MovieChat Forums > Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) Discussion > Ending not much worse than the first.

Ending not much worse than the first.

posted 10 years ago by vh8686
16 replies | jump to latest

There's been some complaints about the whole North of the Border scene, and sure its lacking... but the end of the first one featured the dead blonde guy coming back to life and being shot by the cop with the overly dramatic and cliched sob story.

Ok so there isn't a nice cranked up frame rate slow motion shot of him dying which was a nice way to see Hans go out in the first one , but it does't have the "oh no the killer's still alive" vibe that kinda lames it up a bit.

[–] fjk1138-731-161881 8 years ago

The only thing that bothered me was that he could hit those wires with a snub-nosed revolver from that distance. But it's a movie after all...

[–] GreenGoblinsOckVenom86 8 years ago

I don't mind the ending but I could see some peoples' complaints about the place they're going being written on Simon's bottle of aspirin that he gave McClaine. It also makes the villain look dumb for letting him have that bottle of aspirin with their destination on it.

"I'll be back!" The Terminator

[–] bobbydallas (8523) 7 years ago

The ending and the clue to finding where they are is stupid..

[–] TandyMan (11097) 6 years ago

I've never gotten past the ending. It doesn't ruin this movie, but it does keep it from being truly excellent. More often than not, I turn the movie off before it gets that far! And that's a problem. I've seen this movie hundreds of times over the years and I still can't think of a good ending to the thing, so I feel for the filmmakers. I would have had the bad guy get away in the end, and the real ending to the movie is John finally loses but he puts his family back together. You can't win em all. You try sometimes, you get what you need. That sort of thing. Plus.... juicy open end for a sequel down the road!

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7701) 6 years ago

There was an alternate ending where John tracks Simon down by himself and plays a life or death McClaine says game with him involving a Bazooka. It's just as dumb and silly though. Especially since it's revealed in that ending that the FBI thought John was in league with Simon and he was fired from the police department for it. It makes no sense with what went down and him killing all those thugs of Simon's that they thought he was in league with them.

[–] HelpMeRhonda (1158) 6 years ago

I liked how the first one ended, with him “coming back to life”. When I first it I was about 13, and I remember being shocked and thinking for a split second he was going to kill John or Holly. Then Carl Winslow I mean Al having some redemption was pretty awesome I thought.

Anyway it’s a shame that Die Hard 3 has sort of a contrived ending. The fact that Simon even had aspirin was stupid enough. Still a good movie though.

[–] daveyh (625) a year ago

The biggest thing that ruined it for me was that he said the "yippee ki yay" line afterwards. The lines should have been swapped, and he should have said it before he pulled the trigger, with "say hi to your brother" being uttered after the explosion....ironically caused by the lines being swapped!

[–] quartz (482) a year ago

the main thing I noticed was how computer generated the big explosion on the boat wasn't (because no cg back then obviously). it was literally drawn on by hand and lasted 2 seconds

the Thames boat explosion in London has Fallen (which was in the most in effective place possible. a huge explosion that is literally no where near anything) was the most overdone, inneffective (repeated myself) cg explosion I've never seen

they should have been swapped - the London has Fallen boat explosion should have been a cruddy little thing where most of the shock wave was absorbed by the AIR between the boat and the buildings, and the Die Hard boat explosion should have been a massive computer generated shockwave thing

[–] GetWokeGoBroke (753) 3 months ago

It was still better than Live Free or Die Hard or Die Hard 5's endings.

[–] Tam87 (1189) 3 months ago

Live Free had a decent ending with the F-35 and the bridge, looney tunes stuff but it was fun.

This ending in this film just copied the ending of Die Hard 2 with John taking out the aircraft carrying all the baddies in mid-air as they tried to escape. It was fine for what it is.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7701) 3 months ago

Oh please. A helicopter is not the same as an airplane. Plus shooting high wires with a gun is not like lighting a trail of gasoline on fire.

[–] thingmakersback (1374) 3 months ago

I think we all know that a trail of jet fuel like what we saw in the movie would not be lit by a lighter. You could probably extinguish a flare in the puddle (certainly a match could be put out in it). The only way you could make something like what we saw in the film happen would be by lighting an aerosolized spray from the fuel leak. It's an action movie, though. We understand that physics are suspended...

[–] Tam87 (1189) 3 months ago

It's pure fantasy. Aviation fuel can not be ignited by a zippo, and the fire trail could never catch up with a jet taking off at hundreds of miles an hour. But it works in the Die Hard universe.

[–] thingmakersback (1374) 3 months ago

Yeah... I enjoy these kind of movies but I suspect I would enjoy them even more if I didn't have to keep trying to ignore violations of the laws of physics.

[–] Tam87 (1189) 3 months ago

haha, that's true.

[–] Tam87 (1189) 3 months ago

It is similar, though, with the bad guys escaping on an aircraft and John gets them with a golden BB. I'm not knocking it, though. It's still a good action film and good ending.

Die Hard 2's ending is one of the greatest in action history, possibly the greatest of all time. The idea of lighting a fuel trail that catches up on a rotating 747, killing all the baddies, with the resulting fire trail acting as an improvised runway for the lost jets low on fuel circling above about to crash.

It's no shame if DHWAV copied it slightly, it's the same series, you can't rip off your own film series. It's a homage to how great that scene is in DH2.