MovieChat Forums > Die Hard 2 (1990) Discussion > There’s a Certain Death Total At Which P...

There’s a Certain Death Total At Which Point You No Longer Have a Happy Ending

posted 2 years ago by TMC-4 (20304)
11 replies | jump to latest

https://popculturereferences.com/certain-death-total-at-which-point-no-longer-have-happy-ending/

Today, I discuss the notion that when a film or TV show is set at a certain scale, there’s only so many people that can die in the film/show for it to still have a ‘happy’ ending.

This is the Cronin Theory of Pop Culture, a collection of stuff I’ve noticed over the years that I think hold pretty true.

This one is a bit tricky, since I think it involves scale to a certain degree. For instance, if you’re battling in an intergalactic war, this applies less than if you’re just a regular guy trying to save, say, an office building filled with employees enjoying a Christmas party.

In Die Hard 2, terrorists take control of a busy airport in the middle of a snowstorm so that they can hijack a plane and escaped with a drug lord dictator. John McClane is there to pick up his wife at the airport. He realizes something is wrong, so he tries to stop the bad guys.

One of the most effed up scenes occurs when the villains, who have taken control of the air traffic control tower (and are therefore not allowing any of the many jets circling the major airport to land), try to dissuade McClane and airport security from trying to stop them by using their control of the airport to alter the readings of where the ground is and so when a British jet with 200 people on board is told to land, the ground comes up too quickly and they crash. John valiantly runs to the runway with flares, hoping that he can somehow warn them in time, but he can’t and they all die.

In the end, John has killed all of the bad guys (while their deaths have left a big enough explosion that the other jets can see the runway and land safely, including the jet with John’s wife in it), but I always find that happy ending to be seriously tainted. HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE DEAD! It was one of the biggest death totals in film history at the time!

Compare that to Alderaan being destroyed in the first Star Wars and the scale is so different. When the scale of the conflict is billions of lives, millions of lives lost doesn’t have the same drama.

However, when you’re working on the level of characters like John McClane, your happy endings really aren’t happy when hundreds of innocent people still die.

[–] BOandBarbecue (2264) 2 years ago

the complaining writer render whole rant usless with this lines:

"Compare that to Alderaan being destroyed in the first Star Wars and the scale is so different. When the scale of the conflict is billions of lives, millions of lives lost doesn’t have the same drama."

so if star wars have happy ending with billion dead, die hards 2 does not has happy ending with 100s dead? got it, nerdlingers!

hahahahahah show respekt to a films made before PG-13s ruin action.

[–] moviechatterer (16049) 2 years ago

I thought same , but reading it closer (why did i bother ??)
It seems the author is suggesting that even alderaan was a drop in the ocean to what was at stake there , and therefore a smaller incident than the airplane full of people which was , um lets say , about 5% of the people in danger in that movie (assuming 20 planes circling about)

The author doesent seem to dig into wether the deaths are actual fleshed out characters who's names you know , rather than unseen plane passengers / alderaan citizens - which makes a difference to me

[–] BOandBarbecue (2264) 2 years ago

I can see perspektive. people blown ups by laser size of planet is not very true but peoples dying in horrid-able fiery plane crashes is very possibles and more in minds of average watcher.

however writer should enjoys r-rated action for it is & what it was once upon times before pc libtard ruin for everyone.

[–] rateater (10157) 2 years ago

doesn't mcclane also find a child's doll in the wreckage?

[–] millsey72 (10665) 2 years ago

No kids died in that plane crash. The doll was being held by a grandmother who was flying in DC to give to her grand daughter

[–] moviechatterer (16049) 2 years ago

phew! alls well then

[–] Melton (5034) a year ago

Yes, and you even meet the kid clutching her doll in the workprint version, as well as seeing the passengers roast in the flames. The studio told Harlin to tone it down.

They wanted the villains to just crash a cargo plane killing a couple of pilots but Harlin insisted on a packed passenger jet and wore them down. They were afraid the audience wouldn’t recover from the horror and the OP clearly didn’t.

Harlin’s a psycho. Remember all those loveable characters he created in Cliffhanger… just to kill them off?

[–] caesarves (52) 5 months ago

Geez you are right, Harlin is worse than Verhoeven in some ways

[–] Melton (5034) 5 months ago

He was making horror before action movies and he seems to carry the horror trend of killing off numerous innocent people over into his action fare.

I quite like it as no character is ‘safe’ in a Harlin film (except the lead), but when you get to the end it’s hard to be all ‘yay!’ when 200 innocent men, women and children have been incinerated in a terrorist attack.

[–] TandyMan (11214) 5 months ago

A very heavy film that always blew my mind. The death toll of innocents is so gonzo insane. Made a huge impact on me as a young man. A simple crashed jet with threat to passenger planes would not have carried the same malevolence. Movies be doing that crap all the time. This was Die Hard! The stakes had to be bigger.

[–] Melton (5034) 5 months ago

It gives the film a disaster movie vibe and really makes you sit up and pay attention to Act 2.

There’s a bizarre myth that DH2 is somehow a bad DH film. Bullshit, it’s awesome, and in large part thanks to that scene.

Harlin still boasts that he killed more people in an action movie than any other filmmaker.