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Live Free or Die Hard (2007) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction (Patreon)

Published:
2025-12-09 10:00:18
Edited:
2025-12-09 18:13:01
Imported:
2026-08
Tags:

Content

So fun to kick back to John McClane's shenanigans. 🤣

Enjoy the reaction!

✦ KL

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Live Free or Die Hard (2007) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction

Comments

Chris Elkins

For me I rank this series Die Hard 1, 3, 4, 2 at times 3 is my favorite never seen the 5th for the reasons you mentioned. I figured you would get into this movie once the hacking part started. As far as the villain I think the fact we mostly saw him taking over the hacking and phone dialogue when needed and not seeing his in person interactions till the end make's him less intimidating than other villains.

Tyler Foster

"Live Free or Die" is the state motto of New Hampshire. Not that its origins matters in the movie, but because the phrase is very American, the studio thought that Live Free or Die Hard would not mean anything outside North America, so the movie is called Die Hard 4.0 elsewhere. There may be other Kevin Smiths in Hollywood, but if I understand things correctly, one of the rules with SAG/WGA/DGA etc. is that you can't have the same name as another member. Michael J. Fox, for example, is Michael J. Fox because there was already a Michael Fox in the Screen Actors Guild. There are parameters to these rules -- like maybe if the other Michael Fox had been dead when Michael J. Fox started acting, there would be no chance of them getting confused, so the guild wouldn't have asked him to change his name, but there are some sort of guild instructions on making sure one artist won't get confused with another. Fun fact: the first four Die Hard movies all have unique source material stories. In 1966, Roderick Thorp wrote a book called The Detective, which was adapted into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra. When they adapted the second book into Die Hard, legally, they had to offer Sinatra the role first, which he turned down. Die Hard changes the name of the main character and alters the story, but the bones are there. In a fascinating twist, Die Hard 2 is based on 58 Minutes, an unrelated novel by an entirely different author. Die Hard With a Vengeance was based on a screenplay called Simon Says, which was initially bought by Warner Bros. and rewritten into a Lethal Weapon sequel. When that fell apart, then it was snatched up by Fox and made into Die Hard 3. Finally, this one is based on "A Farewell to Arms" by John Carlin, a non-fiction article about digital wargames testing hypothetical response scenarios that appeared in Wired Magazine. Perhaps the reason Die Hard 5 sucks is because it's the only film in the franchise that was written as a Die Hard movie and not based on anything else. When the movie was released in 2007, you would probably not believe the amount of discourse there was surrounding Bruce Willis's bald head. It was probably the #2 controversy surrounding the movie, that he had hair in the other three but was bald now, and people were upset because to them it felt like a different character. The #1 controversy was that the movie was the first in the franchise to be rated PG-13 instead of R, and because "motherfucker" is not allowed in a PG-13, people knew that even John's trademark line would be censored (they cover up the "fucker" part with the sound of the gunshot). There is an Unrated version, but I have very mixed feelings about it. Some of the additional language makes the movie feel more like a Die Hard movie, but some of it just feels extraneous, and -- more distractingly -- almost all of the blood and language is added in post. Even though I like the way these make the movie feel more like its predecessors, much of the swearing is John just saying "Fuck!" when his mouth is covered or you're not seeing his face, and except for one random death (a technician who gets shot at the Eastern Power Hub they visit), all of the blood is digitally added to bullet hits and looks bad. Also, I learned on the commentary that the MPAA could give a film an R rating simply due to intensity of conceptual violence: the director Len Wiseman mentions that they had to reduce the number of bullet hits in Matt's apartment on the walls and stuff, because the MPAA considered that "too violent." I would generally say that I like this movie, and I would rank it over Die Hard 2, but it's definitely a significant step down from Die Hard and Die Hard With a Vengeance. I agree that McClane can be a little too mean-spirited (the way the script goes for laughs regarding his comments about Mai feels a little unpleasant in a way that McClane has never been before). More importantly, I think I would just adjust some of the stunts and actions to fill in McClane's thinking. For example: when they enter the tunnel, I would have changed it so one of the booths is being repaired and there is some construction stuff surrounding it, including a flatbed cart of some kind. When the helicopter is shooting at McClane and Farrell, show it getting tilted, so it forms a ramp. When they've escaped the out-of-control car after the lights go out, McClane looks at the end of the tunnel, sees the helicopter, sees the flatbed forming a ramp, and *then* gets into the car to launch it at the helicopter. Now instead of it just being this random thing that happens, it's a plan that he makes and executes. It doesn't make it any more realistic, but it feels less arbitrary just putting in his thought process. Same deal with blasting the guy out of the copter with the fire hydrant. He turns the corner, the copter is there, there's a brief showdown of them just looking at each other. He sees the fire hydrant, whip pan up to the copter like it's his POV, and then he charges it and blasts the guy. These sorts of little changes would make the film better, I believe. The main thing I like about the action, however, is how much of it involves stuntpeople and practical action -- even when the movie is not crafted in a way that emphasizes it. For example: they hung a real helicopter from a crane and actually flung a cop car through it, even though the effect looks slightly more fake because they added the guy jumping out of it. For the scene in the elevator shaft, they built an actual three-story elevator shaft set and hung a real SUV inside. Even the scene of McClane and Farrell ducking, where a flying car bounces off two other cars that happen to drive up, there is behind-the-scenes of the spinning car on a big rotisserie-like contraption (but the added lighting effects, speed, and computer-generated glass added end up making it look more fake, not to mention they have to digitally remove the rig). Smith did some uncredited rewrites on the script in addition to appearing in the movie. As he describes it, during production, they kept saying that the scene with the Warlock was their exposition dump, so if something wasn't clear, they would explain it in that scene. When they got to that scene and Smith arrived, they had nothing written yet, so Smith was enlisted to help make sure his scene cleared up any loose ends. There was a whole journey between Smith and Willis: they enjoyed working on this quite a bit, so Smith later enlisted Willis to work on a film he directed. The later film was made much closer to when Willis's faculties started to show signs of problems (years before he would actually retire; in fact, more than a decade), and Willis also didn't love some of Smith's style of directing. Later, Smith would describe getting a phone call from Willis excited to work together, despite their collaboration being a disaster, and how he realized in retrospect that the call and his obliviousness to the other movie they made was due to his condition. In Smith's third lengthy "Evening With Kevin Smith" special, there is a discussion of working with him on this, and then in some of the others (before the diagnosis) there are some sort of "scorched earth" anecdotes where Smith talked about hating having worked with him. These days, knowing what Willis was going through, he's softened quite a bit. You've seen Maggie Q in Mission: Impossible 3, where she played team member Zhen. In interviews around the time of Die Hard 5, Willis expressed a desire for the series to scale up with each entry. First movie was a building, second movie was an airport, third movie was New York City, fourth movie was North America, the fifth movie goes to Russia (the one single thing I kind of liked about the movie was the tagline "Yippie Ki Yay Mother Russia"), and Willis envisioned that the unmade sixth film would be some sort of global threat. Len Wiseman was also enlisted to direct again, after having done this one. Later, the project evolved into something else (no doubt due to Willis' condition) where the sixth film would've been split between McClane in prison, involved in some sort of situation in the present day, intercut with flashbacks to a pre-Die Hard McClane as a beat cop on an early case that tied to the present-day one. Lastly, you are correct, Cyril Raffaelli is a famous parkour guy. In France, he and David Belle even made a duology of action movies that are built around parkour, called District B13 and the sequel D13: Ultimatum. I don't remember the second that well, but the first one is fun.

Steve Mercier

So, for me, it goes Die Hard...and then a lot of space...and then Die Hard 3 (which is also awesome, just not as awesome as the original), and then...a little more space...this one. Not a big fan of Die Hard 2, which to me just feels like a far less superior retread of its predecessor; and Die Hard 5 doesn't even actually exist. so I'm not sure what everyone else is talking about. This one brings the fun in large part due to Bruce and Justin Long's fantastically antagonistic chemistry. If I have any complaints, it's that McClane is a bit of superhero here who, eh, rides on the back of a jet (*ahem*), and is less like the underdog everyman we started with; but, to be fair--jet-riding silliness aside--he has done this three times before, so maybe a little superhero badassery is actually earned. And I love the fact that John completely gets his ass handed to him by skinny little Maggie Q, and ultimately has to defeat her with a car. Oh, and Kevin Smith. Also, it doesn't say, and your intro didn't mention it, but I'm assuming this is the theatrical PG-13 version, and not the actually less compelling (but swear-ier) unrated version? Hope so. Either way, good shit.

Tyler Foster

This is the PG-13 version, yes.

Tyler Foster

Oh, also, I was going to say: it's a delightfully silly movie, so if your interest is in realism then maybe not, but I hope the legendary and iconic Hackers (1995) is on your hacking movie list, because if I were picking one, I'd pick that one.

Movies with KL

I have noted that one. Thanks for all the info, Tyler!

Death Lego

Banging choice. A lovely counter to the post 2000's trend of 'this needs to be more grounded in reality'. Yes, that has to have it's place too. Maybe this trend took over a tad more than was necessary. There's a place for these, fuck it, it's a movie, and I'm enjoying the over the topness of it all. I do agree, the John McClane quips perhaps had more of an acerbic edge to them, comparatively. Older and more jaded John vs his younger wisecracking nature probably couldn't be more successfully summed up, than by his statement on what has it all been for in the end. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time has had it's costs. Or more so, this is who he is, he's the one that can't walk away. This probably goes beyond the big events he's envolved in. Being a hero is knowing the cost, being afraid, and doing it anyway. Nicely rounded off by their final exchange in the ambulance.