History Headscratchers / DieHard

** Not only would McClane never risk a fellow officer's life by firing directly at them, the bad guy doing the shooting is clearly using an M60E3 machine gun: a weapon McClane doesn't have in his possession. The one firing the weapon is Alexander: he's shooting at Powell to try and shut him up to buy his team a little extra time. Not a smart thing to do, but that's what ruthless professional criminal would do in a situation like that.

** He tries to steal the shoes of the first terrorist he kills, but they're too small. I don't think he ever has time to for the rest of the film.

And why ''shouldn't'' the money they're stealing be a huge amount? If you're going to risk the kind of things you just pointed out, there should be a significant payback. Also, keep in mind the 640 million was originally going to be split between like 20 guys.
*** There were 13 terrorists total (Hans, 11 gunmen including Karl, and Theo, the computer expert) so splitting $640 million between them would have netted each member of the group about $49.2 million. That would be about $89.5 million in 2011 dollars, more than enough money to live on for the rest of your life. Plus, Hans makes a quip at one point that the group will "be sitting on a beach, earning 20%." Not only are they getting a big payday, they'll be earning interest on it too! Yeah, well worth the "terrorist" label the media and police will pin on them.

** Adding to that, why didn't John give his name, badge ID, and department? He likely ''knew'' Hans' men were listening, and that they wanted him dead. It wasn't like he was on a secure channel. And the way he was calling it in was ''far'' too police-like for Hans and his men to think it was a party-goer. And if John '''was''' on a secure channel? He wouldn't have to hide it. The biggest writing/plot slip-up of the film, even if it was required to [[spoiler:both add tension and bring Al into the film]].

** I always assumed the young police officer who was talking to him didn’t have enough experience to know exactly what gunfire transmitted over a radio sounds like, so she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a prank. It could have been Kevin from Home Alone setting off fireworks in a pot. If it was true, then that would provoke a rather large response (as seen later), so she’d be understandably hesitant to bring that about without further proof. And sending a single car was smarter, actually, since it wouldn’t necessarily tip the terrorists that the police knew about them and wouldn’t be more targets for them to shoot at.

** When they evacuate the school, there is still a group of kids locked in a classroom(including Zeus's... nephews?) so two of the cops run in and get them out the locked class, then, for some reason, they decide to take the kids to roof, on the chance they could leap to the next building, which turns out to be too far, why didn't they just backtrack out of the school, going by the timeframe it took them ''longer'' to get to the roof than it would to run back downstairs and out?

*** Hans never said the bearer bonds ''were'' the company's operating cash, only that the ''value'' of the bonds was comparable to a single day's capital. Hence, not something Nakatomi would miss much, ergo Takagi may as well give up the code.

** Easy, Hans stated in the movie the true "treasure" they are looking behind Nakatomi´s safe is not money in regular paper, they are after the $640 millions in '''bearer''' bonds. This is an economic issue: bearer bonds are different from "normal" (registered) bonds since no records are kept of the buyer/owner, or the transactions made with them (like if you sell one of them to another private investor, even in a dark backalley), and they must be honored (paid) by the issuer with up-front cash with no further questions. A smart move from Hans... (and this is why now bearer bonds are prohibited in most countries in the world, and all transactions with bonds and similar papers need to be registered, also as an anti-money laundering measure).

*** As brought up by WebVideo/CinemaSins, this actually implies a different form of fridge logic - the film is set after America's Fiscal Responsibility Act came into enforcement. So what sort of shady dealings was Nakatomi involved in to be carrying that much untraceable currency?
*** They could conceivably have bought the bonds from multiple entities (federal, municipal, corporate, etc.)and come up with the total $640M. Not necessarily shady, though pretty unusual.

** The bearer bonds are probably a holdover from the original novel the film is based on, where the terrorists are sincere rather than just pretending to be terrorists, and the corporation involved was profiting from arms dealing. In the movie itself the only hints that anything isn't on the up and up with Nakatomi are the scene where Hans admires the model, which is apparently a model of a Nakatomi facility being built somewhere in the world that Takagi is possibly a little too quick to protest is all being built legally and without exploitation, and the bearer bonds themselves. At best, it hints at some sort of corporate tax dodging or embezzlement of some kind. At worst, it's trying to hide some kind of ill gotten profits by using an untraceable currency.

[[folder:Die Hard]]* How the hell did the police dispatch ''not'' urgently send a squad car (or two) down after John's warning about Hans, and '''''also''''' hearing [[spoiler:shots fired]], since they didn't hang up after dismissing John's call? [[RealityIsUnrealistic Unless, of course...]]

* How the hell did the police dispatch ''not'' urgently send a squad car (or two) down after John's warning about Hans, and '''''also''''' hearing [[spoiler:shots fired]], since they didn't hang up after dismissing John's call? [[RealityIsUnrealistic Unless, of course...]]

* It has been some time since I watch the fourth movie (which I consider the worst of the series), but I do vaguely remember a scene where the Big Bad reads aloud all the info about John [=McClane=]. That is his cop pension and family information, but NOTHING about John being a virtual superhero, who fought off three terrorist threats in the past. For that matter, how did John manage to remain a regular detective after all of the events in previous films?
** The purpose of that scene is that BigBad reads information that ''should'' be secure as a way of telling John just how good his hackers are in order to intimidate him. Everyone knows John [=McClane=] saved the hostages at Nakatomi Plaza, so there's no point in saying that. He then blanks those accounts to try and use it as leverage--immediately after, he tells John that if he kills the kid, he'll put it all right back and then wipe out his debts on top of that because he's just such a nice guy. Sure, it's a little bit of WrongGenreSavvy that the guy doesn't realize that he's following in the footsteps of three dead guys, but that's pretty standard for a villain.\\\
As for managing to stay a regular detective, well, what else is he supposed to do? Life goes on even after stopping a terrorist threat a couple times, so he's going to continue doing his job. Stopping three attacks over the span of a decade is, yes, somewhat above average, but it doesn't make you a "virtual superhero"--especially considering he almost certainly had to spend weeks recovering from each--and it doesn't mean you can just retire and live the high life. As the third movie showed, even being John [=McClane=] and saving your wife from two terrorist attacks doesn't mean you can even save your marriage.
*** Not to mention that while John thrives in a crisis, from what we see of his life outside those crises he does struggle to manage his day-to-day life. His life, frankly, is a self destructive mess; it is more a miracle he manages to stay a detective in the first place. It is likely all his juice as a celebrity is spent on just not getting himself fired. Sure a smarter and less self destructive person might be able to parlay those events into promotions and maybe even a speaking tour and (ghostwritten) book, but that person ain't John [=McClane=].

* In ''Die Hard 4.0'', the bad guys have hired a whole bunch of hackers to get their code in place, but to stop them talking have placed bombs in their computers that go off when they press a particular key after delivering the code. Wouldn't it have been easier to use a remote detonator? It's not as if they were short of resources as they even had a hit squad in place to take out the target in case they avoided the bomb.
** Most people aren't really smart enough to realize that computers don't just blow up. A squad of guys filing out of a van is more suspicious than a critical hardware failure.
*** True, but the point is the bad guys ''did'' set up the hackers' computers to explode but in a really stupid way - if you assume that the hackers aren't going to notice the bomb (which our hero didn't) why not have it set off remotely so you don't need to send in the SWAT team? And if you can't, for some reason (the receiver would have to be too big, or something) then at least have it activated by a key that he's much more likely to press (like the "Space Bar"). Team Evil's actions only served to point John [=McClane=] in the direction of the plot!
*** To answer why they didn't use space, it's because the bomb (or possibly something they programmed into the computer) caused the system to hang. What's the first thing they do when the computer hangs. Control alt delete.
*** Yes, we know ''how'' the bomb works, but the point is, making a bomb that requires the target to detonate it is a ''stupid thing to do'' when it's entirely possible to make one you can blow up whenever the hell you feel like it.
*** Even size doesn't excuse it. Considering that they were obviously able to get into the targets' homes, get to their computers, and plant the explosive without being noticed, they could just as easily have planted a remote bomb elsewhere in the home or room. Or even have placed a secondary bomb in case the first one failed for some reason (like it did here).
*** They pull up in the van, and they activate/upload some kind of "virus" which causes the computer to lock up. When the hackers hit the delete key to try and clear the bug for whatever reason, it detonates the block of C4. They try and focus it a little, to make sure they get the guy. If for whatever reason the C4 doesn't detonate, they call in the French guys to finish the job. It's a little convoluted, but then again, this is from the mind of a guy who initiated the world's largest ever cyberterrorism attack ''as a cover'' to stealing loads of money.
*** This seems to prove that they can not only plant explosives in the house but also send just about whatever transmission into the house while sitting outside. The reason this is [FridgeLogic] is that by making the bomb contingent on pressing a button on the keyboard it means that the hacker is near the computer when it explodes, which seems sensible. But that's negated if you have a guy in a van outside watching the house who can see the hacker and tell when he's near the bomb.
*** I always thought the explanation was disturbingly simple. Gabriel is an arrogant, sick, fuck who simply enjoys the thought that these other lesser nerds will actively end their own lives by failing to notice he is the uber-nerd and has rigged their own computers against them. The whole thing is as much about his salving his wounded ego as it is about the money.
*** Blowing the computer served a secondary function. It ensured that if any of the hackers kept a record of what they'd done, it was destroyed, and that no one investigating the blast would find anything about the kids' doings.
*** Simple. Setting up the bomb to go off when you hit the delete key ensures that the hacker is in proximity to the bomb. Remote detonating it with your own gear runs the risk that the hacker might get up to take a piss or lean back or otherwise be in a position to not get exploded. But if he's leaning over his keyboard and hitting the delete key, he's right there up close to the bomb.
*** Yeah, but they've got a dude ''right there'' on the next roof watching anyway. It's not like they'd be remote detonating it at random, they seem to be pretty easily able to look into the rooms, so they oughta be able to tell when the guy's around.
*** Now, see, at this point I've given you a perfectly good reason for why to hook it up to the delete key, and you're just saying "But they still could have done it some other way!" So frankly it looks less like you're asking "Why did they do it this way?" and more like you're saying "I've caught the scriptwriters being dumb! Praise me!" and don't want to listen to other thoughts on the matter.
** The virus wasn't transmitted by the van. It was transmitted in the final transaction between Gabriel's people and the hackers. The van was just there to make sure it went off and to observe.
*** Except that it was transmitted from the van. There was even a fancy pop-up that said "uploading virus."
** There's another possible explanation - they're trying to avoid leaving evidence. Yeah, the exploded hacker smeared across the walls is a bit suspicious, but as mentioned above, it seems like a lot of people don't know that computers don't just blow up. Identifying chemical residue as plastic explosive takes longer than identifying some debris recovered from the site as a remote detonator or a timer. Rigging it to the computer itself so the hacker detonates the bomb himself eliminates that evidence. The end effect is it buys them a little more time to enact their plan. It's still a stretch, but less so than "we just wanted to make it complicated."
*** Or maybe the intention was to make it look like the hackers has rigged ''their own'' computers with explosives as a self-destruct mechanism - a drastic means of destroying evidence if ''they'' came under suspicion of individual online crimes - but had accidentally triggered a premature and far larger explosion than they'd planned. It wouldn't be the first time a novice bomb-maker blew themselves up by mistake, after all.
* The crimes that all of the villains commit in the entire Die Hard series are so much worse than the crime that they are trying to cover up.\\
Let see: Armed robbery moderate to length sentence. \\
Terrorism: The death penalty...extrajudicial murder...Guantanamo.\\
And why do the amounts they are trying to steal have to be so ridiculously large? The majority of people on Earth will never make more than a few million dollars in their entire lives. So I can believe people would do anything to get a million or two. $640 million dollars (Die Hard #1) was (and is) completely ludicrous.
** Yes, but they're counting on ''not being caught''. Remember what Hans said? "If you steal 600 million, they will find you, unless they think you're already dead."\\\
And why ''shouldn't'' the money they're stealing be a huge amount? If you're going to risk the kind of things you just pointed out, there should be a significant payback. Also, keep in mind the 640 million was originally going to be split between like 20 guys.
*** There were 13 terrorists total (Hans, 11 gunmen including Karl, and Theo, the computer expert) so splitting $640 million between them would have netted each member of the group about $49.2 million. That would be about $89.5 million in 2011 dollars, more than enough money to live on for the rest of your life. Plus, Hans makes a quip at one point that the group will "be sitting on a beach, earning 20%." Not only are they getting a big payday, they'll be earning interest on it too! Yeah, well worth the "terrorist" label the media and police will pin on them.
*** And that's assuming an even split, which most jobs like this do not do. Hans and the computer expert would have likely taken the largest shares with the gunmen taking smaller shares.
** A million dollars doesn't make you rich nowadays anymore. Retiring with a million dollar in the bank is possible, but you'd have to watch your spending for the rest of your life. Then, any number of [=CEOs=] demonstrate that once you DO have enough so that you can never ever realistically spend it, acquiring even more obscene amounts of money becomes an end in itself.
*** Yes, a million dollars still makes you rich.
*** A million dollars may be life-changing money, and may make you rich compared to most of humanity, but it doesn't make you rich by Los Angeles standards (where I live). You can't even buy a rich person's house for that much money, you'd need a lot more than that to live like a king for the rest of your life.
*** Well, it's a good thing they weren't planning on staying in Los Angeles, then.
** Killing someone while committing a felony is a capital offense in most states, California included. So technically they were all at risk for the death penalty the moment the reception clerk was headshot. The point isn't to avoid the penalties. It's to throw the cops off. The authorities will approach the situation differently if they think it's terrorists than if they think it's a heist. Makes them easier to manipulate.
* In "With A Vengeance" we get a big speech about how safe the binary liquid bombs are until they are mixed and they'll never explode. Which begs the question why none of the characters on finding a bomb that hasn't mixed yet doesn't simply rip out the mixing tubes (or in the case of the bomb in the school, take a fire axe to the tubes.) Remember, till they mix, there's nothing to explode.
** Well, the one guy mentions something about the one in the school probably being booby-trapped, but that aside, yeah. You'd think someone would at least {{lampshade|hanging}} what seems to be a fairly obvious weakness in the bomb's design.
** Even with booby traps, they should be able to drain the fluid from one of the tanks. I don't think there is a booby trap that triggers the bomb if someone drills a hole in one of the tanks. If they're worried about the decreased weight of the tank triggering the bomb, they could either replace the fluid with water or drain it really fast so there isn't enough liquid left for the bomb to explode.
*** Hmm, this idea [[Series/BreakingBad sounds familiar]]...
*** They may not have wanted to risk it.
** And let's not forget that, if you cut the mixing tubes, it doesn't even matter if it's booby trapped or not. If the liquids don't mix, the bomb won't work.
*** Let's not forget that [=McClane=] and Zeus were specifically confronted with a puzzle bomb where they had to match an exact amount of liquid. So the bombers clearly know how to set a bomb triggered by fluid weight and the cops couldn't risk a similar device triggering the school bomb.
** This is probably overthinking it, but it could theoretically be booby trapped to destroy or release the contents of all canisters if the device is messed with. Considering that the mixed substance is detonated by physical shock rather than ignition (or a mix of the two) it would still be pretty dangerous if mixed together outside of the bomb. (And say, all over the floor around your feet.)
*** Or, the bomb could simply be booby-trapped with a small amount of C4. It doesn't blow up the school, but it at least takes out the EOD tech, and usually one fatality is enough to make the person in charge at the scene say, "hold on, let's wait for someone to think of something else."
*** Not to mention, if the "small amount of C4" goes off, the holding tanks would be breached. Back to the "all over the floor around your feet" theory.
** Another problem is that, being the expert bomb makers they are they might have had a kind of motion sensitive trap, basically any kind of vibration over a certain amount say by, drilling a hole into the tanks, may activate the bomb, moving the bomb doesn't activate it but the continual vibration of a drill might have.
* In the first movie, [=McClane=] jumps off the exploding roof, swings through a window, and then runs into the lobby, just in time for the elevator to explode. What on earth made the elevator explode?

* In ''Die Hard'', how are Hans & co planning to exchange all the 100 000 $ papers without people noticing? Let alone one?

* ''Film/AGoodDayToDieHard'': An armed American drone over Moscow airspace? Seriously?
** Considering our current President wants to have armed American drones flying over our own airspace, why would flying one over Moscow be all that unbelievable?
*** There is a ''world'' of difference between having drones flying over your own airspace and having drones fly over the airspace of another sovereign country entirely.
*** And that hasn't stopped Obama from blowing up people in plenty of those other sovereign countries, has it?
*** There's also a world of difference between having drones flying over the airspace of a foreign country that you're in acknowledged conflict with and flying over the airspace of one you don't.
*** America isn't at war with Yemen, didn't stop Obama from murdering Abdulrahman al-Awlaki with a drone missile strike in Yemen. So there's clearly not as much difference as you think.
*** Uh, yeah there is. Yemen's air defence system isn't quite on par with Russia's, so the risk of the drone being spotted is significantly higher. An American-made drone being discovered and taken down at the same time as an attempt is made by an unknown party to break free a political prisoner and murder countless civilians? That wouldn't look too good. The difference isn't about morality, it's about the risk of being caught and the potential repercussions of that happening. That clear enough for you, Sparky?
*** It has been revealed more recently that the NSA has been spying on allied countries. While this is mostly in the form of wiretapping, it isn't out of the question in what is otherwise a simple action flick, for a drone to appear over Russian skies. Keep in mind, the US did send an armed drone over the Philippines back in 2012 and took out a village in the process in order to sniff out some terrorists.
*** Yemen and the Philippines are not nuclear powers. Russia is. Invading their airspace with military aircraft without their permission is a technical act of war, and while Yemen and the Philippines are vastly unlikely to declare war on the United States regardless of provocation, the freaking ''world ends'' if Russia chooses to do that. Rationally speaking, it should never have been risked at all even if the risk was only slight, because if the risk ''doesn't'' pan out, its the Apocalypse.
* Did John and Jack drive all the way from Moscow to Chernobyl? Across the border? I really hope I'm missing something here...
** WritersCantDoGeography maybe? And if that's not a trope, it should be.
*** That's covered under ArtisticLicenseGeography. "Artistic license" is a better term because it allows for the fact that sometimes writers are aware that things don't work that way but write them that way anyway for the sake of a story. Not everyone considers accuracy to be the primary factor in determining if something is good.

* In ''Die Hard With a Vengeance'', [=McClane=] and Zeus defuse a bomb in a park, and then carry it with them because some kids might be hurt. When they hand it over to the bad guys' {{Mooks}}, posing as cops, one starts to leave it behind when they're called back to base, [[EvenEvilHasStandards only for his partner to berate him for leaving it where it could hurt some kids]]. [[spoiler:When it later turns out the bomb planted in a school was a distraction, Simon points out that he could never hurt children, as he's not a monster.]]--{{Tropers.Jonn}}
** Also note that the bombs he *does* set off are in a storefront before business hours and in the subway station under Wall Street, neither of which would likely have any kids in it on a work day.
** However, when the first fake cop is finished berating his friend for considering leaving it, they take it with them. They later [[spoiler:use this bomb to blow up the dam, flooding the aqueduct. It was a live bomb. Simon may be a monster after all.]] That said, he may have anticipated the Good Samaritan's actions.
*** Think of Simon's plan: he '''wants''' [=McClane=] to [[spoiler:succeed all the way, only failing at the near impossible task of cutting across town to reach the destination train station. As part of this plan,]] the bomb's not going to go off, is it? -- Tropers/{{wkz}}

* So in ''Good Day to Die Hard'', the bad guys have a seemingly magical chemical that can somehow eliminate radiation in an area to the point of being able to breathe and walk around without gas masks or protective suits. If that sort of chemical existed, whoever invented it should get the Nobel prize because that would eliminate all the nuclear waste and contamination problems in the world ever.
** There IS a gas called Brown's Gas that is capable of accelerating the rate at which radiation decays, reducing the amount of time before the area is safe to be outside of a hazmat suit, but it does not work NEARLY the same way as was shown in the movie. scientists estimate that it will be 20,000 years before the area around Chernobyl becomes habitable again, and if Brown's Gas were used then it would reduce that time... to a few hundred or a few thousand years. I'm not sure by exactly how much it would accelerate the decay. And even if it DID work the way it was shown in the movie, they would need to spray ALL of Chernobyl and the entire surrounding area with that spray, not just the small area we were shown, an operation that would take weeks or months without a crop duster and a huge crew of people.
*** Also, the claims that Brown's Gas can even do this are somewhat disputed, after looking a few things up on Google, I found that it's Wikipedia page lists this under "Fringe Science." There were several sites that said the gas CAN be used this way, but none of them looked like trustworthy sites.
** Even if we are generous with our WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief and just accept that such a wonder-chemical exists in the ''Die Hard'' universe - why then wasn't that chemical already used years ago by the official authorities to decontaminate Chernobyl?
** It is quite possible that this "Super Chemical" has numerous side effects in large amounts, like instability, or only blocks radiation for a small amount of time, such as a possible lead based decontaminant, or was too expensive to manufacture en masse, using only a little to make sure they made a profit from their sale, I like to think its the fact that it was a "fix" as so much a "band-aid" too make it safe to get what they needed then go.

** I assumed Karl didn't hear him the first time, as Hans gives the German order quietly. He then has the idea to repeat it loudly in English not just for Karl and the audience's benefit, but because he ''wants'' McClane to hear. If McClane knows what's about to happen, he'll either a) break cover and try and run before Karl can do it, making himself an easier target; b) break cover in an attempt to kill Karl before Karl can do it, making himself an easier target; c) be trapped where he is, making him an easier target. If he somehow manages to escape, he'll likely be crippled from running barefoot over glass and much less of a threat. Whichever he picks, it gives Hans a definite advantage.
* In ''Die Hard 4.0'', the bad guys have hired a whole bunch of hackers to get their code in place, but to stop them talking have placed bombs in their computers that go off when they press a particular key (delete, I think) after delivering the code. Wouldn't it have been easier to use a remote detonator? It's not as if they were short of resources as they even had a hit squad in place to take out the target in case they avoided the bomb.
** Most people aren't really smart enough, I don't think, to realize that computers don't just blow up. A squad of guys filing out of a van is more suspicious than a critical hardware failure.

*** Well, the way I saw it, they pull up in the van, and they activate/upload some kind of "virus" which causes the computer to lock up. When the hackers hit the delete key to try and clear the bug for whatever reason, it detonates the block of C4. They try and focus it a little, to make sure they get the guy. If for whatever reason the C4 doesn't detonate, they call in the French guys to finish the job. It's a little convoluted, but then again, this is from the mind of a guy who initiated the world's largest ever cyberterrorism attack ''as a cover'' to stealing loads of money.

* I can't locate the reference for this on cracked.com, but here's something that has always bugged me: The crimes that all of the villains commit in the entire Die Hard series are so much worse than the crime that they are trying to cover up.\\

*** I just did the math on it. There were 13 terrorists total (Hans, 11 gunmen including Karl, and Theo, the computer expert) so splitting $640 million between them would have netted each member of the group about $49.2 million. That would be about $89.5 million in 2011 dollars, more than enough money to live on for the rest of your life. Plus, Hans makes a quip at one point that the group will "be sitting on a beach, earning 20%." Not only are they getting a big payday, they'll be earning interest on it too! Yeah, well worth the "terrorist" label the media and police will pin on them.

* I put this in the Fridge Entry, but maybe it's more suitable here: In ''Die Hard'', how are Hans & co planning to exchange all the 100 000 $ papers without people noticing? Let alone one?
** Check the Fridge Entry, just answered this for you on there.

*** I just watched Die Hard for the first time a few days ago (Merry Christmas), and this was absolutely my interpretation: Hans 100% knew what Takagi looked like; he was just increasing the tension to prove a point.

** I always assumed the young policewoman who was talking to him didn’t have enough experience to know exactly what gunfire transmitted over a radio sounds like, so she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a prank. It could have been Kevin from Home Alone setting off fireworks in a pot. If it was true, then that would provoke a rather large response (as seen later), so she’d be understandably hesitant to bring that about without further proof. And sending a single car was smarter, actually, since it wouldn’t necessarily tip the terrorists that the police knew about them and wouldn’t be more targets for them to shoot at.

** This is an action movie, in a franchise of five which are not particularly realistic, so "shatterproof glass" is not really in effect. They didn't show how the glass was broken, but if they had they probably would have given a handwave that he broke through it (or at least softened it up first before throwing the body through) with the butt of his [=HK94=], like when he bashed off the vent so he could go down the air duct.

** This is an action movie, in a franchise of five which are not particularly realistic, so "shatterproof glass" is not really in effect. They didn't show how the glass was broken, but if they had they probably would have given a handwave that he broke through it (or at least softened it up first before throwing the body through) with the butt of his HK94, like when he bashed off the vent so he could go down the air duct.

** It is quite possible that this "Super Chemical" has numerous side effects in large amounts, like instablilty, or only blocks radiation for a small amount of time, such as a possible lead based decontaminant, or was too expensive to manufacture en masse, using only a little to make sure they made a profit from their sale, I like to think its the fact that it was a "fix" as so much a "band-aid" too make it safe to get what they needed then go.

** Look, even for Headscratchers at some point this all just starts to look unnecessarily pedantic and nitpicky. The point of an action thriller like ''Die Hard'' is to place the protagonist in escalating situations of peril which he must find a way out of until he or she reaches the final climax, and in order to maintain tension this necessarily involves making his life harder, not easier. You set up a situation (the hero has no shoes), think of a problem (there's people shooting at him), create further complications to the problem (there's also broken glass on the floor) and offer a solution (there's an exit! He can escape the people shooting at him!), while also setting up the ''next'' problem the hero has to face (to do so, the hero has to run across broken glass, injuring his feet). Having John go back and get his shoes or piss about brushing glass off the floor defuses the tension and/or acts as an unnecessary distraction from the main plot; so, in order that the plot moves forward and tension is maintained or escalated, John must walk around barefoot. So you can point out possible solutions till the cows come home, but ultimately that just reflects worse on you than the writers in this case, because you're the one too busy complaining about the tree to notice the bigger forest.

** AllAsiansLookAlike? Either that or he was just putting on a show for the hostages, showing them that he was an intelligent man who had done his research, and not some thug who could be easily outsmarted or manipulated.