Question: Does anyone know what kind of keyboard Matthew was using in his apartment?
Question: You'll have to forgive my ignorance regarding a comment made by Matt Farrell. He said that it took FEMA five days to get water to the Superdome. What exactly was he talking about?
Question: Near the end of the film, when McClane, his daughter Lucy, and the hacker Matt Farrell are about to leave in the ambulance, there is a sign with the number 5 hanging out of a warehouse in the background - does this mean there will be a Die Hard 5?
Chosen answer: Looks like a standard 5 mph speed sign to me. You can't read too much into that. In addition though, Bruce Willis has already stated in a few interviews that he'd be more than happy to do another one.
Question: When the FBI take McClane and Farrell and the voice of Maggie Q is recognised by Matt - how does she know McClane is with Matt? She says to get her a line to the FBI driver and get me all the info on John McClane. At which point did they even know John McClane's name or who he was?
Answer: The radio line mentioned the officer's name in the seconds after Gabriel's voice recognition picked up Farrell's name.
Answer: They would have called ahead to DHS to advise them that a NYPD office of SO SO name would be coming to hoover building escorting Mr Feral. I would only assume when they said his name and Matt's name over the police band it triggered a hit for Matt's name, and then they listened to it, causing them to know who is riding in the LEO car. Hypothetically of course.
Answer: They sent 5 guys to kill Matt Farrell. 2 survived and stated there was a guy with Farrell as the reason they didn't kill him. I always figured, up until that point, that they had checked to see who was dispatched to Farrell's address before they got to him.
Question: Is the "Fire Sale" procedure used in this movie a real-world idea or just a movie creation? Could it ever happen?
Answer: It is strictly hypothetical and most likely couldn't happen without having many, many insiders and the best hackers in the world, but even then, who knows if that could be probable in a "Post 9/11" climate.
Question: Is there a reason why John McClane's previous exploits aren't mentioned in this film? He is known, and mentioned for his association with, Nakatomi in DH2 and for Dulles airport and Nakatomi in DH3 but in this one, none of his past "adventures" are mentioned bar a couple of subtle almost hidden quotes (eg. the agent Johnson scene). Is this due to any kind of copyright thing or ownership issues between the films or just that they weren't mentioned by any characters? Just seems strange to me that the previous exploits aren't talked about even a little bit.
Chosen answer: The screenwriters probably felt it was unnecessary to keep rehashing the same old information in every film. It becomes tedious and stale to an audience that is already familiar with the franchise's story line. For anyone who has not seen the previous movies, it would probably be meaningless.
Question: Throughout the film, Thomas Gabriel is shown be to an extremely intelligent and talented computer hacker with enormous resources at his disposal as well as an equally talented entourage of computer hackers. My questions are, why did he hire other hackers to write code for him and then kill them? He must have realised that this would draw attention? Couldn't he or any of his colleagues have done it themselves instead?
Chosen answer: First off, from the time they started killing off their hired hackers, there wasn't much anyone could do about it. They weren't worried about calling attention to themselves because they were doing plenty of that with their fire sale. Secondly, the number of systems they would have to hack would require lots of different methods and directions of attack. Way too much man power for Gabriel to let them all in on the plot without risking exposing their plans way too early. The idea of one hacker breaking into all of the systems they need is a nice Hollywood cliche, but rather unrealistic. People spend hours, days, or even weeks trying to hack one single system. Gabriel doesn't have that kind of time. The reason his one "extremely intelligent and talented computer hacker" is able to do everything he does is because all of their hired hackers had already passed off all of the programs and algorithms they needed. That's why he appears to have "enormous resources at his disposal" at all.
Question: What is the name of the PDA/gadget used by Justin Long to hookup to SATCOM's network?
Chosen answer: The Nokia 9300 is a Nokia Series 80 Symbian Smartphone introduced in 2004. It is used as a normal though bulky mobile phone in closed mode; when it is flipped open it can be used like a very small notebook computer with a 640 x 200 screen. The phone also has speakerphone functionally, which is activated automatically when the phone is flipped open. - Wikipedia.
Question: Why is Kevin Smiths' character called Warlock?
Chosen answer: Warlock is his computer name just like Keanu Reeves' character in The Matrix is called Neo even though his "real" name is Thomas Anderson.
Question: How did the emergency operator start the car when Matt tells them to start? And why did Matt do so when McClane was ready to start the car with just the wires?
Chosen answer: The on-board assistance system that Matt was using to contact the operator is specifically designed to allow for emergency usage in just such a way. They usually require a password to verify the user, which is exactly what Matt was trying to BS his way around. However, even though McClane is willing to hotwire the car, there are two problems with this. First, cars in recent years have become much harder to hotwire. Second, even if McClane was able to do it, the on-board assistance would have been triggered and it would assume (rightly so) that the car was being stolen and authorities would be alerted. With a likely GPS in the system, it'd be hard to get away from that one. By using and fooling the system, they now have the ability to get around unencumbered.
Also, the airbags wouldn't have deployed when he hit the bumper with a trash can. They're designed to go off only when the vehicle is in motion thanks to a vehicle speed sensor that arms the system over a certain speed to avoid costly repairs in the event you just bump something or vandals just wanna be vandals. I remember a funny commercial with an elderly woman using her purse to hit a car bumper when the driver honked at her as she slowly crossed the street. Hilarious, but not accurate.
Question: Completely ignoring the fact that the road assist thing in the car wouldn't work due to the networks being down, why did Matt go through all that trouble? Wouldn't it have been much faster for John to speak to them and say something like "This is officer John McClane, badge number ***** I need to use this vehicle for a police emergency" or something like that?
Answer: There was no guarantee the operator would believe John was really a cop, even if he gave his badge number. Also, for the purpose of the movie, Justin Long's bit as a scared little boy, is just funnier, and meant to inject humor into the plot.
Question: If the movie plot is over a 4th of July weekend, wouldn't offices be closed? It appears to be a regular non-holiday weekday with so many people working.
Answer: Government offices would definitely be closed, however, in a big city like DC, not everyone would have the weekend off, and between the people who still have to work and the ones going out of town for the holiday, traffic would be about the same if not worse.
Question: Why does it take Matt Farrell so long to log off and unplug his keyboard at the gas utility hub? What exactly is he supposed to be doing before he can remove his keyboard from the computer, and what would happen if he just pulled out the cord without doing the lengthy procedure first?
Question: Why did Gabriel and his men go to Woodlawn? I thought he hacked into the servers and was downloading the data over the internet so how did the Warlock trace him to being at Woodlawn?
Question: Later on in the film, Matt says to Gabriel that it would take him months to download the data unless he eliminated the congestion and then realises that the fire sale was to do just that... Kick everyone off all the networks so that Gabriel can use all available bandwidth. But Gabriel hacked into the Government the night before, which triggered the servers at Woodlawn to download the data as a backup. If it would have taken months to download the data BEFORE the fire sale, why were the Woodlawn servers able to download the same data in less than a day?
Answer: In the film they mentioned that utilities, transportation systems, and communications were what was causing the congestion. Yes, Woodlawn already began the download process the night before when the FBI got hacked, but by the time Gabriel had began his download from Woodlawn, he was already in the process of eliminating the congestion causing the download to hasten. Once the Power station was blown up it gave plenty of time to free up an entire 1/3 of the country's bandwidth to complete to download. Also it was not less than a day. They visited Warlock the next night and the final events didn't happen until the proceeding day.
Question: Why did the bad guys go to 'Plan B' about 15 seconds after arming Matt's computer? He could've been sitting on the toilet for all they knew, so why such a short amount of time?
Chosen answer: In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city of New Orleans, with many of the residents temporarily housed in the Superdome. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) was highly criticized for their response (or lack of), including how long it took to supply the Superdome with adequate water and food. Matt's pointing out to John how the government isn't nearly as capable of responding to disaster as people think.
OneHappyHusky