Question: If the guy at the reception desk knew that the only ones left in the building were on the 30th floor, why did he tell John to use the screen?
BaconIsMyBFF
23rd Dec 2020
Die Hard (1988)
Answer: Any answer is speculation; but a simple explanation is he may have forgotten the only people left were there for the Xmas party until John mentioned the 30th floor. The guard also seems fairly proud of their new high-tech touchscreen system so he might have just had John use it to show off how nice the building is.
Answer: Most likely he just wanted to showcase a nifty (by 80s standards) piece of technology to a visitor.
Answer: The party was on the 30th floor and John was asking for a specific employee, his wife. He had no idea where she was exactly.
23rd Dec 2020
Die Hard (1988)
Question: Why did John send the elevator down to floor 31 and then floor 30 with the body inside it? Wouldn't it have been better to send it straight to floor 30?
Answer: He sent the elevator down and stopped it halfway between floors so he could get on the top of the car. Once he's on top of the car, he won't be able to hit the button for the 30th floor, so he has to hit both buttons before he gets on top of the car.
Answer: I always thought of it more of a last resort thing. His plan was to get on top of it, but if he ran into issues he had time to get out. If he sent it to floor 30 and found out he couldn't stop it or anything to climb up on top, the baddies would have got hold of him. By sending it to 31 and then 30, if he found out he couldn't stop it then he'd just be able to get out on floor 31 instead meaning the baddies wouldn't catch him.
21st Jun 2020
Die Hard (1988)
Question: After Hans kills Ellis he starts shouting over the radio at McLane saying "Where are my detonators?" The Police were listening in on the radio calls so why didn't they figure out that something was going to be blown up?
Answer: Simply knowing that Hans is looking for detonators doesn't really give the police any information they don't already have. He's got hostages and is threatening to kill them if the police don't do what he wants. Knowing that Hans has explosives doesn't mean that he's planning on using them to make his escape, he could just as easily want them to threaten the hostages.
13th Dec 2019
Die Hard (1988)
Question: They say the wires for the electromagnetic seal "can't be cut locally" - how is that possible? I mean at some point the electricity for them has to come into the building, surely?
Chosen answer: I took this to mean that cutting the lines themselves wouldn't open the safe. The safe is designed such that the physical locks could be destroyed but the electromagnetic lock wouldn't open unless the power to the entire building was shut off.
But my point is they've got control of the building, including the basement/anywhere else. General power has to enter the building from the street somewhere, and I don't see how they wouldn't be able to just cut through a main power cable and achieve exactly the same result as a switch being flipped by a city engineer.
The city engineer shuts down an entire city grid. I think that has something to do with it. It's not as simple as cutting a power line or flipping a switch.
I get that's the argument, I just don't see how. Because eventually it has to come down to the building being connected to the city grid via...something, and I don't see why the bad guys couldn't just interfere with that "something" themselves. There's either a technical reason or it's a plot hole, but I'm not really bothered about the mistake aspect, it's more just a query my brain can't let go of and I want the answer. :-).
Answer: There's no mention as to where the cables actually enter the building. They could come in via the basement, there could be a separate utility room that can only be accessed from outside or the cables could simply be inside a wall somewhere. They'd probably need to find the building blueprints to find out where the cables come into the building.
16th Sep 2017
Die Hard (1988)
Question: John McClane wraps a fire hose around his waist, and uses it to jump 100 feet until the coil catches the lip of the building, the hose catches him. Wouldn't that have seriously injured him, given the inelastic materiel which fire hoses are made of, and the fact that he was not wearing a safety harness?
Answer: In reality, yes tying a fire hose (or any rope strong enough to hold your weight for that matter) around your waist and using it as shown in the film could cause serious injury. It was worth it to try, however because staying where he was would have meant certain death when the bomb explodes.
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Answer: Most large companies, particularly hi-tech or multinational ones, require visitors to check-in, especially afterhours. By having John search for Holly's name, it can be verified that he actually knows someone who works there, that there is an actual employee with that name, and otherwise assess whether John is a legitimate visitor. This scene's real purpose, however, is for plot exposition. John learns from the monitor that Holly now goes by her maiden name (Gennero) rather than her married surname. We see John's annoyed reaction to learning this, which sets up a later confrontation between him and Holly over their troubled marriage.
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