Die Hard
The Intro
To celebrate the holiday seasons the guys from Podcast 241 and I had a great discussion and breakdown of the Christmas classic Die Hard. If you make it to the end you can listen to our discussion as to whether Die Hard is actually a Christmas movie! So checkout the podcast and read my breakdown below.
As always, these breakdowns contain SPOILERS, and are only recommended if you've already seen the movie. You can check my introduction to these breakdowns, to get an overview of my process and philosophy.
Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below!
The Basics
Director: John McTiernan
Writers: Roderick Thorp( based on the novel by), Jeb Stuart and
Steven E. de Souza
Release Date: 1988
Runtime: 132 minutes
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/
Download The Script
Movie Level Goals
Protagonist: John McClane
External Goal: Defeat Hans and stop the plan
SUCCESS | FAILURE
Internal Goal: To win back Holly
SUCCESS | FAILURE
Three Observations
Observation #1: Act I Goal?
First acts are often challenging in terms of figuring out how to handle the protagonist’s act goal. Normally, in the classical Hollywood archplot, the protagonist has no goal to start the act, other than to maintain the status quo. The purpose of the inciting incident is to give the protagonist something to react to. In essence, the inciting incident triggers the formation of a goal. But how and when does this happen? There are generally two main possibilities. The first is that the protagonist immediately forms a goal in response to the inciting incident, and pursues that goal through the rest of the first act. This requires an earlier inciting incident so there is time for the goal to be pursued. But even in these cases, the act goal is closer to a sequence goal, and often lasts for only 10-15 minutes before the act climax. The second possibility is that the protagonist doesn’t know how to react to the inciting incident, refuses to act, or must react quickly and can’t form a larger, longer-term goal until the immediate circumstances have been dealt with. In this case, the inciting incident is often a little later in the act.
At the beginning of Die Hard, McClane actually arrives in L.A. with a specific goal--to win Holly back. In a sense, that is McClane’s status quo. The inciting incident comes around the 23:00-minute mark, when the thieves storm the party. McClane, who is in an office, hears them arrive but is not initially discovered by them. Because of the lateness of the inciting incident, McClane doesn't really form an Act I goal. Instead, he must simply react in the moment (scene level goals). The climax comes when Takagi is shot, and McClane is able to escape undetected. This gives him time to formulate a goal, which drives the 2nd Act—to alert the police.
Because of the attack, McClane’s goal of winning Holly back gets put on the backburner, but never truly disappears. Instead, it becomes the secondary/internal goal.
Observation #2: Act 3 Goals
The 3rd Act in a 4-act structure is often interesting. Some writers have no specific structure in mind, others have a 3-act structure in mind, and some actually write with a 4-act structure. Because of this, the 3rd Act is often the most unusual act in the movie. Die Hard is no exception. Typically, each act is defined by the protagonist's goal. But because of the wide variability of 3rd acts, they are often defined by the goals of other characters. In Die Hard, Act 3 is defined as much or more by Hans Gruber's goal as it is by McClane's goal. Hans’s goal is the more active and is also the goal that the climax is built around—To get the detonators. Because of McClane's position, he is less able to be an active protagonist with a strong goal. But, Die Hard is an action movie, so he can't exactly be passive either. So in this case, he has a slightly more vague goal to, in his words, “be a fly in the ointment.” It's also possible that his goal could be to keep the detonators from Hans--but this would be a very reactive goal and limit the possibilities for his character. At the Act 3 climax, Hans recovers the detonators and McClane's feet get cut-up by the glass. Hans has succeeded in his goal, and the additional conflict of getting his feet cut up leaves McClane in a vulnerable position. It certainly feels like a failed act for him. However, he also managed to be a fly in the ointment and has continued to create problems for Hans, making the final act result mixed.
Observation #3: External to Internal--An Outdated Structure
Die Hard’s external/internal structure is very typical for 80's Hollywood movies, which generally prize the external over the internal. McClane's external goal is stop/defeat Hans. He must achieve this goal first, which he does. This, in turn, leads to success at the internal goal--to win over Holly. The set-up is stereotypical. The male protagonist succeeds at his external, action-oriented goal. This accomplishes two things: it save the life of the female love-interest and proves his love to her. Sufficiently impressed, she grants him her love (or in this case, re-grants her love). This ois bviously somewhat retrograde, and these days the relationship between external and internal goals rarely works this way. First, many Hollywood movies now privilege the more meaningful internal goal--characters must achieve the internal goal first, which in turn leads to success at the external. And even if the character fails to achieve the internal, they have achieved the more meaningful internal one. Second, the stereotypical romance is now more complex or often missing entirely as a secondary or internal goal.