History Headscratchers / DieHard

*** You are correct on not all the fake terrorist (mercenary / Bank Robbers) being German. At least two of them are Italian, Franco and Marco. This leaves the possibility of other nationalities as well, Uli and I believe James as well. On an interesting side note, in the German release, the Germam dialogue was converted to English and the German names were changed to English counterparts (i.e. Karl was changed to Charles). This was done because terrorism in then West Germany was too fresh in memory (i.e. Bader-Meinhoff).

*** You are correct on not all the fake terrorist (mercenary / Bank Robbers) not all being German. At least two of them are Italian, Franco and Marco. This leaves the possibility of other nationalities as well, Uli and I believe James as well. On an interesting side note, in the German release, the Germam dialogue was converted to English and the German names were changed to English counterparts (i.e. Karl was changed to Charles). This was done because terrorism in then West Germany was too fresh in memory (i.e. Bader-Meinhoff).

* The one item that "really bugs me" is the idea that any U.S. military would go rogue and turn terrorist / mercenary and turn against a legitimate legal authority. As a veteran of twenty years in the U.S. military, I can confidently state that the U.S. military has a tradition of unviolated obedience to the civilian regime (which is not a derogatory term, Political Science definition being the rules on how power is acquired, shared, and passed on; and may be put in writing. In our case, our regime is written into our Constitution). Unlike other countries, we have been faithful to this tradition since George Washington and the Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783. Put simply, it has never happened nor will it ever happen. This may be mistaken as self-righteous by the unenlightened, but never the less the U.S. military does not do that kind of thing. Given that however, I understand how and why this trope is used. This is Hollywood Logic and comes from those who did not do their homework, failed military history forever, and just simply did not care. This is especially true of any James Cameron or Paul Verhoeven film in depicting us military types. Yes this a common Hollywood thread and is is a given, but the title of this trope is "Just Bugs Me".

* 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 non 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.

* The one item that "really bugs me" is the idea that any U.S. military would go rogue and turn terrorist / mercenary and turn against a legitimate legal authority. As a veteran of twenty years in the U.S. military, I can confidently state that the U.S. military has a tradition of unviolated obedience to the civilian regime (which is not a derogatory term, Political Science definition being the rules on how power is acquired, shared, and passed on; and may be put in writing. In our case, our regime is written into our Constitution). Unlike other countries, we have been faithful to this tradition since George Washington and the Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783. Put simply, it has never happened nor will it ever happen. This may be mistaken as self-righteous by the unenlightened, but never the less the U.S. military does not do that kind of thing. Given that however, I understand how and why this trope is used. This is Hollywood Logic and comes from those who did not do their homework, failed military history forever, and just simply did not care. This is especially true of any James Cameron or Paul Verhoeven film in depicting the us military types. Yes this a common Hollywood thread and is is a given, but the title of this trope is "Just Bugs Me".

* 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 non 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

* 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.
Let see: Armed robbery moderate to length sentence.
Terrorism: The death penalty...extrajudicial murder...Guantanamo.

* John McClane pulls out a machine gun and starts to spray the police chief right in front of a bunch of other cops! And not one of them shoots him down! [[spoiler: OK they were blanks, but the other cops had no way of knowing that...]]

<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

* In ''Die Harder'': I know that security was decidely more lenient pre-9/11, but I'm still positive that they would not have let anybody bring an electric stun-gun on to a plane. In fact, from ''Die Hard'', it would have been pretty hard for John to bring his gun on the plane, without having to check it, regardless of the fact that he is a cop (When a cop is off-duty, they're essentially a civilian)

* John McClane pulls out a machine gun and starts to spray the police chief right in front of a bunch of other cops! And not one of them shoots him down! {{spoiler: OK they were blanks, but the other cops had no way of knowing that...}}

****** 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.

** Maybe [=McClane=] has really big feet?