S01E13 — Die Hard / Nothing Lasts Forever

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for Die Hard.

Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Look, you’re allowed to think Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie. Everyone’s gotta be wrong about something…

This one’s a big re-watcher for us every Christmas season, and Mom was over the moon to find out that it was an adaptation. We’re not sure how she felt about it after listening, though…

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

Okay, I’ll break it to you early — this was a great movie that took a very mediocre book and made every single change necessary to make it worth watching. We love this action-slash-Christmas movie!

Tim: The film was better

Donna: The film was better

Rebekah: The film was better

Josiah: The film was better

Other Episodes You’ll Love

Full Episode Transcript

Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.

[00:00:31] Rebekah: Welcome to the book is Better podcast. We are a family of four who compares book to film adaptations. Uh, today we are going to be talking about a classic. Is it a we’re gonna discussing Die Hard and the book that is. Inspired it. It is a Christmas movie. Mm-Hmm. . We will die on this. Yeah, we’ll  

[00:00:50] Josiah: die hard.  

[00:00:51] Rebekah: Uh, we’ll be talking about Die Hard and the book that inspired it. 

Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorpe. So here’s your spoiler alert. If you have not seen Die Hard, which was literally released the year I was born or nothing lasts forever. If you haven’t read that, that was released in 1979. You should probably pause this, but also why did you click on it? I’m very confused. 

Also, this episode is about a book and movie with quite a bit of, uh, adult content in it. So, uh, we may just kind of cover some of those topics. If you have little ones listening, they may not be particularly appropriate for this specific episode. Um, as we get started, started, we’re going to introduce ourselves and share a little fun fact. 

So today’s fun fact requires just the tiniest bit of context. Um, there is no audio book or nothing lasts forever. And as you know, if you’ve listened to the podcast much, we all listen to audio books rather than reading the physical book. Most of the time. Now I ended up reading the physical book because I literally could not stomach the alternative for this one. 

But, um, using a series of different AI tools, um, I actually converted. The digital copy of this book into text. And then I fed the text into a program called Descript. Then I trained Descript on my voice and it uses an AI to then generate audio from the voice it’s trained on all of that to say it worked, but it was me. 

But me saying a lot of, first of all, words that I don’t really say. And also it was me making a lot of weird grammatical errors because the program did not correctly state a lot of things. And so, uh, our fun fact of today is what is your favorite error made by AI Rebekah’s voice in the audio book for this work? 

[00:02:45] Donna: Let me say. I think all of us probably have the same favorite one, which is the last one. Yeah, I mean, I will never be able to ever call her anything else. So the hair of the not the heroine of the book, but Um, I think she probably did heroin, but, uh, Oh, no, she’s a stewardess. 

The waitress, the waitress who did heroin, which  

[00:03:17] Josiah: doesn’t exist  

[00:03:18] Rebekah: in the book. Are I’m really impressed by us guys. Well, my name’s Rebekah and I’m the daughter slash sister of the podcast. Um, I appreciated that my AI version of me was able to speak these words correctly. Earth and air stymied shadow and psychologically. 

No way. Also Wilshire Boulevard several times was pronounced correctly. I did hear that. Not all times. Mom, mom, do you want to tell us a little bit about you and which ones that they couldn’t say correctly? I said who I was.  

[00:03:58] Donna: Mom. Hey, I’m mom Donna. I’m the mom slash wife of the group and I hate saying them out of order. 

I’m the wife slash mom. Slash grape lead elf. Yes. Mom, you have something in your mouth. I do and I wasn’t going to talk next.  

[00:04:12] Rebekah: She wanted to read this list.  

[00:04:20] Tim: This is a disaster. I can jump in. My name is Tim. I am the husband, the father of this sometimes very strange group and I guess I’m largely responsible. 

Um, yeah. I thought it was, it was hilarious. This is what happens when  

[00:04:42] Rebekah: you  

[00:04:42] Tim: spread your seed. I thought it was hilarious that When Rebekah sent us the link for the not quite audio book, audio book, um, that she said, just so you know, I didn’t say those curse words. Um, that was very important. I  

[00:04:59] Rebekah: did not say the cussies. 

It was AI generated.  

[00:05:02] Tim: Yeah. The one, uh, the word aside from Cathi Logan, which is just pronounced that way because it’s, It’s C A T H I. I could not  

[00:05:14] Rebekah: figure out what Kathy was. I think it’s K A T H I.  

[00:05:19] Tim: But aside from that one, the one that threw me the most, uh, was, was the one it was pronounced, yow, yow, over and over. 

It’s like, that’s supposed to be you. What word could that possibly be? Occasionally it lost it correctly. Sometimes  

[00:05:37] Rebekah: it’s, yeah.  

[00:05:38] Tim: Sometimes it said you, but a lot of times it said yow, and it was really weird to listen to some of that. But I do appreciate the fact that we were able to listen to the, to the audio book. 

With our minds and our ears attuned to adjusting, but that’s okay.  

[00:05:57] Speaker 5: Yeah,  

[00:05:57] Rebekah: I thought it was a fun challenge. I hated it so much. I ended up reading the physical copy. It  

[00:06:01] Josiah: was really interesting. I’m Josiah, the brother and the son of the family. I was really excited by the capability of this AI software. 

Rebekah, how much did you read for it to give you an entire audiobook? Was it a paragraph?  

[00:06:17] Rebekah: A paragraph. My goodness. A  

[00:06:18] Speaker 5: paragraph.  

[00:06:18] Josiah: Terrifying. And it, and it was like, what, a six hour audio book?  

[00:06:23] Rebekah: Yeah,  

[00:06:23] Josiah: maybe, maybe less than six, but yeah, another, another one I liked was you, you said, they said Wilshire Boulevard correctly sometimes and other times they would pronounce it Wilshire, Wilshire Boulevard, boule,  

[00:06:38] Rebekah: boulevard,  

[00:06:40] Josiah: boulevard, and there was,  

[00:06:43] Rebekah: I did hear one this morning when I was looking that was supposed to be huge. 

He was talking about how the terrorists had been trained in guerrilla camps. And he said, guerrilla camps, guerrilla. And I just thought that sounds very French, but it’s not supposed  

[00:07:00] Josiah: to.  

[00:07:02] Donna: Yeah. And it, I was trying to see if I could find a pattern of why they would say things a certain way. And again, just like the one dad, I do have a reason  

[00:07:15] Rebekah: you wouldn’t have known. 

I have a reason you wouldn’t have known. So I first used Adobe Acrobat. To convert images because I couldn’t actually get the EPUB file. I converted images of every single page individually into text. And then I fed that into the thing. But when I went back to look at it, when I had converted the images I took from screenshots into text, It was actually Adobe Acrobat had made a bunch of typos. 

And so there’s a few things that just didn’t pronounce correctly, like Cathi, but a lot of them, like Yow, it was because it literally converted U’s to W’s. And so the word was spelled Y O W. So it actually was not as bad as it sounded. I just didn’t look it through for typos.  

[00:07:57] Josiah: it was funny. Things that clearly have like a period after it, but it’s not the end of a sentence, like Mr. 

Stottlemyre, I don’t know who, what that is, but it would be like, and then they looked to Mr. Stottlemyre in the eyes.  

[00:08:14] Donna: Yes.  

[00:08:16] Tim: Stuff like that. It was so trippy. I could also tell when it was, um, when it actually was the end of a page was not the end of a sentence. Because the end of the page ended the way that TJ, that Josiah is talking about as well. 

And then the next page has the last two words or whatever was there, you know, or whatever it is.  

[00:08:37] Rebekah: Yeah. There were several instances where I paused or I thought it paused itself. So I like checked the program and it was still playing and it was just empty space. I  

[00:08:46] Josiah: did. I thought that my thing was loading, but I guess not. 

Um,  

[00:08:51] Donna: uh, so I’m mom, Donna, I’m the wife and mom of the group. And, uh, my, my words, I had picked up several. And like I said, I was trying to figure out a pattern because if it could say psychologically, then why wouldn’t it say Kathy, why Cathi? And that was the one word that I could find. They consistently he on your voice only said that, so I thought that was very crazy. 

Yeah. But a couple of other words were, um, was for, was, was, was and was and Al Al almost for almost so that the, you know, long al almost , um, momentarily. And I think one time I caught moment . And then the other one, uh, that I thought was interesting was. Uh, motionless for motionless, and I had to go back and listen to that and figure out what they were, what it meant. 

But motionless was the only word that would fit, so it’s motionless. We got good at using context clues. Yes. I’m going to go ahead into the plot summary. The plot of this beloved Christmas classic, and please, if you don’t think it’s a Christmas classic, just agree to disagree with me. We don’t need to discuss it because you’re not going to win. 

Um, so we’re going to summarize this movie and the book that inspired it, Nothing Lasts Forever, as follows. An off duty law enforcement specialist, who at one time was an NYPD cop, visits family in Los Angeles for the Christmas holiday. Visiting the family member’s workplace, the protagonist finds himself undiscovered, barefoot, and armed as the rest of the building’s occupants are besieged by a group of criminals, led by a man named Gruber, intent on finding their way into a safe. 

Our main character takes matters into his own hands, dealing the bomb detonators, dispatching the bad guys, and communicating with local police. He successfully defeats the criminals, almost single handedly, though he sustains injuries along the way, and many of the hostages can escape alive.  

[00:11:03] Tim: Wow, that was really short. 

[00:11:06] Donna: Yeah, but it was a good, I agree with you, it was a good summary.  

[00:11:09] Josiah: Those were the things that were in common between the movie and the book.  

[00:11:14] Rebekah: Yes. I think I covered almost everything. There were like two tiny things that were in  

[00:11:20] Josiah: common that I did not. Yeah, there were like three action scenes that were that were. 

Taken straight from the book and put in the movie, but like, you know, we aren’t going to mention that plot summary That’s a pretty good plot summary for yeah for covering both plots  

[00:11:34] Rebekah: Yeah, so as we discuss differences, we typically drop these into three different buckets So the first being the setting the second being the characterization and how that’s different and then the third being plot and timeline. 

So Who wants to get us started with changes? I think  

[00:11:51] Tim: Um, the bulk of the movie takes place at Nakatomi Plaza, but it, in the book, it is the Claxon Oil Building. Um, so that’s different that it’s still a, it’s still in LA. It’s still a big building.  

[00:12:06] Josiah: Well, I will say in the, in the film, the movie shows multiple empty floors of the Nakatomi Plaza, but in the book, Leland, have we already mentioned Leland is the name of the main character? 

Joseph Leland.  

[00:12:22] Rebekah: We haven’t technically gotten there. Joseph  

[00:12:24] Josiah: Leland, uh, is the John McLean of the book. Uh, Leland in the book memorizes the various office layouts he encounters on each floor, like any good security consultant should, but there are no unfinished floors.  

[00:12:39] Rebekah: Um, but the unfinished floors in the movie, they actually paid To the building charged rent so that they could film on those floors. 

Cause that was part of the, the filming location. But in the book, he just keeps making note of like, I find this office with cubicles and then this office is set up this way. And then this office, and he actually like makes a list at one point, like writes out a list of all the things, but he didn’t find any that were completely like open, like in the movie, which obviously made for a really cool setting. 

Film wise, because you could see so much more space and you had so much more like distance that you could see forward. Um, the other thing we know, I noted just that I thought was interesting was the book and film are both set around the time that they were released, which was nine years apart, which doesn’t sound like a lot. 

The book was released in 1979. technically, I think that it was really more set in like the early seventies, mid seventies. Um, but in both cases, there’s kind of evidence of those timeframes. And so for instance, in the book, there’s a lot of like terrorism influences from what was going on in the public eye in the 19th century. 

In the 1970s. Um, in the movie it’s 1988. And so there’s this like fancy electronic building plan that the guy at the entrance shows John McClane. So other than that, it really, a lot of it was the same. The building was in LA. Um, everything took place in LA and even the movie was actually filmed almost entirely in a single building. 

So, which for those of you who care is Fox Plaza, Los Angeles  

[00:14:12] Tim: Plaza.  

[00:14:12] Rebekah: What about some character differences? Dad, do you want to walk us through the main character?  

[00:14:17] Tim: Uh, the, the main character in the book is Joseph Leland. Uh, and there’s a stark contrast or stark differences to the film counterpart, who is John McClane. 

Uh, Leland is older with an adult daughter And he’s nearing retirement. McClain has been an officer for just 11 years, so he’s a bit younger. Um, and that also has to do with the timing of everything Leland served in World War ii. Yeah. And, um, he talks about President Nixon, but he doesn’t talk about Watergate, so it kind of. 

Uh, the setting is the early seventies before Watergate was a big thing. Uh, McClain, obviously,  

[00:14:57] Rebekah: Okay, so that confirms what I thought.  

[00:14:58] Tim: McClain, obviously later in the eighties, things were a lot different. McClain is an NYPD cop still currently while Leland is actually an anti terrorism specialist. He does seminars all over. 

He retired, uh, from being an NYPD cop. Leland is also a former fighter pilot. Yeah, it’s from World War II. So that.  

[00:15:20] Rebekah: And former private investigator.  

[00:15:22] Tim: He’s nearing retirement. So the age difference is, is quite a bit larger. Another characterization difference, uh, Leland in the book knows and understands some German when he hears the terrorist speaking over the walkie talkie because he was in World War II. 

Uh, there’s no indication McLean knows any German or any other foreign language. So He’s a bit more of a disadvantage, uh, in that way.  

[00:15:50] Rebekah: Also kind of related to that, but not specifically about John McClane or whatever. But in the movie, the group of terrorists, and this is part of the trivia, actually the group of terrorists is essentially labeled as kind of a combination of Europeans, but there’s also at least one, um, American in the group in the movie, they’re all German, I believe. 

And they’re like, they’re all part of the same group. Okay. Of terrorists in the movie. And so, um, that’s part of why it’s, it matters that John can understand them because in the book, they’re literally, or sorry, not John Leland in the book, they’re speaking in German over the walkie talkie, like all the time. 

They also know English, but they don’t speak in English a lot in the movie. There’s a ton of English over the walkie talkie,  

[00:16:32] Donna: the computer guy, Theo in the  

[00:16:34] Rebekah: movie, Is very American. He’s yeah.  

[00:16:37] Donna: Yeah,  

[00:16:38] Rebekah: he’s definitely American. There’s no sense of an accent there.  

[00:16:41] Josiah: Also, John McClane in the movie does not like flying and they’re is that’s how the movie opens is him on a plane. 

He’s uncomfortable. And the guy next to him gives him a tip of when he gets on the ground to get his bare feet on some carpet and make fists with his toes. And that ends up being the reason why he avoids the terrorist outbreak at the beginning. Whereas in the book, Joseph Leland loves flying. He flew in World War II. 

He Years ago is a piece of his character that he helped with FAA regulations, federal aviation administration. Is that what that stands for? Yes. Also in  

[00:17:27] Rebekah: the book, I did look this up just to be clear. The thing that the guy on the plane says to him about making fists with your toes and like kind of recovering from a flight, he says is something that a German businessman Had, like, talked to him about years and years before, but it wasn’t about recovering for a flight. 

It was at the end of the day, if you wash your feet and walk around barefoot for 10 minutes, you’ll feel terrific. So like when you’re kind of exhausted and you’ve had a long day of travel. So it was interesting that they pulled that for the book. Um, another character that was very, very different in the book. 

Um, so this is like a big one. So in, if you’ve seen diehard, most, most people listening probably have seen the movie and I would guess have not read the book. Um, in the movie diehard, John McLean is going to visit his estranged wife who he’s still married to. They’re not separated or divorced, but she and his two small children have moved out to LA while he’s still living in New York. 

Um, and she works at Nakatomi. She goes by her maiden name, Gennaro. There’s this whole plot about their, you know, fighting and why they are arguing and all of this stuff in the book. It took me very much by surprise, but Leland actually had an ex wife named Karen who died, I believe eight years after their divorce. 

And so in the book, remember he’s in his mid to late sixties. He’s a lot older than John McClain was in the movie, but Leland is actually visiting the building, uh, which is Clackson oil. What is the building called again? Clackson oil. Yes. He’s visiting the Clackson oil building to visit his His daughter who is an adult, she has two children and she is recently divorced. 

And so there is no Holly Gennaro slash McClain. Um, he’s visiting his daughter, Stephanie, uh, Stephanie, what’s her last name is Stephanie Gennaro, which is like also confusing, but that was her married name. Um, and so also Holly plays a larger role in the film, man. Um, then Stephanie had played in the book. 

And so for one, like, there’s a point at which Holly comes to Gruber asking for a pregnant employee to have a couch available to her. Um, they end up like seeking each other out during the movie Holly and John do at the end of the movie. They like. reunite and kiss and, and it’s very sweet. Um, but she’s just a much bigger part of the film than you really got out of, um, Stephanie. 

And that’s probably  

[00:19:57] Josiah: one of the, or one of the two biggest changes from book to movie for me is the, the female counterparts to the main character, such a different dynamic in so many ways. I think we’re going to talk a little bit about Stephanie. Well, I can just. Talk about how Stephanie is quote unquote probably doing cocaine and in general she’s portrayed as a fairly irresponsible but well off ambitious woman reeling from her recent divorce, but Leland wants to be proud of his daughter. 

And so he tries to look past some of that stuff. Uh, we learned that Stephanie was part of the company’s illegal dealings that motivated the attack in the first place. That’s so in the, in the book, have we talked about this already? How they’re actually terrorists? There’s not, they’re not thieves. Yeah. So we’ll get to that in  

[00:20:55] Rebekah: the  

[00:20:56] Josiah: plot, but yeah. 

Um, so it’s actually terrorists. And the reason the terrorists are attacking them is some, you know, Chilean junta government. Uh, there was a deal about a bridge that Stephanie played a big part in and Stephanie, the daughter played such a big part in that, that the book actually gives her a bad ending. Is it, I mean, I guess it’s not a spoiler. 

I can just,  

[00:21:19] Rebekah: yeah, go for it. So  

[00:21:20] Josiah: Stephanie does die in the book and it’s weirdly close to the scene where Hans Gruber dies in the movie. Where Gruber, because his name is still Gruber, I think, Gruber is holding on to the wristwatch. But unlike in the movie where John McClane is able to unclasp his ex wife Holly’s wristwatch, wristband, and Hans Gruber thus falls to his death in that iconic villain death scene. 

Iconic. But in the book, I couldn’t believe my mouth was gaping whenever this, I was listening to this in the car and Gruber is holding onto the wristband and take Stephanie down with him and they both die.  

[00:22:04] Rebekah: Well, the way it describes it is that Joseph Leland was literally already shooting him. So he had been shot multiple times. 

And as he was falling out of the window, like his final act before death, Was to hook his finger into Stephanie’s watch so that he pulled her out. So it was like him getting back at Leland. For shooting him. Yeah. I was shocked. I kept thinking, did she catch the window? Like what happened? But no, she does. 

[00:22:31] Tim: He had already asked her to move away. And because she didn’t move, she didn’t do what he asked her to do. Rupert was able to take her  

[00:22:40] Josiah: down.  

[00:22:41] Tim: I  

[00:22:41] Josiah: was, I was also going to say that Stephanie’s wristband. Was a symbol of she, she bought a really nice wristband with the money that she made from doing the Chilean bridge deal that was corrupt with a corrupt government. 

And so it was a symbol of her capitalist ambition. Well, not capital, just illegal, illegal cavorting with authoritarian government ambitions. And so that was, that was a symbol of her fatal flaw.  

[00:23:15] Tim: It isn’t that watch, uh, in the film, something that she’s given for this great job, this great deal that she’s just done, uh, it’s part of her compensation. 

[00:23:26] Rebekah: And as far as we know, she’s like not doing anything illegal in like in the film. She’s just good at her job. Also, I will say going back to the differences in timeline, it’s funny reading it now cause it’s 2023, but Leland makes a point. In the seventies to say that his daughter was very well off taking three vacations a year and wearing designer clothing, making 40, 000 a year  

[00:23:50] Josiah: that came up. 

I was like, Oh no, that’s well off  

[00:23:54] Speaker 5: in California.  

[00:23:56] Tim: Let me remind you. Oh no. In California period of time. Uh, I went back and looked at some of these things. You could buy a, an expensive sports car for 3, 000 in that period of time. Oh, oh,  

[00:24:13] Rebekah: oh my gosh, that’s, that’s painful. Well, this  

[00:24:16] Josiah: gets into Ellis a little bit where Ellis is one of the characters that’s, Probably the closest book to film adaptation, Ellis is the, uh, Holly, Stephanie coworker. 

And so in the book, Stephanie was likely sleeping with her boss, Ellis, and there’s no indication  

[00:24:35] Rebekah: and cocaine and cocaine with  

[00:24:37] Josiah: him. And there’s no indication in the movie that Holly was romantic with Ellis in the film. He, he seemed to like, he was crushing on her, right?  

[00:24:46] Rebekah: Yeah, he was, he bought her the Rolex, but she was not, it seemed  

[00:24:50] Donna: like he was trying to Mac on her. 

I would say the last two things that we covered the change in character. And then I was, I would have been okay with some of this stuff about Leland, being older, whatever. But the fact that, um, John, you know that he had less experience on the police force, even though he was a good policeman and then how they changed Holly to Stephanie And I felt like those changes were very, very, very smart because from the book perspective, you can read it and I enjoyed it. 

Like I, I didn’t, I liked the book. I thought it was kind of cool. And, um, some of the, a lot of Leland’s knowledge and experience, but you’re dealing with his point of view in a book, but translating that onto the screen, I really felt like. The changes they made in those just Holly’s Holly and John’s characters and how they work that out. 

I thought that was great. Um, I will say, you know, I’ve got the big change that Holly, you know, the change was Holly came into the film in the book. You’ve got this. storyline woven in there where he encounters a stewardess or a flight attendant. I’m sorry, stewardess just really aged me. He calls her stewardess to make sure that his daughter knows he’s talking about a woman. 

Yes. And he, he encounters this lady and I’m sure we’re positive. Her name’s Kathy, but the AI wants her to be Cathi. So I’m going to call her Cathi. So Cathi Logan comes out as on the plane and all through throughout the book at one point, as he is, um, in, in, you know, um, life saving mode, and he’s going through his hero stuff that he’s doing. 

They actually connect to her so that he can talk to her on walkie talkie or whatever, which I thought was kind of cool that, random, because if you really think about it, are the police going to go find somebody you literally just met on a plane? I mean, that’s a little far fetched, but I thought it was pretty cool. 

That he could connect with her.  

[00:27:01] Tim: Um, he gave them her name,  

[00:27:05] Donna: right? I mean, he, he asked to talk to her, but I just thought it was kind of interesting that it’s somebody, it’s not somebody he’d met on another flight. You know, if you do, if you do flights across country or take certain paths, you may get acquainted with people. 

So  

[00:27:21] Rebekah: the reason that John McClane was like a different character, that he had a different name, he was younger, it was a completely different like person was because Nothing Lasts Forever was actually a book sequel to a novel that Thorpe had written in 1966 called The Detective. The detective was also adapted into a film back in 1968 and Frank Sinatra actually played Joe Leland, 73 year old Sinatra had first refusal on any sequels by the time that nothing lasts forever was being adapted into the second book and he refused and so they changed the character altogether. 

Wow.  

[00:28:00] Donna: The owner of the business in the film, Mr. Takagi. Yeah. is a sympathetic character whose death feels like a true loss. Like, you’ve known him enough and he was shown enough to us, even though not much, but he was shown enough to us in his introduction to John and a little bit of banter there, just a few sentences, that when he is killed you feel for him. 

Like, I did feel like that was effective. Um, but Rivers, who’s his counterpart in the book, is kind of an obnoxious guy. I almost felt like they used Ellis. They put some of that in Ellis’s character in the film. Um, but because in the book Rivers is, is the counterpart to, to Takagi. He’s obnoxious and he just kind of dies and it’s like, oh, he died. 

Um, and just as far as names and crossovers are concerned, Rivers is the name of one of the SWAT team members. Who gets killed in the film. So I, I did find a number of places where I felt like. They integrated some things into the film that they didn’t use from the book, but they wanted some nod to it. 

[00:29:13] Josiah: Well, and just for clarification, the business portrayed in the film is the Nakatomi Corporation, which is in the Nakatomi Plaza. The Nakatomi Corporation is a multinational corporation run by Japanese CEO Togaki, who you were just talking about. In the book, it is Claxon Oil, a Texas based oil company run by Texan CEO Rivers, as you were mentioning. 

[00:29:38] Tim: The significance of those things there is very likely that in the early 70s, there was a real problem with the oil business. You know, the gas prices were rising and the oil companies were just making profit after profit after profit and making deals that were very questionable all around the world. 

[00:30:00] Donna: But by the, by the end of the eighties, you did, we were getting into more, uh, international business things that like, you know, that, that weren’t trying to be American. Nakatomi is not an American name. So, you know, so I can definitely see some of those changes. timeline.  

[00:30:19] Tim: We don’t really, uh, get a view of the villains from, uh, any other perspective in the book except Leland’s. 

In the film, however, we do see several scenes with more detail on the various members of Gruber’s team. Uh, we find that a couple of them are brothers. Uh, one of always a big movie change and one of one of them is Theo. He’s he’s the black fellow that is the nerd villain. He’s the he’s the computer nerd. 

He basically is pulling all of the technological strings. And so we get a better perspective of the villains in the movie. than we did in the book. And I, I don’t know if we discussed it somewhere else, but the, it is interesting, the different motivation, the actual terrorism and the hover of terrorism. 

[00:31:12] Rebekah: They made a lot of changes to the terrorists in the film. Another big change characteristically was that there were 12 terrorists. And in the book, four of them were women in the movie. All of them were men. Um, it is really significant in the book that they had several women because, uh, Leland had never killed a woman before. 

Um, he’d been in a war, but he’d only ever fought men. And so it’s, it was actually something that he struggled with and had a lot of like, you know, it, it very much upset him. Um, and it, it was, um, kind of upset him in a gross way. Um, he beat his pants, but he did end up killing four women, which I thought was really interesting. 

[00:31:54] Josiah: Never could have happened in the movie.  

[00:31:56] Rebekah: No.  

[00:31:57] Donna: Mm mm. It wouldn’t have translated. Wait, why do you think that’s true? Oh,  

[00:32:00] Josiah: well, I mean, I guess it could have, but they specifically took it out of the movie. They didn’t want to, they didn’t want their likable, uh, John McClane to be killing women. I don’t think movie audiences were ready for that sort of, I mean, I, I was surprised whenever I was rewatching the movie and I was like, Oh, the, the cop on the ground, his backstory is that he shot a kid on accident. 

Like, that’s, that’s pretty nuanced for this movie that is, is pretty feel good in a lot of ways. Like, that’s a tough thing to have to deal with.  

[00:32:35] Donna: The name of the lead terrorist is Hans Gruber in the film. And in the book, he’s known as Anton or Tony Gruber.  

[00:32:43] Tim: Little Tony.  

[00:32:44] Donna: Little Tony. And, and also in the movie, using his name, making Gruber’s name Hans, was a change from in the book, one of the terrorists, one of his team was named Hans. 

And so I like that they kept the name. I think Hans Gruber is a very, uh, Tony, Tony Gruber or little Tony. That sounds too Definitely memorable. Mafia to me. Like, you know, so I thought it was a, I thought it was a good change.  

[00:33:12] Josiah: The reporter in the movie, Richard Thornburg, is not in the book at all. The news media plays very little role in the book. 

Only a couple times does Leland check a TV in the building to see what’s going on outside. It, and there’s not like a personality, there’s not a Caesar Flickerman who’s giving you a play by play.  

[00:33:34] Rebekah: Yeah. They actually give you like one of Richard Thornburg’s coworkers, like one of the hosts of the, I mean, there’s like this whole subplot, which I thought was interesting, but I will point out in the book. 

That the media was sharing live everything that was being said on the walkie talkies, which ended up leading to a lot of interesting things, including the fact that there were like people telling Leland that they were rooting for him or praying for him or whatever. And he was like, get the F  

[00:34:01] Tim: off. Okay. 

Here’s a little, a little tiny bit of trivia. In the early eighties, as a matter of fact, 1980, Is when CNN was launched and and it began the 24 hour news cycle that so in the book, there was none of that because it was written in the early seventies. But by the time of the film, the book,  

[00:34:22] Donna: wow. Yeah. Before that you had six o’clock news, 11 o’clock news, early morning news, and then like a noon news update. 

And then other, you might have. If something literally catastrophic to the country would happen, you’d have some break in to the television shows and all the little old ladies would go, Oh my gosh, you broke into all my children to tell me a president was killed. Who cares about, you know, that’s what news was. 

Um, so if we move on into plot and timeline, Um, there’s a number a good number of them. I think we can get through them pretty well, but a decent amount of of change here before boarding his flight to L. A. Leland in the book is in a car accident at the airport, and he has a cut on his face and has to deal with that. 

The movie begins with McLean on the plane, and then there’s no mention in the book to any kind of an injury or lead up or anything like that. In the movie with McClane on the plane at the beginning, he has several, you know, encounters here and there with a flight attendant and she’s a brunette lady and, and all that. 

And at the end, when he pulls the big teddy bear down out of the overhead compartment, She smiles at him and I almost wondered if they left just those few little seconds in as a nod to the fact that there was a flight attendant on the plane that kind of flirted with him.  

[00:35:50] Speaker 5: Yeah.  

[00:35:50] Donna: And I don’t know that. 

That’s my guess. But the last, when we watched the movie again last weekend, I thought, Oh yeah, I could see they’re making a little, just a little nod there to Catha, because why not? Cause they  

[00:36:03] Rebekah: took her out. The other thing I noticed when we’re talking about like the lead up, he had the cab driver or limo driver or whatever that he was with in the book. 

that caused that car accident. I think they rear ended someone, whatever. But I think it’s interesting because they actually used a similar characterization for the guy who drove his limo in LA in the movie. The guy, he was also described as black. He was making jokes about, you know, do we want to go and find some ladies? 

Like, but he was also being really nice and Offered to wait for him in case, you know, Holly didn’t want to see him or whatever. But I think that they ended up using the way that they created the character at the beginning as a driver in another  

[00:36:41] Josiah: place. In the book, Leland visits his adult daughter, Stephanie, and her two children. 

But in the film, McClane is visiting his estranged wife, Holly, and their two children. Currently living in Los Angeles, so I think that’s an interesting similarity, but it is a difference between your kids that maybe you don’t get to see them as often as you’d like because you’re going through a divorce or versus your grandchildren who you’re welcome in their life. 

[00:37:10] Rebekah: It was different. And he does mention he doesn’t know them very well. He might talk to them once a month or whatever, but in the book, the two children are the place, like they’re at the building with them. And so the, the kids are part of the terrorist attack. Like he’s trying to save the children as well, because I believe that they’re there in the building. 

[00:37:30] Tim: My personal opinion for the change from, from book to film, uh, regarding that has so much to do with the main character’s age. Leland in the book is, is so much older than McClane is in the film. And I think that was a change that needed to be made. But it also allowed for, for a happier ending, a connection with his estranged wife. 

That was very nice. Um, in the, uh, in the book, Leland immediately recognizes Anton Gruber, a known terrorist, also known as Little Tony. The first time he sees him in the book, Uh, McClane doesn’t, he doesn’t seem to be familiar in any way with Gruber in the film. Uh, we only get a little taste of who Gruber might be, uh, when the news media is looking up some of those things and said, this might be the, So  

[00:38:28] Josiah: I thought that was so interesting that Leland already recognized Anton Gruber in the book. 

I think that that was an attempt to show Leland was knowledgeable about current events, about the international stage sort of thing. But I think that Hans Gruber, first of all, is a much more iconic name. And second of all, naming him, what was it? Red, little red Tony.  

[00:38:57] Rebekah: Yeah.  

[00:38:58] Josiah: What? Oh,  

[00:38:59] Rebekah: or little Tony at least. 

What  

[00:39:00] Josiah: an uniconic name. What a unimposing name. Cause it makes him cause he’s like this German guy, but then I’m, you know, I know Sopranos wasn’t out, but I’m thinking of a mafia guy. I’m little Tony.  

[00:39:13] Rebekah: That’s what I thought too. I  

[00:39:14] Josiah: really didn’t like that name. And he was like, Yeah, this guy’s name is Anton Gruber, but I’m going to call him Little Tony for the rest of the book. 

Gruber tries to play an employee who escaped the hostage area attempting to fool McClain in the movie. This is not in the book and couldn’t have happened as Leland already knew who Gruber was the first time he saw him slash heard about him.  

[00:39:41] Rebekah: So not only, I think it was a really good call to do it the way they did. 

Um, because not only did it allow obviously for that scene, which was really interesting as Gruber was trying to get the detonators, but also it like took out some of the unnecessary backstory as far as Joseph Leland being this, like, you know, not hostage, um, like a terrorist prevention specialist or, or whatever they call him. 

I thought that that was. Interesting in the book, but not necessary. So nothing lasts forever was a sequel. The first novel was called the detective released in 1966. And there was actually a 1968 adaptation to that movie, uh, starring Frank Sinatra. who played Joseph Leland, and his contract had stated that he would have the first refusal for any sequels. 

So when they decided to do Nothing Lasts Forever as a film in the late 80s, they offered him first refusal. He was 73. basically said, I am not a good fit for an action role. And so at that point, they decided to rename the movie and change the main character and not try to use the same person who’d been portrayed by a different actor, which I did think was interesting. 

[00:40:55] Josiah: Very good choices all around.  

[00:40:57] Donna: Related to what we’re just talking about with. With Gruber and, and characterization and, you know, we talked before about, uh, Willis and a body type of actor that they’re looking for and all those things, something that can happen in on a set of a movie is an additions to the movie that weren’t even thought about even during the screenplay. 

In other words, so, like, Rickman was just messing around off set one day and speaking in an American accent. And they’re like, Oh, you know what? When you and McLean meet in the hallway, oh my gosh, you’ve got to use the American accent to throw him off. So he won’t know, you know, so you can, you can feign to be some stupid American. 

And, and I think that’s one of the things about the magic of movies is you can do that. You can do endless things with certain genres that works better than others, but you can do endless things with improv.  

[00:41:59] Josiah: I love that. I love using the actor’s talents and being like, how can we use this in the story? 

And make it better because I mean, it made it, uh, made a better scene. And so when you’re, you’re collaborating with hundreds and hundreds of artists, especially like a few dozen key artists, you can make improvements on the fly to your movie, whereas in a book. The author has an idea and it’s, it better be a good idea because their editor can make some suggestions, you know, especially their developmental editor, but in general, it’s mainly one, maybe if you count your developmental editor, two people writing a book, whereas it’s so collaborative making a movie and you see the benefits in movies like Die Hard. 

[00:42:44] Rebekah: Um, one thing that they did a slightly bit different that I thought was maybe indicative of the change to age, like Leland was obviously older, as we’ve stated, but also they call John McClane cowboy a lot and in future diehard movies, he’s considered this like. Kind of, you know, doesn’t follow the rules like he is a cowboy, you know, and, um, when he kills the first, uh, terrorist, he writes on his shirt. 

Now I have a machine gun, ho, ho, ho, because as we have stated, this is a Christmas movie. And he sends him down the, um, elevator so that the other terrorists can see him. So in the, in the book, Leland’s message was, now we have a machine. And so it was like implied that he was trying to convince them that there was actually like more than one person that was fighting back, which I thought was a little more mature and a little less cowboy. 

So  

[00:43:38] Donna: McLean argues. with police over the walkie talkie. And I also love this change, I will say, because the banter back and forth further develops McLean’s character as this person that’s like, this is where we are. This is what has to be done. Your protocol may work in a lot of situations, but it’s not going to work here. 

So we’re working with what we’ve got. So I really love this. You know, they don’t believe his story at first and he, I love when he calls 911 before the phones are cut and she’s like, sir, this is a secure line. He’s like, no kidding. Of course it’s a secure line, you idiot. I’m calling, you know, I’m calling because it’s secure. 

I’m calling because it’s secure and it’s an emergency line and then, of course, he gets back  

[00:44:32] Speaker 5: on the  

[00:44:32] Donna: phone with her and you know, then that’s exactly when Carl cuts the phone line. I mean, it’s the timing’s great. It adds to the excitement of the story. But as far as his, uh, as far as the difference in the book is concerned. 

You know, in the book, you don’t have this at all. You don’t have his his very quickly formed personal relationship with Al. I mean, he talks to Al and in the book, Al is important. But Leland, you know, in other words, like Leland uses flashing lights in the building to communicate SOS and, and that’s how they initially realize something is not right. 

But again, the magic of movies, you can do all kinds of stuff. And, and one, it’s not just his point of view and things like that. So I loved that. Also,  

[00:45:22] Rebekah: it’s a technology related change because, um, walkie talkies. We’re not really like strong enough to reach as far as they reached in 80 in like 88 he was able to contact them on a secure walkie line, whereas in seventies in the mid seventies, you know, when the book was written, it actually was only strong enough to speak to people in the same building. 

[00:45:46] Josiah: Another change from book to movie McLean. Tosses a body out the window in the film to finally get the police to realize that something was going on. Love that scene. In the book, a body is thrown out for Gruber’s benefit.  

[00:46:02] Rebekah: Made some comment that he wanted to make sure that Gruber knew that he was still In the building and causing mayhem. 

[00:46:09] Josiah: Precisely. There are also multiple instances of Book Leland losing control of his bladder when taking a life. And you mentioned this. This does not happen in the movie. I don’t think that’s something you can portray in a movie. I think that is the sort of thing you can portray in a book. Um. I think it harkens back to the horrors of World War II, but also the, the sickness of having to take a life, and what that does to your psyche, I think it would affect him. 

So I think it’s realistic, but it’s certainly not fun to read.  

[00:46:42] Rebekah: I think that it happens three times, because I’m pretty sure, it’s either two times or three times, because I know that he does it when he kills the first person, because he breaks his neck, and it’s like a very Like physically he’s like in there. 

It’s not just like I shoot someone from far away. I know he does it then. I’m pretty sure that he does it when his daughter’s pulled out of the window and his daughter dies like right at the end. And then I think that the time in the middle is when he kills one of the women that he found particularly like feminine. 

Yeah. It might have been the first one because it was just such an overwhelming experience. In  

[00:47:17] Tim: the film, the FBI becomes involved. but it’s only the local police in the book. Um, I think that, uh, that allowed the local police to be, uh, more of the heroes and to allow the faceless, almost FBI. I mean, the white guy and the black guy have the same last name, no relation, blah, blah, blah. 

Uh, and they’re, they’re all, they’re almost. Disinterested in what’s going on and later when they’re in the helicopters, it’s like, well, you know, I can accept that many casualties, blah, blah, blah. They become the dispassionate law enforcement that doesn’t have a clue. And so that allows the local police to be a little bit more, a little bit more compassionate. 

[00:48:02] Rebekah: Yeah, they’re, I mean, the FBI in this movie were absolute morons. It’s like. Oh my gosh. It was almost like embarrassing. I know it’s not real, but it was, I don’t know. It was just interesting. I think it’s interesting depending on who the focus of things are that in film and TV, it’s so common that the whoever is like the focus is the smart one and whatever other organizations are involved are stupid. 

Well, we’ve  

[00:48:31] Josiah: talked a tiny bit about how this was one of the first films that it was the everyman who was saving everyone. It wasn’t this beefy, beefy war hero guy. It was this guy who was kind of on vacation and he was thrown into this. He didn’t choose this. And so I wonder if the vigilante who was working outside of the police, sort of, to do what needs to be done to save the day. 

I wonder if producers or the writers were worried, like, maybe people will not appreciate that You know, he’s getting what needs to happen done. And so they made it clear that if he left it to the authorities that be, it, a lot of people would have died. A lot of the thieves would have gotten away sort of thing. 

[00:49:20] Rebekah: Yes. Um, something we’ve mentioned a lot that was a really, really significant difference from book to film. Um, in the film, Gruber’s team uses the cover of activist terrorists. So it’s a cover meaning they’re not actually terrorists. 

And that’s of the money that they were trying to steal from the safe, which in the movie was 640 million. From Nakatomi Enterprises or Nakatomi Corporation, whatever it’s called. Um, Gruber was mentioned on the news, Hans Gruber, as being a member of a specific terrorist group and then the terrorist group had contacted or had responded basically to say that he was quote expelled from the organization. 

From that group. Um, in the movie Gruber at one point is talking to the police chief Robinson and he asks for the freedom of various revolutionaries from around the world. But then as he like turns off the walkie talkie, one of, yeah, he’s like, they’re my brothers and sisters. And then he turns off the walkie talkie and one of the guys is like, what group did you just mention? 

He was like, I don’t know. I read about them in time magazine. And so it was all completely a front now in the book. And again, this is kind of based on like. What was going on in the world at the time? Probably, uh, the book’s antagonists are terrorists, like actual terrorists in a group. They were trying to expose claxon oil because they had done a lot of shady dealings in Chile, basically spending, I believe it was at the time, like 150 million on a bridge or something. 

And like, really the money was mostly going to something else. Um, and as we’ve stated, daughter, Stephanie was a significant part of those. So she was actually probably a criminal as well. And the reason they wanted to get in the safe, it was two fold. Um, the company had been doing illegal activities and there were documents hidden in the safe that would prove those things. 

And then there was 9 million inside the safe. And so the money was not the motivation because the They were actually going to drop the documents and all of the money into the street below, hoping that the members of the public would see it and know what was going on. And so that’s a really, really significant change. 

[00:51:37] Tim: Interesting that that’s, that’s actually what happens is that the money goes flying out at the end of those things. I think some of those  

[00:51:45] Rebekah: were, I think some of them were definitely motivated by the book to be like, okay, let’s not do that, but let’s like, Do it differently. I think that it made Hans Gruber a much more interesting person. 

Um, and it might be because we, you know, I was born in 88. And so honestly, by the time I was out of high school, I never wanted to hear the word terrorist again. Cause I felt like that was all the news could talk about. Um, and so I personally would not have been as interested in it if it had just been kind of. 

a run of the mill, Oh, terrorists are doing a thing, you know.  

[00:52:16] Tim: Yeah. The police officer that, um, that John McClain gets connected to over the walkie talkie is Al. And as they talk through some of these things that help make both of them more personable, more relatable, uh, Al confesses in the film that he’s no longer a beat cop because he shot a kid. 

Uh, that’s not the storyline in, in the book. In the book, Leland recounts a story of, uh, His own memory of sending someone to the electric chair who confessed to a crime, but as it turns out, he was actually innocent. Uh, and that’s, you know, he found out he was innocent after he left the police force while he was a, a private investigator. 

But I think I really like what they did with the, with the film version.  

[00:53:05] Rebekah: Trivia question. What was the crime that someone got sent to the electric chair for?  

[00:53:10] Tim: You  

[00:53:11] Rebekah: remember?  

[00:53:11] Tim: I do not. It had, they cut off a body part. Yeah. Someone. Right. Right. Right. It was a very  

[00:53:18] Rebekah: unfortunate body part and the man died as a result. 

[00:53:22] Tim: And the actual, the actual criminal cut off the body part to, to avert attention from him. He cut off that body part just to cause it to look like it was related to something entirely different. He was killing it. He cut off the man’s  

[00:53:39] Rebekah: hands. Yeah. He cut off the man’s hands and then he decided to cut off. 

His male area and he cut off the male area to make it look like it was a crime motivated by something else. But the reality was he just cut the guy’s hands off because he had caught him like he’d caught skin under his fingernails and the criminal knew that he would be caught. You know, you’d be connected to it. 

[00:54:02] Josiah: Also in the movie, the hostages are on the roof for rescue near the end of the story before coming back down to the original floor. And that’s where you get the FBI helicopter and the roof exploding and John McClane jumping off. But in the book, the hostages are rescued as they escaped down and out of the building. 

They do not go to the roof. So that was a,  

[00:54:24] Rebekah: well, and John McClane brilliantly handled that. He like shot at the helicopter and got them to think he was one of the terrorists, but he scared the people on the roof to get them to go down because they would have died just,  

[00:54:38] Donna: you  

[00:54:39] Rebekah: know, seconds later. It really did  

[00:54:40] Donna: build him up to show his intelligence, um, because everything was set up so that all they wanted was the money in the film. 

All they wanted was the money. So, What do you do with all these hostage? What are you going to do with? You’re not going to take them away with you, so we get them to go up there. They’re thinking they’re going to be blah, blah, and we blow them up. So, I mean, it was a very clever thing. Rupert’s very intelligent and well thought out  

[00:55:06] Tim: one more difference. 

Um, Leland in the book is more physically injured. Uh, not to mention he’s older. He’s also, um, in the book. He’s already told the police officer that he’s connected with via the walkie talkie or whatever that he, that he is very dark. He’s been through the coal and the dust and all of that. And so you probably wouldn’t even recognize him. 

[00:55:30] Speaker 7: Yeah.  

[00:55:31] Tim: Uh, McClain is a little less injured. Um, the book leaves Leland actually survives the final encounter. Yeah. Um, because I think the book ends as he says, he’s going to think about flying. Basically, I’m gonna go to my happy place. So we’re, we’re never sure exactly what happens to him at the end.  

[00:55:52] Rebekah: Yeah. 

And that was the last book. That was the last book that the author did that was specifically about that character who had been in a book before with him. Yeah. Yep.  

[00:56:03] Donna: And as the last, uh, movie book to movie change, I love that we’re ending with Carl. Carl is very special to me. And let’s be real, this is massive suspension of disbelief. 

Carl should have been dead way back when he got hung in the big warehouse room. He was invincible. He jumps out for a last hurrah in both book and film. So I was glad they kept this even though it’s completely ridiculous, but I’m glad they did it in the In the, uh, in the book, Al throws the deputy police chief in front of Leland, killing the chief, which is just weird, but I kind of, it’s kind of cool. 

I mean, it’s, it’s like, it’s purposely, it’s purposefully done because the chief upset Leland and Al recognized that Leland was the right in the right through this thing in the movie. Al shoots Carl. saves McLean’s life. And also, which I love that they did this, it wrapped up Al’s story arc that he could have confidence in himself again to, to use his firearm in the right way. 

Because that’s the whole, that’s his whole backstory. To me, it was a fantastic change. For them, because it, it wraps up Al’s story too. And you there’s redemption there for him. It  

[00:57:27] Rebekah: might’ve just been me, but maybe because of how close it was to the end. And I was like staying up late to read this, or maybe it’s cause it was really weird. 

It threw me off that Al basically in the book like murders Robinson, like, like it’s implied that he kills him like on purpose. And it’s like, uh, okay, I get that like these terrorists have been around and that we’re killing the terrorists, but like, that’s a little weird, right? I  

[00:57:55] Josiah: think in general. I think the biggest change from book to movie is that the book is portraying all this as this horrible, horrible thing that’s happened. 

And nothing lasts forever. It’s very hopeless. It’s very dark. Whereas Die Hard is about heroes is about heroes who meet the tragedies and then come out and overcome and come out on top. And I think that’s the biggest difference from book to movie is one’s feel good and one is depressing.  

[00:58:29] Donna: I’m just going to highlight a couple of these things. 

I don’t want to spend a moment on them, but I think a couple of them I think are interesting. You’ll see as we get down in the list. The book released on January 1st, 1979. Um, the movie release came out in July of 1988,  

[00:58:47] Tim: summer blockbuster at  

[00:58:49] Donna: the Abaco theater. And then it released the rest of, in the rest of the country on the 15th in USA and Canada. 

Um, the book rating on Goodreads was 3. 51 out of five. I think that’s fair. I think it’s a, it’s a, it’s kind of a fun book. I think it’s a book like my dad would have enjoyed reading. He loved reading Westerns and detective novels and stuff. Rotten Tomatoes for the movie ratings. Rotten Tomatoes, 94. 28 million to produce. 

[00:59:19] Josiah: That’s borderline an indie film today.  

[00:59:21] Donna: Opening weekend, it made 601, 000.  

[00:59:25] Tim: Which is not much.  

[00:59:26] Donna: I was going to ask if that was a typo. It’s like not even a million dollars. USA Canada gross, 81 million. Worldwide, uh, 14, 000.  

[00:59:35] Tim: Not popular worldwide. Yeah,  

[00:59:38] Donna: so I thought it was interesting to see. It was a hit, but I think it was also a risk for the studio. 

They couldn’t have known what it would be.  

[00:59:47] Josiah: So its first weekend it made 600, 000. It was in 21 theaters, as in 21 screens.  

[00:59:54] Speaker 7: Oh, wow.  

[00:59:55] Josiah: Then the next weekend. Oh, it was a limited release.  

[00:59:57] Speaker 7: Okay.  

[00:59:57] Josiah: Yeah. On the next weekend, it was 1, 200 screens. It went up to 7 million. So its opening weekend was 600, 000, but it was only at a few screens. 

I mean, average per screen is 28, 000 per screen that weekend.  

[01:00:12] Rebekah: And that’s amazing. I did find this Collider article, um, that last weekend Die Hard was re released in some theaters, brought in another almost a million dollars. So, This is kind of like Polar Express where it made more and more later, but its current, um, haul, it was 83 million when it was first released. 

It’s now up to 142. 5 million. One  

[01:00:38] Donna: of my favorite little trivia is to, I knew this trivia, actually I didn’t find it, but, uh, his, his iconic Yippee Ki Yay La la la that I won’t say.  

[01:00:47] Speaker 5: He adds the extra parts. But  

[01:00:48] Donna: Rebekah said it’s um, but I’m not gonna make a big deal about that. I did not and A. I.  

[01:00:54] Josiah: said it. Wow, Rebekah A. 

I.  

[01:00:57] Donna: Yes, Rebekah A. I. Yeah. Um, that was inspired by western actor Roy Rogers. He just left off the expletive at the end. Who would have  

[01:01:08] Tim: never said the expletive?  

[01:01:10] Donna: Way before my children’s time.  

[01:01:12] Tim: Very clean.  

[01:01:13] Donna: Uh, Rickman nearly passed up the role of Hans Gruber. Which ended up being his first film role. He is a classically trained, uh, theater, uh, thespian. 

Uh, he had only arrived in Hollywood two days earlier. and was appalled by the idea of his first role being the villain of an action film, in an action film.  

[01:01:33] Tim: Two days, wow.  

[01:01:34] Donna: Uh, to, to a degree,  

[01:01:37] Tim: Rickman  

[01:01:38] Donna: was right to be concerned because his performance was so, was so hailed that the actor had to struggle being typecast as a player of villains for much of his career. 

[01:01:49] Rebekah: So one thing I definitely don’t want to end without Just kind of honoring first, Bruce Willis has obviously an incredible acting career. Die Hard is arguably probably one of his most popular, but there are quite a bit that he has, you know, done films that I think all of us will remember. And, uh, early in 2022, his family announced that he was going to be stepping away from acting. 

Um, he developed So he developed aphasia was progressive aphasia. So he was starting to have difficulties communicating. And then in February of 2023, um, they shared that doctors had identified his issue as frontotemporal dementia. Um, it’s a different type of dementia than what a lot of Alzheimer’s things are. 

So it doesn’t affect memory as much. Uh, he probably won’t, um, forget his family, but it greatly impacts the way you communicate with other people, the way you can organize and like, honestly, your personality as well. And so it’s pretty likely that he’s already experiencing a lot of those. Um, his family will often like post videos or pictures and just kind of give updates, but they’ve said it is incredibly difficult. 

I mean, he’s only 68. He’s not, you know, an elderly man. But he’s certainly experiencing some really difficult things. And so it was like such a weird shock to learn like that Bruce Willis would not be, would not be acting  

[01:03:14] Josiah: weird. Great, uh, great actor, iconic career.  

[01:03:18] Rebekah: So I did have one very quick mini game question and I figure we can kind of do this. 

And then each give our final verdict. I’m just going to answer the question and give my final verdict all at once. So my little question, if you found yourself undiscovered in a building overrun by terrorists, what would be your catchphrase as you successfully killed the last of them with your sick law enforcement skills? 

So my answer to that is boo you whore. Cause I just think that’s  

[01:03:49] Speaker 2: really  

[01:03:49] Rebekah: an iconic. So that would be my catchphrase. Um, my final verdict as far as book to movie here, I had an interesting experience. I did not like listening to myself read the fake audio book, so I did read the physical copy. Um, I did not love the book. 

We’d had a friend that actually mentioned it when we were about to read it when we were at our Thanksgiving dinner actually, and she’d mentioned how much she disliked the book and couldn’t even finish it. I didn’t think it was quite that bad. If I’m being honest, I, I enjoyed the read. It is not my go to type of book. 

book. I’m not so much like a shoot them up book kind of person. I do love action movies. Um, I do think it was a little weird. There were a lot of things that felt very dated. Obviously it is dated. It wasn’t like it’s older than I am. Um, it was odd. Like he kept pointing out every person that was black, but then no one else’s race was pointed out other than to say German once or twice. 

Um, there were a couple of like things that just took me. so off. Like the fact that it didn’t like it bothered him that his daughter was doing cocaine and sleeping with her boss, but like only a little, like that was weird. I was really bothered by the way, Al killed the police guy, the chief at the end of the book. 

And it was just like normal. Um, I also did not love that they killed his daughter. Although I believe Josiah is correct in saying that, like the book, nothing lasts forever was. meant to be more dark and more like nothing lasts. But I think that I can safely say in this case, like while the book was a worthwhile read, and I’m glad I read it through the movie has become an icon of action movies. 

I mean, it’s literally a trope to say that a movie or a book or whatever is die hard, but in this place or, but with this change or whatever. Um, it’s become such an icon. It obviously had five movies, you know? And so I think that I, I prefer the movie because in this case, it’s the thing that I’m going to re watch. 

I’m probably never going to read this book again. I own it, but like, you know, I’m probably not going to pick it up. Uh, and so for me, the, the movie wins this time.  

[01:05:57] Tim: If I was discovered in the building overrun by terrorists, um, I suppose my catchphrase would be, That’s what you get. You know, um, I, I much prefer the, the movie. 

I think Die Hard was, was a great movie and it was, uh, we watch it every year at least once. Um, it, it’s a, it’s a good movie. It’s, it’s well made and one of the things about the movie that is unclear. In the book is that the good guy wins and in the book that’s unclear and you’re also a bit unclear, um, as to whether the good guys are these people or the good guys are those people. 

So it’s, it’s a lot more ambiguous, a lot grayer. I like the movie Die Hard better than the book. Spooooon!  

[01:06:49] Josiah: Which I believe is a tick reference. Would be my catchphrase as I successfully killed the last of them. Spoon! So, uh, my final verdict is that the movie is clearly better. The book is different. And so it does work as its own thing, but it’s so depressing and hopeless and sad. 

And I think, I think that the author made a mistake. He wanted to write an action film and he, and then he ended up making it. This introspective war flashback, sad fest, which I don’t think is what an action film, like, I don’t think that’s the genre. I don’t think that’s what readers expect. Um, you mentioned, yeah, Joseph Leland, started off the book not super likable. 

Like he was shout, he shouted a slur in Rebekah’s voice and he was mean to people and he wasn’t that concerned about his daughter snorting crack and stuff like that and Oh, you know, my daughter might have been involved with some Chilean authoritarian dictators. But I’m still proud of her. Why is Cathay Logan such a major part? 

She provides some emotional, uh, anchor to Joseph Leland outside of the building. But they just met, right? Whenever they went to Cathay Logan in the middle of the story, I was like, They just met, right? Who cares? Yeah, they did. So I think that the movie only made good changes and they made about a hundred of them. 

[01:08:31] Donna: They’re letting me go last because this is my, if I break it up into genres, this is my favorite action adventure of all time. So my catchphrase, and interesting, this is our mini game because Yesterday morning, I was getting ready to go to work, and I’m up early, and it’s before the sun’s up and all that, so it’s dark outside, and I heard the doorbell ring, and I froze because I thought, okay, it’s ten after six in the morning, nobody’s here to visit me, and I, I like, What am I going to do? 

I need a weapon. I have Christmas gifts in the guest bedroom, which is just next to where I am. So I go in and the first thing I can get is the dagger I bought Josh for his D& D, you know, as a D& D nod. So I get the dagger out and I creep to the front door and turn on the light. And as I’m thinking about this, I thought, what would I say if I open the door and somebody’s there? 

If a person, like a person coming to get us, robber, thief, bad person, whatever, what would I say? Yes.  

[01:09:38] Rebekah: Yes. And, and rings the doorbell as robbers often do.  

[01:09:42] Donna: Don’t take away from the mood. I was terrified. The dog didn’t hear the bell. Didn’t bother him. I go to the door and I think, what would I say? And all I could think of was the Holy Spirit could have saved you. 

So my final verdict is you already know what it’s going to be because this is one of my favorite movies. So I love the movie now that I’ve read the book and I kind of agree with Rebekah. I’m glad I read the book. I think that I think we all kind of feel that way. We read it. We saw that difference. It was interesting to look at it, but I felt like Stepping back and comparing them, I was just really impressed with, with their, their decisions overall. 

And, um, I couldn’t even talk when you were talking about Bruce Willis. I was sitting here crying because it’s tragic that we can’t see him again. But, but again, that’s part of why we love movies so much. It gives you an insight into people’s lives and it allows you, the entertainment part also allows you to, you know, realize how important people it are and how important life is. 

And I’m really glad that they did have the ending, the movie ending for sure, of all the other things, the movie ending versus the book ending. There’s just. So I’m, I’m definitely all movie. Well, thanks  

[01:11:01] Rebekah: everybody for listening. We can be found most places online at bookisbetterpod. If you’ve got feedback for ideas or future episodes, email bookisbetterpod at gmail.com. You can ask any questions that you have about the reviews we’ve done or upcoming IPs. Please leave us a five star rating and review. It helps us out a ton. And until next time, thanks again. 

[01:11:30] Josiah: SPOON! Boo you whore!

Similar Posts