Die Hard

Die Hard (1988)

66 corrected entries

(30 votes)

Corrected entry: When Hans is asking for Mr Takagi his shirt is white, yet when they go in the lift Hans' shirt is light blue. (00:26:30)

Correction: If you look closely, you can see that the shirt is light blue all the time. The lighting just makes it look white occasionally.

Corrected entry: What the hell happened to the cut on Al's head? He is seen being tended for a nasty head gash by an ambulance man, but this is the first and last time he is seen wounded. No cut, no bandage, nothing from that point onwards. (01:01:30)

Correction: There is no cut, it is the blood from the terrorist that fell on Al's car. And also the guy who wipes the blood asks if it is his own and Al says no.

Corrected entry: As Al is leaving Nakatomi Plaza having just investigated the building McClane gets his attention first by throwing a terrorist he just killed onto the car then firing at it. However, during this sequence McClane stops firing and shouts "Welcome to the party pal". But when he delivers the line you can still hear the sound of the gun firing even though it is very obviously not being fired. (00:58:00)

Correction: It's a terrorist firing at Al, not McClane (check the over-the-shoulder shot when the gunfire starts, specifically the type of gun being used) - when the car's reversing we see gunfire coming from the fifth floor or so, far lower than John is. Plus he's just thrown a dead body on the car - how much more attention does he need to get? Even beyond that, there's no way he'd shoot directly at a fellow police officer - he could get just as much attention by firing a safe distance away.

Corrected entry: Why does the blonde terrorist not understand Alan Rickman when he tells him to shoot the glass in German, but understands in English? Even assuming (as seems likely) that he just didn't hear him properly or else couldn't believe what he'd just heard, why would repeating himself in English make more sense, what with them being German?

Correction: It could be because when he says it in German, he says, "Shoot the window". The terrorist may have been confused and then he had to say glass to to him, but he chose to say it in English.

It could also be that he didn't understand the order. Honestly, under very few circumstances is an order to "shoot the window" or "shoot the glass" going to provide an advantage.

Correction: As a matter of fact, the terrorists' entire background - and the names, with the exception of Theo - were altered in the German version. They were portrayed as radical Irish terrorists. Hans's name was changed to Jack, and Karl's was changed into its English equivalent, Charles (or rather, Charlie).

Corrected entry: Whenever he fires a gun, Alan Rickman's face is never seen. This is because he had an uncontrollable habit of flinching when the gun recoiled.

Correction: You can see Alan Rickman's face when he shoots Mr. Takagi and he does not flinch, however you do see the recoil effect of the shot on him.

Corrected entry: When Al gets his car shot up you hear him say "I'm at Nakatomi Plaza, I need back up assistance now." Later when Thornburg is listening on the police scanner we hear the same dialogue, only this time Al makes a comment about his car being turned into swiss cheese, which he didn't say originally. (00:55:10)

Correction: Al is on the police scanner still requesting for help. The reporter does not hear the replayed call for help, but an actual live call for help from Al as the reporter is listening to the scanner.

Corrected entry: McClane is sitting down and checking how many cigarettes he has left when the cops outside put on the searchlights. He's up on the 32nd floor (or similar) and is sitting below the windowsill, yet the light falls directly from above onto his cigarettes. (01:05:50)

Correction: The cigarettes are lit up by the powerful light, but it doesn't fall down on them directly. In the next shot McClain looks down the window and the light is coming from the ground (look at the shadows on his face).

Corrected entry: After the FBI shut down all the power to the grid that the building is located in, there is a scene of the news van rushing to the home of Holly and in the background you see the building and lights are on all around it.

MCKD

Correction: It's not possible to know if we are even seeing the same building that has just lost power.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: When Argyle is in the limo in the basement, he's sitting in the back on the left hand side. Then he jumps to the front seat to listen to the CB radio, after which he looks at the huge teddy bear in the mirror and says something like "What are you looking at". The bear meanwhile has himself moved over to where Argyle had been sitting!

Correction: In between these two events, Argyle has been driving the limo around the car park desperately looking for a way out. We see a couple of shots where he's cornering fast so of course the bear will move.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: After Bruce Willis has thrown the terrorist on Al's car, plenty of backup arrives. An ambulance member starts to tend to the cut on the cop's head. If you look closely, he tries to put a pad on the 'blood' on the cop's head, but when he takes it off, there is no blood on the pad.

Correction: The mistake is wrong. The ambulance guy applies the pad once then looks at it then applies it a second time. We never see the side of the pad that is applied to Al's head so we don't know if there is blood on it or not.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: How does his shirt change from white to dark green as the movie goes on? The colour is too uniform to be just from dirt or blood.

Correction: The reason his shirt changes colour is because of the grime he picks up when he is crawling in the vent system - the space is so confined that nearly every part of his vest is touching a bit of the ventilation tube. Also notice how John himself has picked up grime from the vents, look at his face, arms, and elbows.

Corrected entry: At the end of the movie, when Karl attempts to kill McClane, (the fact he survived the explosion at the top also being slightly odd) he has the rifle he was using earlier. Didn't he lose it during the fight?

Correction: It was knocked to the ground only a few metres from where he was hanged. Not too difficult to find.

Corrected entry: When McClane is in the bathroom removing glass splinters from his bare feet, he is carrying on a conversation with Al via the walkie talkie. Although Al appears to press the transmit button each time he speaks, McClane carries on his conversation without even having his hands on the walkie-talkie as he is using both of his hands to remove the splinters. Do these walkie-talkies have a "hands-free" mode?

Correction: It looks as though McClane pushes a switch on the side that turns on a "hands free mode", just before he places the CB on the counter.

Sean M

Corrected entry: After being shot at by the terrorists through the window, Al puts the car in reverse and swerves around for safety. There is one shot where it shows the car backing through a wooden fence, but the next shot is of the car crashing into a steel gate.

Correction: After pausing the film to check it out, the gate he crashes into is NOT wooden. It's at an odd angle, and the light is making the red paint pretty bright, so it gives the impression that it's not wooden. However, you can see through the fence at a wooden pole and the walls beyond the gate with a reddish tinge.

Corrected entry: The police call in the FBI hostage situation experts, who cut power to the building, then call in two armed helicopters. How is this likely to help the situation? Cutting the power would do little to keep hostages alive and would be likely to cause anger among the terrorists and confusion among both the terrorists and hostages - two things that are most likely to get hostages killed. The police were also well aware that the terrorists were armed with rockets most likely capable of taking down a helicopter.

Correction: But they were expecting the terrorists to think the helicopters were there to transport them, not kill them - why would they shoot down their own transports?

Corrected entry: When Bruce Willis throws a dead terrorist onto the police car, he has to hit the window repeatedly before it breaks. Later, he jumps off the roof with a firehose tied around his waist and repeatedly kicks the window in an effort to get back in to the building. He eventually has to shoot the glass to do so. At the end of the movie, Alan Rickman is shot and breaks presumably the same glass simply by leaning against it.

Correction: There's a bullet hole in it already, hence weakening it.

Corrected entry: When 'Argyle' crashes the limo through the gate at the end of the movie, we see sparks from the shattered battery, yet they drive off without any problems.

Correction: This is not true, car batteries do NOT need to be present for cars to run. Granted, after a short time without any current going to the distributor, the car would stall, but it can be run for short periods without the battery. Remember the primary purpose of a car battery is to provide current for STARTING the car.

Corrected entry: Shortly after the terrorist shoots at the police car, you see Al with a wound in the forehead. In the next shot, the wound is gone - there isn't even a scar.

Correction: Another policeman asks Al if that is his blood, and he responds no. Hence, no need for a wound or scar.

Corrected entry: McClane uses the terrorist's radio to talk to the police. It's very unlikely that they would all be using radios that could transmit on the same frequencies.

Correction: Perhaps the terrorists were using Citizen's Band (CB) Radio. Recall that Bruce Willis announced on the radio to any police monitoring CB channel 9. In America, that channel is monitored by police for private citizens reporting emergencies. For that matter, the stupid woman on the other end threatens him if he does not stop transmitting: that is what the channel is for - reporting emergencies!

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Continuity mistake: When the terrorists launch the rocket at the RV, they break the same window of the building twice. (01:11:55)

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Trivia: Nakatomi Plaza, the setting of the film, is actually Fox Headquarters in Los Angeles.

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Question: On the some versions (TV), when Al walks in the lobby to check it out, right before he gets to the elevators and then leaves, the camera pans to the left and you see a terrorist with a machine gun waiting for him. On other versions (VHS) you don't see this terrorist. Why? NOTE: I've seen both on the same TV set.

Answer: The most likely reason is that the two versions have been "panned and scanned" differently. In the original theater version, both things are on screen at the same time at opposite sides of the screen. In one version, the person who did the TV P&S (not someone associated with the making of the film) chose to move the view from one side of the original picture to the other, showing the terrorist, while the person who did the VHS P&S stayed focused on one side of the frame, only showing Al.

Myridon

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