cartoon.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 amMy whole family loved Die Hard 4.0 when we watched it two saturday’s ago. Not even Starscream can stop Bruce Willis. The uber-nerd Kevin Smith who lives in his mother’s basement is actually an injoke because all Hollywood scriptwriters still live in their parent’s basement.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 amAs for the picture at the top of the page, my caption would have been “Bruce Willis hangs on for dear life to his last solo hit”.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:23 amThe terrorists never uploaded any bombs, they somehow sneaky-ninja-style installed bricks of C-4 and detenators into the hacker’s computers and when they got what they needed they uploaded a virus that was the arming-code for the bombs.
Electricity was never re-routed, it was natural gas.
In the version I saw Justin Long never shot Olyphant, Bruce shot Olyphant through the whole in his own shoulder when Olyphant was prodding the wound being all sadist-like.. Justin shot semi-competant henchman #2 when he was about to shoot Bruce for killing Olyphant with irony and a cheezy line.
Other than that.. well, it’s an action-movie sequal. Too bad noone mentioned the jump-happy Le Parkour freak.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 amDarn, all I said was covered elswhere, not used to this with the latest comments at the bottom…
Although nobody did mention the Le Parkour freak.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 amLance
I implied in post 22 that I was anal retentive and then in response you implied that I am the very definition of anal retentive and that this is ironic.
Go back to your dictionary and look up “Irony” like I already told you to do.
When I said you were blind to irony I was not saying that Dunlap’s post was ironic. I was saying that you thinking the content of Dunlap’s post was anal retentive is ironic.
His or her use of the phrase “Lighten up already” caused you such agitation that you were compelled to post a badly thought out response. I don’t expect you to understand why that is also amusing.
You might see fit to respond to this post. I urge you to instead look up the word “uninterested”
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:59 pmYou’ll see a picture there of my middle finger.
Tom;
What is this, a whole new year and you’re still on the same argument?
Sad.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 pmI liked your Superman returns script but i thought this one was pushed.
You completely change the ending making it look bad.
The movie was good, but you can completely rip up most movies like this. Indeed, it was rediculous, but that was the fun of it.
It wasn’t a perfect movie, but it was in no way a bad action movie.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 pmThis movie sucked donkey balls. I love the original Die Hard, like Die Hard 2 and really liked Die Hard With A Vengeance (that first hour is genius, though things start to go awry once McClane blows the dam). This movie was like getting punched in the cock for two hours plus. Fuck Len Wiseman right in the ear.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:48 amActually, from what I’ve seen of this John McTiernan guy’s work, it seems to me he does know his shit. I enjoyed Predator, Die Hard, Hunt for the Red October, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and even The 13th Warrior. Of course, those are the only ones I’ve seen. Maybe I’ve just managed to skip the really bad ones, but whatever…
Anyway, I just watched Live Free or Die Hard last night, and as I could easily have predicted, it was by far the worst of the series. What is it with modern movies and weird, dark, greenish lighting throughout, even in the daytime? Die Hard 4, Mission Impossible 3, and ALL of the Bourne movies suffer from it. I think it looks gross. I can always spot a new movie as opposed to a movie from the 90’s by its sad attempt to be “stylish” by inducing nausea with gross lighting and shaky camera work.
I gave up on this movie in the beginning when the hackers suddenly could control the entire world, all of which was presented on their screens with the same pretty GUI, including gradients for the traffic flows and arrows for gas lines, etc. It’s like they ran everything in this one program called “World Control 2.0 - You control the world!” Couple this with action scenes even more ridiculous and rolling-eyes-worthy unbelievable than in the previous films (especially the jet chase) and the worst badguy of any movie ever (and ceratinly any Die Hard movie), and you’ve got a real stinker on your hands.
Why can’t people let a series end with some decent sense of dignity…?
January 4th, 2008 at 12:29 pm“because I obviously want to fuck my own father.”
That was a little uncalled for, which automatically makes your entire script suck for reasons I can’t explain. The final line was so funny it almost makes up for it, but “almost”.
I still think your Erin Brockovich script was the best.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:34 pmThis was funny, and apt. But I still loved Die Hard 4.0! As long as you suspended your disbelief for two hours, it was a rollicking good time.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:09 amFor a Die Hard film, this was pretty sub-par. For a Len Wiseman film, it is actually pretty darned good. That’s right, a back-handed compliment like that is the best I can say about this film.
But, as Rod and many others have pointed out, the biggest flaw of this film is that John McClane seems to have been turned into fucking Robocop. The beauty of the first film was that he was extremely flawed and vulnerable. Remember how Hans and co tried to hinder him through something as simple as broken glass? Subtle and effective. In this one we have the guy fighting a fucking jet engine. The writers didn’t so much grab the wrong end of the stick, more the wrong stick completely. Also, if McClane’s daughter hates him so much for the way he is, then why does she have EXACTLY the same personality? Not sure why, but that bit always bugged me.
Anyway, not one of your best scripts Rod, truth be told. Quite a few inaccuracies, and considering you ranked it as one star I figured you’d be a hell of a lot more scathing. But it’s still a hell of a lot funnier than anything I, or anybody else who visits the site, could have done.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:01 amWell, sometimes we hate people for reminding us of ourselves too much.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:24 pmSo, just to clarify a bit:
I know that nobody uploads a bomb to a laptop. That comment was sarcasm. What actually happens in the movie is STUPIDER than uploading a bomb (”oh hai, I’m going to install a bomb on your computer instead of shoot you while I’m in your home”)
I also know that Justin didn’t shoot Timothy, but who gives a fuck? He shoots a guy and it helps save the day. These are ABRIDGED scripts - they aren’t meant to be accurate play-by-plays of the movie, they get condensed. Goddamn.
In any case, I have made minor alterations to the script so that people stop getting their panties in a wad.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:26 pmHey, Manky!
January 8th, 2008 at 11:35 amHehe, nice script as usual. Reminded me of the little touches that made the 1st movie so good (and I did like DH3, Sam Jackson was a great partner.)
January 14th, 2008 at 10:23 amIt’s funny… Die Hard 3 was the first one I saw, and I missed the beginning, so I assumed that Sam Jackson was the partner in all of them. What a disappointment.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:45 pmI won’t get involved in your sissy-boy e-penis fight, I’ll just point out how great this movie was. You get to see an old man beat the crap out of a bunch of 1-800-Rent-a-Thugs clearly a lot younger and smarter than himself (including a hamster who used to work for Cirque du Soleil), kill a chopper with a car and a jet-fighter with a semi, and throw an Asian Karate Whore down an elevator shaft with an SUV then constantly joke about it in a demeaning manner to her boyfriend. His daughter was a bitch though; I would do terrible things to have Bruce Willis were as a father.
January 21st, 2008 at 2:31 pmThis movie was really really bad because of the complete stupidity of the scenario. I mean the technological aberrations where on par with Transformers “We haxx0ring u with a sound !”. Die Hard 3’s bad guy plan was just smart, believable (I guess less so if you are a chemist), it didn’t rely on false technobabble that is supposed to deceive the ignorant audience.
That and yeah, Maclane’s “challenges” were just ridiculous, they were nicely graphic but too unbelievable to get “into it”.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 pmHaha, after I saw the movie, I came here just knowing you’d tear the movie a new one. Unfortunately, at the time you hadn’t done it yet, so I wrote my own imitation abridged script here http://donaq.blogspot.com/2007/07/live-free-or-die-hard-aka-die-hard-40.html
January 25th, 2008 at 10:15 pmFeel free to reproduce/link/whatever if you think it’s any good.
At what part did Justin Long make a matthew perry impression?
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 pmAre you guys kidding? This was John McClane’s forth movie of single-handedly fighting off terrorists. Did you still expect him to be an everyman when he fucking fights off these terrorists on a regular basis?!?
McClane’s earned the right to be a super-cop. This is his forth movie for fuck’s sake!!! It wouldn’t be realistic for him to be the same guy that he was in the first movie.
April 26th, 2008 at 10:02 pm