Joe Frazier and Ernie Shavers were considered for Clubber; Billy Graham for Thunderlips; Morgan Freeman for Clubber’s trainer; and several actors or wrestlers are proposed as alternatives.
This discussion recalls a choice from an earlier episode.
Confusing plot and villain motives; faxed fingerprints; glide-slope sabotage; uncharismatic Esperanza; no diversions to other airports; non-igniting jet fuel; villains' escape plan; blanks fired in an office; double agents on the detail
Faxing fingerprints from a corpse is questioned as flawed 1990 technology.
The plot is found confusing; Wikipedia's synopsis of Esperanza's extradition and Stuart's sympathizers raises the question of why anyone would kill hundreds for him.
Only two Justice Department officials meet the plane even though cable news covers the extradition constantly; who pays the villains, the anti-communist explanation, the extradition treaty and the destination all remain murky.
Internet sources say changing the glide-slope value would not crash a plane because instruments have safeguards.
Esperanza lacks the charisma of Rickman or Jeremy Irons, and splitting villainy among Sadler, Nero and Amos causes overload.
Circling planes are not diverted to nearby airports such as Baltimore or Philadelphia; the Christmas-week crowds are questioned.
Nobody recognizes McClane, and online sources say jet fuel at that temperature would not ignite from a thrown lighter.
Had McClane not ignited their plane, what was the villains' plan: would military planes not shoot them down, and did they really expect to retire to the tropics?
McClane proves the guns hold blanks by firing a clip at Lorenzo in an office full of armed people.
How John Amos's team of double agents got assigned to Dulles, and why the one loyal soldier was brought along only to be killed, go unexplained.
The segment opens with a death-toll question: the internet says 114, though the crashed flight alone seemed to hold about 200.
Valverde appears in both films, but Commando remains its apex because that movie actually goes there.
An apex case for Willis rests on this film outgrossing the first, but the earlier Die Hard verdict is unresolved; he spent the capital on risks such as Bonfire of the Vanities, Hudson Hawk, Billy Bathgate, Mortal Thoughts and Last Boy Scout.
Snowmobile chases are raised, with The Living Daylights and Inception offered as rivals; for Franz, NYPD Blue has to be the apex.
For Harlin, The Long Kiss Goodnight is the favorite, but this, his most successful film, is his apex; Deep Blue Sea may be what he is best known for, Cliffhanger is loved, and Cutthroat Island pulled him down.
More apex picks: Oliver North-style villains, evil John Amos, Willis's pre-thinning hair, and Bonnie Bedelia at her 1990 peak with this and Presumed Innocent; airport-set movies come down to this or Airplane.
Icicle eye stabbings get a yes, but Single White Female keeps the top eye stabbing; X is mentioned as a current horror film with a notable one.
Two late additions: public airphones, and the debate over whether Sadler's fully nude tai chi tops Swayze's half-nude tai chi in Roadhouse, left unsettled.
Die Hard 2 may have invented the recreational taser, but The Hangover, or possibly Jackass, is its apex.
First digital composite with matte painting; Black & Decker lawsuit; reduced Leguizamo role; Amos-Willis tension; wet prints; Valverde shared with Commando
It was the first film to digitally composite live-action footage with a scanned matte painting, used for the final runway scene.
Black & Decker paid for a cordless-drill placement in a Willis scene, sued Fox for $150,000 when it was cut, and settled out of court.
Leguizamo's autobiography says his role was meant to be bigger until the filmmakers realized how short he was.
John Amos described real tension with Willis during filming and said Willis would never humiliate him in public again; he is compared with an old wrestler airing grievances.
The film was finished so late that it shipped to theaters as a wet print, a phrase proposed as a band or pod name.
Esperanza is a general from Valverde, the same fictional country as Commando, prompting a mock announcement of a Valverde drug-war book.
Baggage-area fight; first McClane-Lorenzo meeting; painters shootout and ramp standoff; ejection and parachute escape; runway fight and fuel-trail landing
First listed: McClane fighting two men in a restricted baggage area, with Vondie Curtis Hall; the cluttered, climbable set is praised and the airport raised as a possible Apex Mountain for airport movies, though it was not actually shot at Dulles.
The first McClane-Lorenzo meeting is quoted, with both actors bringing it; it sets up the trope of an official who is unimpressed by a proven hero, riffed on through an imagined Sully Sullenberger being brushed off.
The metal-detector insult to Carmine is noted as a likely ad-lib whose joke nobody fully understands.
The paintball-style shootout, with sinister painters (including Robert Patrick) ignored by the airport SWAT team, and the suspenseful moving-ramp standoff are nominated.
The plane crash is called the craziest and most horrifying scene in action-movie history; with some 220 deaths quickly moved past, it is judged memorable rather than rewatchable.
After 9/11 such a scene would never be made; the movie is one of the most violent mainstream films, mixing sight gags with a British plane crash that kills about 200 people, after which everyone at Dulles keeps drinking and waiting, and making the passengers unlikable British travelers is called a weird choice.
McClane pushing the crate, taking on Esperanza on the transport plane and ejecting leads to a shot of him parachuting at the camera, called one of the better action-movie shots, though the villains oddly fail to finish him.
The final fight with John Amos and Stuart ends with the plane blown up on an improbably long runway and controllers using the fire trail to guide landing planes.
Additional favorites: the news helicopter pilot saying he is crazy but not that crazy, repeated blueprint-reading scenes with Art Evans, and the William Atherton-Bonnie Bedelia first-class feud.
