20 Ways 'Die Hard' Has Changed Over the Years: Then vs. Now

Die Hard is the Die Hard of action movies. We know this might be controversial to some of you, but it is the Die Hard of action movies – or the Fried Green Tomatoes of Fried Green Tomatoes movies, which is another absolutely valid category we just made up because emotional intelligence is as badass as Bruce Willis jumping off a Nakatomi plaza explosion. Famously, John McTiernan’s 1988 masterpiece broke with the oily, comedy writer-like muscled action icons of the ’80s, and instead gave us a more grounded story about a normal dude just trying to catch a break, get his girl back, and kill a few terrorists while he’s at it. John McClane is so us, you guys. Well, not in the sense of us being locked in a building killing terrorists, which in our this-is-getting-too-real times is just a bad concept to milk.

The point is that Die Hard is a beloved movie for us here at Cracked. See for example here, here, or here. We’re obsessed with the movie, like Jake Peralta or, well, Jake Peralta, but also with the entire franchise, which for a while was (say it with us) the Die Hard of action franchises. In this Pictofact, then, we discuss Die Hard then and now, which of course means relating it to its sequels: 1990’s Die Hard 2, 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard, and 2013’s The Awful Die Hard We Truly Despise So You Better Get Used To Us Being Super Mean About It. Plus, we also discuss Die Hard’s broader legacy, related works, and what it took to make its installments, which are just words to get you to appreciate our boy Bruce recently hanging out at the Nakatomi Plaza location. Seriously, that makes us so mushy inside we’re just gonna begin writing, “20 Sensitive Facts About Fried Green Tomatoes (So The Massive Fandom Stops Insisting For a Minute! Sheesh).”