Lethal Weapon ('87) vs. Die Hard ('88) - (Ep 2 of 3)

<v Speaker 1>All right, everybody, welcome back to the Surely You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcast. This is episode two of our Christmas
<v Speaker 1>comparison of Die Hard versus Lethal Weapon. And to start
<v Speaker 1>it off, we're gonna have a very classic Christmas introduction
<v Speaker 1>to this episode.
<v Speaker 2>All right, listen up, guys, twas the night before Christmas,
<v Speaker 2>and all through the house not a creature was stirring
<v Speaker 2>except the four usholes coming in the rear standard to
<v Speaker 2>cover formation.
<v Speaker 1>It's Christmas time in Hollis.
<v Speaker 2>Please, Mom's cooking chicken.
<v Speaker 1>Oh man. If this is your first time to listen
<v Speaker 1>to us, all I can say is welcome to the party.
<v Speaker 2>Pal Man. You know, we started this a year and
<v Speaker 2>a half ago. I did not anticipate how much work
<v Speaker 2>that we would be putting into this thing.
<v Speaker 1>But it's been an amazing year. Do you remember when
<v Speaker 1>I called you about a year and a half ago.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, come out to the coast. We'll get together
<v Speaker 2>and make a podcast.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm very proud of what we've done so far
<v Speaker 1>this year. We've had an awesome time. We've made lots
<v Speaker 1>of friends and put out what we think is a
<v Speaker 1>pretty good product.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I'm hopeful that our listeners think so we've definitely
<v Speaker 3>had a great amount of support from everybody, and this
<v Speaker 3>is kind of an amazing, you know, like almost bittersweet
<v Speaker 3>end to a thing.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean, we're just done with chapter one, ready
<v Speaker 2>to go on to chapter two. So it's a great
<v Speaker 2>way to end the season with two of the most
<v Speaker 2>amazing movies of the eighties right at the time that
<v Speaker 2>they're in all of their glory. It's Christmas time.
<v Speaker 1>It is. This podcast is not the is it a
<v Speaker 1>Christmas movie podcast? But here just a little bit we're
<v Speaker 1>going to talk about we'll touch on it whether we
<v Speaker 1>think these are Christmas movies or not.
<v Speaker 2>Right more importantly, we will defend the fact that they
<v Speaker 2>are Christmas.
<v Speaker 1>There you go, There you go.
<v Speaker 2>All right. Our executive producer on this episode is Chris
<v Speaker 2>walkd In that's walked in with a d. It's I'm
<v Speaker 2>sure he gets it all the time, Christopher Walking. But Chris,
<v Speaker 2>thank you so much for your support. He is our
<v Speaker 2>first Patreon subscriber to pay us in pounds.
<v Speaker 1>Love it, love it. Chris, thank you so much. We
<v Speaker 1>appreciate you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I can't say thank you enough. If you want
<v Speaker 2>to be an executive producer of one of our episodes.
<v Speaker 2>Just go to our Patreon page. It's patreon dot com
<v Speaker 2>Forward Slash Shirley Podcast, and you too can become an
<v Speaker 2>executive producer of one of our shows. Okay, cool, all right,
<v Speaker 2>So jumping back into it, I've learned a couple things
<v Speaker 2>since our last episode, even though it was just a
<v Speaker 2>short time ago, that I feel the need to share. So,
<v Speaker 2>Joel Silver is the producer behind both of these movies.
<v Speaker 2>We talked about him a bit in the last episode.
<v Speaker 2>He was the one that got Shane Black in there
<v Speaker 2>and Predator, and he's obviously the one that had him
<v Speaker 2>write the script for Lethal Weapon. He's the one that
<v Speaker 2>had forty eight hours, which then leads us to Stephen
<v Speaker 2>Desuza coming in helping out on jib Stewart's script. He's
<v Speaker 2>very much an integral part of both of these stories.
<v Speaker 2>But here's something that I bet that most of our
<v Speaker 2>listeners don't know. When he was in high school, he
<v Speaker 2>went to Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, and
<v Speaker 2>during that time there he and a friend of his
<v Speaker 2>named Buzzy hill Ring created the rules for the game
<v Speaker 2>ultimatet Frisbee. They were the creators Joel Silver who has
<v Speaker 2>given us some of the best movies of all time.
<v Speaker 2>Also was one of the creators of Ultimate Frisbee. He
<v Speaker 2>has been inducted into the Ultimate Frisbee Hall of Fame
<v Speaker 2>because he was one of the originators of the game.
<v Speaker 1>That is freaking amazing.
<v Speaker 2>I can't believe that it's crazy. It's crazy then, and
<v Speaker 2>he is the aereotype of the nasty producer. I love
<v Speaker 2>watching this guy because if anybody ever complains about somebody
<v Speaker 2>or something back and just like, oh, I hate that guy,
<v Speaker 2>I hate. He has no fear about saying I hate
<v Speaker 2>some big I mean, because who's the heavier hitter than
<v Speaker 2>Joel sofar right?
<v Speaker 1>Not many here, right.
<v Speaker 2>So one of the guys that he hated was Michael Eisner.
<v Speaker 2>Like they both work together at Paramount, right, and they
<v Speaker 2>hated each other then. And he has been in a
<v Speaker 2>couple of movies and one that you probably don't recognize
<v Speaker 2>him from is who framed Roger Rabbit at the beginning,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the beginnings of the cartoon? Yeah, yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>then you know he has the wrong thing spinning around
<v Speaker 2>his head. God, and the director's all, yeah, he shaved
<v Speaker 2>off his beard. He plays the director in that movie.
<v Speaker 2>The angry, you know, throwing his stuff down, which was
<v Speaker 2>an inside joke by Spielberg and Zamechis because it was
<v Speaker 2>supposed to be like a Disney cartoon, and so they
<v Speaker 2>had him playing the part with would be like the
<v Speaker 2>Michael Eisner part because they knew that they hated each other.
<v Speaker 2>And when and when they showed it to Eisner, Eisner's like,
<v Speaker 2>who's that actor because he had his beard shaved off,
<v Speaker 2>and they're like, it's Joel Silver and he's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>he did a good job.
<v Speaker 1>That is great, man. I didn't know that. That's fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>Have you seen Tropic Thunder? I have.
<v Speaker 1>It's been a while, but I have.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, but you remember the Tom Cruise part. Absolutely, it's
<v Speaker 2>it's a parody of Joel Silver. That kind of raunchy cigar.
<v Speaker 1>Show makes sense. Ye, sure, that makes sense, both of
<v Speaker 1>these movies. I have a feeling some cocaine news. What
<v Speaker 1>I've got something for you? Yes, go ahead, Okay, this
<v Speaker 1>is something that I learned.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that blew me away. All right.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to try and top you right on.
<v Speaker 2>The top, man, this is what we're about.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not trying to top you, Okay. I just found this.
<v Speaker 1>Blew my frigging mind. Okay, Yeah, the Mrta House. All
<v Speaker 1>the action in lethal Weapon happened one, two, three, four,
<v Speaker 1>right and one. Joshua crashes the car through the front
<v Speaker 1>door too. They blow up the freaking toilet part four.
<v Speaker 1>The whole house like gets blown up, right right? Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So the Merta House, it's a character in all four
<v Speaker 1>of these movies. Right next door to the Myrtal House Okay,
<v Speaker 1>this is on the Warner Brothers ranch.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Right next door to the Myrtle House is the Christmas
<v Speaker 1>Vacation Chivy Chase House. No, So that means that, in
<v Speaker 1>this fictional world that the Myrtas live in the same
<v Speaker 1>house as Todd and Margot. Right, why is the floor
<v Speaker 1>all went Todd?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know Margot? So, what what did Roger Murtaz
<v Speaker 2>say when he saw the lights finally light up at
<v Speaker 2>the house?
<v Speaker 1>There is a world where the Murtaz and the Grizzwolds
<v Speaker 1>live next door to each other.
<v Speaker 2>That's crazy. That is crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, okay, so appropriate that they're both Christmas movies though,
<v Speaker 1>it absolutely it is, and we will tell you why
<v Speaker 1>in just a little while. Right, do we want to
<v Speaker 1>get into the plot.
<v Speaker 2>We're kind of, yeah, let's jump in the plot. Let's
<v Speaker 2>let's bounce. Do you really want to jump?
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna say that every time with it. That's fine
<v Speaker 1>with me.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah. So both of the movies start off and
<v Speaker 2>we see our main characters vulnerabilities right off the bat.
<v Speaker 2>Right the first time that you see John McClain, he's
<v Speaker 2>got white knuckles in the airplane because he's scared of flying. Right, So,
<v Speaker 2>your big, big hero character, You've got to keep in
<v Speaker 2>mind that this was going on at the time of
<v Speaker 2>Rambo and Commando and Conan and where the big hero
<v Speaker 2>was invincible, and we introduce our big hero as the
<v Speaker 2>guy who's scared of planes.
<v Speaker 1>In order to relax, he's got to make fists. Was
<v Speaker 1>his toes your toes? Well?
<v Speaker 2>And I guess that's really not all because even as
<v Speaker 2>it carries on, we get more vulnerabilities. He's obviously got
<v Speaker 2>marriage on the rocks, and he's also obviously got an
<v Speaker 2>impulsive mouth that we see when he's arguing with his wife.
<v Speaker 1>He's kind of a jerk. He's a jerk to Holly,
<v Speaker 1>and he's a little bit of a jerk to our guy.
<v Speaker 1>All coming out of the Gate, and then.
<v Speaker 2>With Leith the Weapon, we've got my gosh, suicidal Martin Riggs,
<v Speaker 2>you know, just living in a dirty, nasty trailer, drinking
<v Speaker 2>beer from last night, naked to the toilet. How many movies,
<v Speaker 2>by the way, in a row was mel Gibson naked?
<v Speaker 1>Mel Gibson's butt got a co starring credit in like
<v Speaker 1>his first ten movies, I know.
<v Speaker 2>And then we've got Roger, who's too old for this.
<v Speaker 1>She's fifty years old. Fifty damn years old.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 1>Have we talked about the bathtub scene?
<v Speaker 2>I don't think we did. Maybe we touched on it, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>But so let's just my wife put this movie on.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, God, God bless her. I didn't even ask
<v Speaker 2>for it. She put it on as a Christmas movie midday,
<v Speaker 2>all the kids are there. I'm like, honey, this is
<v Speaker 2>not a kid. It didn't matter. Our kids and my
<v Speaker 2>nine year old little girl loved it, loved this movie.
<v Speaker 2>But that first scene when they're singing him Happy Birthday
<v Speaker 2>and they come in and he's in the tub. All
<v Speaker 2>of us were like why, why why except my wife,
<v Speaker 2>and she's like, I think it's a cultural thing. And
<v Speaker 2>every single one was like, no, it's not it's not
<v Speaker 2>a cultural thing. I don't think that any culture does that.
<v Speaker 1>What what eighteen and sixteen and fourteen year olds bargain
<v Speaker 1>on their dad taking a bit?
<v Speaker 2>Right? A bath?
<v Speaker 1>A bath?
<v Speaker 2>I mean why a number one? Why is he taking
<v Speaker 2>a bath in the morning? Right? I mean who, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know guys that take baths generally at all, but
<v Speaker 2>in the morning. No. What And you.
<v Speaker 1>Can clearly see there's not a lot of bubbles. No,
<v Speaker 1>the bubbles are gone.
<v Speaker 2>No, you got a little turtle head flowing to the top,
<v Speaker 2>and it's just no, not comfortable.
<v Speaker 3>Leave.
<v Speaker 1>The weapon would be exposed.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, any other human being that I know if
<v Speaker 2>this happened, would be grabbing the towel, like, what the
<v Speaker 2>heck are you doing?
<v Speaker 1>To get out out of here? We wanted to say
<v Speaker 1>happy birthday. You can tell me later.
<v Speaker 2>So then let's go back to diehard called action machine
<v Speaker 2>guns firing and women screaming with tops off and all
<v Speaker 2>kinds of stuff. And he's got this split second to
<v Speaker 2>get out of the room because he's just been making
<v Speaker 2>fists with his toes. He's got no shoes, barefooted, but
<v Speaker 2>he does grab his gun. That's a man with priorities
<v Speaker 2>right there.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, grab your gun, worry about your shoes later.
<v Speaker 1>First of all, I just want to say point it
<v Speaker 1>out right out of the gate. John McLean's attitude about
<v Speaker 1>attending his wife's company Christmas party. It's probably the same
<v Speaker 1>as yours of mine. Yeah, how soon before we can
<v Speaker 1>duck out of here? What is the shortest amount of
<v Speaker 1>time I'm obligated to be here?
<v Speaker 2>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? This is the eighties, and I know that we
<v Speaker 1>would like to say this, but there are three playmates
<v Speaker 1>in the movie die Hard. Okay, So there's three playmates.
<v Speaker 2>In the movie. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>One of them is the topless girl at the very beginning,
<v Speaker 1>which that's the scene I've always kind of got to
<v Speaker 1>put my hand over my son's eyes. There's one. I'll
<v Speaker 1>give you one, one playmate right there.
<v Speaker 2>Right the story behind that one, by the way, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>she got that part.
<v Speaker 1>She got that part because Joel Silver was interested in
<v Speaker 1>dating her.
<v Speaker 2>With the quotations with the fingers right there. In order
<v Speaker 2>to this radio not TV, we get to see the
<v Speaker 2>quotation mark.
<v Speaker 1>In order to convince her to date him, he had
<v Speaker 1>to give her a part in a movie. And that's
<v Speaker 1>her part.
<v Speaker 2>What a payoff, all right.
<v Speaker 1>So she was in Playboy, all.
<v Speaker 2>Right, that's number one, all right, Number two, Well you
<v Speaker 2>got the girl who's the actual Playboy magazine that's on
<v Speaker 2>the wall.
<v Speaker 1>That's exactly right. That's November of nineteen eighty seven, play
<v Speaker 1>Playboy centerfold on the wall right there.
<v Speaker 2>And that boying sound. I got to capture that boying my.
<v Speaker 1>Girls girls, all right? One more, The World's Greatest Action
<v Speaker 1>movie had three playmates that barely get noticed.
<v Speaker 2>Only hot girl f not that the girls at the
<v Speaker 2>party weren't nice looking girls, and there were the police
<v Speaker 2>officers were nice looking girls, not police officers. Girl at
<v Speaker 2>the airport.
<v Speaker 1>Girl at the airport, ding Ding ding Ding named all
<v Speaker 1>three of them. Good job, Google's search all right, back
<v Speaker 1>on track.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So then the call to action for Riggs and
<v Speaker 2>Mertaw obviously is Huntsucker. Right. Huntsacker is like, you've got
<v Speaker 2>to get him and you've got to kill him, right,
<v Speaker 2>you gotta.
<v Speaker 1>Kill him, you gotta do you gotta kill him. You
<v Speaker 1>gotta find him and kill him.
<v Speaker 2>Come on, you'll find him, you'll find I mean, you've
<v Speaker 2>killed him. You can do that, you owe me, right,
<v Speaker 2>And so this is where we see the big differing
<v Speaker 2>dynamic between Merton Riggs, because Riggs, I mean Shane Black toxic.
<v Speaker 2>I've heard him say this five times. Riggs is the
<v Speaker 2>monster that gets put away until we need him. Right.
<v Speaker 2>He talks about the gentrification of America and how people
<v Speaker 2>live their happy little lives in suburbia and know that
<v Speaker 2>the war is over, and this guy is the only
<v Speaker 2>guy that really knows that the war is still going on.
<v Speaker 2>We've got two veterans here, and by the way, John
<v Speaker 2>McClain was also a veteran like this was. It was
<v Speaker 2>originally supposed to be a three act movie where the
<v Speaker 2>first act is in New York and you find out
<v Speaker 2>about his veteran status and you really developed the character.
<v Speaker 2>So it's interesting they eliminated that whole thing. Okay, but anyway,
<v Speaker 2>these old war veterans, some of them, obviously they've got
<v Speaker 2>the sniper mentality of some people just need to die, right,
<v Speaker 2>And obviously Riggs is still in that world have a
<v Speaker 2>nice day, and so he's this Frankenstein that the rest
<v Speaker 2>of society wants to hide and put away until evil
<v Speaker 2>comes back into their lives in the middle of suburbia,
<v Speaker 2>and then it's time to get Frankenstein out and say
<v Speaker 2>we need you to save us right now. And so
<v Speaker 2>when Huntsackers like you've got to kill him, you've got
<v Speaker 2>to kill him, Roger Murtaw is like, we're going to
<v Speaker 2>do this by the rules, and we're going to get him,
<v Speaker 2>We're going to rest him, We're going to protect you
<v Speaker 2>and Riggs. First thing he sees from these guys is
<v Speaker 2>Huntsacker getting sniped from the helicopter.
<v Speaker 1>Which is a great scene by the way. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know if you know this or not, mister Joshuas shoots
<v Speaker 1>Huntsecker from his helicopter, yes, which Riggs doesn't notice shows up.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's just kind of appears.
<v Speaker 2>That's that's a weird thing, for sure.
<v Speaker 1>But the bullet goes through him and through the carton
<v Speaker 1>of eggnog that he's holding.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I.
<v Speaker 1>Guess this is from The Manchurian Candidate. Oh okay, which
<v Speaker 1>was a Frank Sinatra movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I love that movie.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, hang on one second. D One of the things they
<v Speaker 1>talk about in the movie is that Riggs is a
<v Speaker 1>sharp shooter from the war right. That was his background.
<v Speaker 1>He was nineteen years old and is one of the
<v Speaker 1>great marksmen in the Vietnam War.
<v Speaker 2>Right when I was nineteen, I did a guy in
<v Speaker 2>Laos from a thousand yards out a rifle shot in
<v Speaker 2>high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the
<v Speaker 2>world could have made that shot. So the only thing
<v Speaker 2>I ever could I have one.
<v Speaker 1>Interestingly enough, I read up on the scene where Riggs
<v Speaker 1>is hiding in the desert and Murta goes to meet
<v Speaker 1>the bad guys who's going to try and get ran back,
<v Speaker 1>and he pulls out the hand grena and all that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So Riggs is in the weeds shooting this rifle and
<v Speaker 1>he's dropping bad guys left and right. I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if you know this or not, but that rifle, that
<v Speaker 1>very rifle was designed for a specific purpose. The nineteen
<v Speaker 1>seventy two Olympics, when those terrorists took the Israeli Olympic
<v Speaker 1>athletes hostage. Yeah, the swat team or whoever arrived to
<v Speaker 1>kind of deal with that situation was lamenting the fact
<v Speaker 1>that they didn't have any sharpshooters and they didn't have
<v Speaker 1>any guns that were good enough. And so that gun
<v Speaker 1>that mel Gibson used in that scene was a specifically
<v Speaker 1>designed as a quick, accurate from long range to take
<v Speaker 1>out bad guys due to that Olympic terrorist incident.
<v Speaker 2>Interesting, Okay, that's awesome. Okay, So Merta wanting to play
<v Speaker 2>by the rules is kind of his refusal to go
<v Speaker 2>into the world of Frankenstein, to go into this mass killing.
<v Speaker 2>And he keeps trying to keep trying to get him
<v Speaker 2>not to kill people.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I used it. That was ooh, still alive.
<v Speaker 2>Now we questioned him.
<v Speaker 1>You know why we questioned him because I got him
<v Speaker 1>in the lake.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't shoot him full the hole to try to
<v Speaker 2>jump off a building. Where's no fair. The building guy lived.
<v Speaker 1>Now whatever, be no killing, no killing?
<v Speaker 2>Right? Have you met anybody that you haven't killed?
<v Speaker 1>I haven't killed you yet.
<v Speaker 2>Don't do me no favor. And then John McLean's refusal
<v Speaker 2>of the call. He's not trying to be Rambow, right,
<v Speaker 2>He's trying to get the cops.
<v Speaker 1>He runs and hides. Yes, he runs, he pulls the
<v Speaker 1>fire alarm.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's trying to get people to come help, the
<v Speaker 2>people who should be helping. He's trying to get to
<v Speaker 2>come help, and he can't get him to come.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, he wants the fireman to show up so he
<v Speaker 1>can kiss their fin Dalmatians.
<v Speaker 2>So you've got this very interesting thing that he's working
<v Speaker 2>against both the obvious enemies and against what should be
<v Speaker 2>the good guys, what should be the authorities. Right, he's
<v Speaker 2>working against both of them. Both of them are against him.
<v Speaker 3>Attention, whoever you are, This channel is reserved for emergency
<v Speaker 3>calls only.
<v Speaker 2>Sound like I'm warned a pizza. That's right.
<v Speaker 1>He's pretty unappreciated glass, Okay.
<v Speaker 2>And then we talked about the fact that die Hard
<v Speaker 2>is sort of a buddy cop movie.
<v Speaker 1>Right, I would say so, but yeah, go ahead.
<v Speaker 2>But it's interesting these two movies. If you call Diehard
<v Speaker 2>a buddy cop movie, they are like number two and
<v Speaker 2>number three of the buddy cop genre. Number one you
<v Speaker 2>want to guess what do you think it is?
<v Speaker 1>The number one?
<v Speaker 2>First? No? No, no, first, Like we're we've the buddy cop
<v Speaker 2>genre starts. Where do you think it starts? Man, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know. We get forty eight hours?
<v Speaker 1>Oh good, call Stephen Desusa.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and so both Jeb Stewart and Shane Black both
<v Speaker 2>pointed forty eight hours and say this was the beginning
<v Speaker 2>of the cop movie. A lot of people will say
<v Speaker 2>lethal weapon, but forty eight hours is really the first one.
<v Speaker 1>I can see that.
<v Speaker 2>I can see that. And so you've got Al Powell
<v Speaker 2>and you've got John McClain, and obviously Al is there
<v Speaker 2>as kind of a mentor to help kind of guide him.
<v Speaker 2>Not that he's like wise, but just that he's a
<v Speaker 2>voice of reason and support when it appears that the
<v Speaker 2>whole world is against him. Now, the question for me
<v Speaker 2>to you is who is the mentor between Riggs and Murta.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, what do you think? I think it's both,
<v Speaker 2>as much as you can cheat that answer, because it's
<v Speaker 2>just not in the next movie.
<v Speaker 1>Shoot.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So Murta is trying to be the mentor for Riggs, right,
<v Speaker 2>He's trying to assure him that there that there can
<v Speaker 2>be a better way. You know, Riggs has gone into
<v Speaker 2>full crazy and is just hanging on by a thread.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, look, friend, people either think I'm suicidal, in which
<v Speaker 1>case I'm aft and nobody wants to work with me,
<v Speaker 1>or I'm trying to draw a psycho pension, in which
<v Speaker 1>case I'm aft and nobody wants to work with me. Basically,
<v Speaker 1>I'm ft. I don't want to work with it, Hey, don't.
<v Speaker 2>I ain't got no choice. Yes, we both aft.
<v Speaker 1>You could do this all day, right, Okay, Hey, one
<v Speaker 1>thing I want to talk about as we're moving through
<v Speaker 1>the plot. I'm sorry, no, leave the weapon. There are
<v Speaker 1>three scenes that introduced Rigs.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, oh yeah.
<v Speaker 1>One didn't make the movie, but it's in the director's cut.
<v Speaker 1>And so you have the Rigs where he's at home.
<v Speaker 1>He's bare naked and drinking last Night's.
<v Speaker 2>Be when everybody saw in the theaters back in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty seven.
<v Speaker 1>Clearly he's sad and depressed and messed up.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 1>Then you have the other one where he's at the school.
<v Speaker 1>This is on the director's cut. He shows up, there's
<v Speaker 1>a school shooter.
<v Speaker 2>There's like a snipe sniper yep.
<v Speaker 1>And he everybody's ducking for cover. Rigs walks out in
<v Speaker 1>the middle of daylight, right, and he says, I'm still here.
<v Speaker 1>A hole guy tries to shoot him and Riggs drops him.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Okay, let's have miss a couple of times. Like,
<v Speaker 2>he doesn't even start shopping, he's shooting immediately back. He
<v Speaker 2>just stands there, just trying to let a cigarette all time.
<v Speaker 1>It's the equivalent of Rambo screwing his explosive arrow tips
<v Speaker 1>in while the guys are trying to shoot him, he's
<v Speaker 1>just getting ready.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, right, so.
<v Speaker 1>That was in the director's cut. Then there is a
<v Speaker 1>deleted scene Riggs is at a bar and these three
<v Speaker 1>robbers try to work him over.
<v Speaker 2>And we talked about that a little bit last time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so interesting sound quite forget that I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>be that dark, Like the bar scene was too dark,
<v Speaker 1>and then the sniper scene was too immediately killing a guy.
<v Speaker 2>They wanted the character to not be quite so dark
<v Speaker 2>as Shane Black had written him, because they wanted there
<v Speaker 2>to be hope. You know that. You look at those
<v Speaker 2>two scenes and there's a guy with no hope, and
<v Speaker 2>so what you have then instead is the Christmas Tree
<v Speaker 2>slash drug deal scene, which is fantastic. And you told
<v Speaker 2>me about one of the guys who's doing the drug deal,
<v Speaker 2>the very last guy to survive. He's like he's lost
<v Speaker 2>his mind, he's got the crazy eyes and he's threatening
<v Speaker 2>him at the end the long airage.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yes, I absolutely learned this and I was blown away.
<v Speaker 1>So the Christmas Tree lot where Riggs is doing this
<v Speaker 1>drug deal and he's paying a hundred bucks for all
<v Speaker 1>of the cocaine in the world and they're like one
<v Speaker 1>hundred thousand. I love the line where he's like, they're like,
<v Speaker 1>you ain't a real cop, and that's a real bad
<v Speaker 1>dumb a real cop and this is a real kick gun.
<v Speaker 1>And he says it was such intensity, I'm not going
<v Speaker 1>to try to match it. But the last guy left,
<v Speaker 1>the guy where he's like, hey, shoot this guy, just
<v Speaker 1>shoot this guy. That guy's name is Blackie, Dammit, damn it, dammit.
<v Speaker 1>His real name is John Ketis. He is the father
<v Speaker 1>of Anthony Ketis, lead singer of Red Hot Chili Patrick.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, of course they look so much alike. That's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>How about that? Yes, okay, So the original question is
<v Speaker 2>Murtaw the mentor or his Riggs the mentor? It looks
<v Speaker 2>like Roger Murta until when they take his daughter, Riggs
<v Speaker 2>becomes the mentor. Riggs has to be the one that says,
<v Speaker 2>but we got to do it my way, we got
<v Speaker 2>to kill him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, great point, great point. And then I would say
<v Speaker 1>that Riggs kind of gives that mentorship back at the
<v Speaker 1>end of the movie. Okay, Frankenstein goes back into the
<v Speaker 1>castle at the end.
<v Speaker 2>Of the movie, right, Okay, So then We've got two
<v Speaker 2>guys who cannot be good cops. They can be good cops.
<v Speaker 2>You've got the scene with Tony. You won't hurt me.
<v Speaker 2>Police officers have rules.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's what my captain keeps telling me.
<v Speaker 2>Smack. Now, even at that point, he wasn't trying to
<v Speaker 2>kill Tony, right, that was just a happy.
<v Speaker 1>Accident, really, that was he was very lucky.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yes. And then with you know, Riggs is obviously
<v Speaker 2>got a bad habit of killing people too quick. And
<v Speaker 2>so Murta is like, can we can we just question
<v Speaker 2>the guy? I shot him in the leg. It's still alive,
<v Speaker 2>you can question him. Okay, let'st I.
<v Speaker 1>Want to back up a step because right before Murtaz
<v Speaker 1>shoots that guy in the leg, let's back up a second.
<v Speaker 1>There's a suicide jumper that Riggs goes up to help
<v Speaker 1>down right. His job is to bring him don and
<v Speaker 1>Merto says, look, no guns, no jiu jitsu, just bring
<v Speaker 1>him down. That's his instruction. So Riggs, as we know, suicidal.
<v Speaker 1>This guy is clearly suicidal. He goes up and says, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you want a cigarette, and when the guy reaches for
<v Speaker 1>a cigarette, he cuffs him. And that's the do you
<v Speaker 1>really want to jump? Okay, And if you watch that scene,
<v Speaker 1>there is a blooper in that scene that bugs the
<v Speaker 1>crap out of me. Really, So here's the deal. When
<v Speaker 1>Riggs pulls the guy off e, they're gonna jump. As
<v Speaker 1>they jump, there's a slow motion where both guys are
<v Speaker 1>clearly stunt men and they're both leaping. Their handcuffs break,
<v Speaker 1>oh and they link hands. They like lock hands, and
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, guys, can we can we try it again? No?
<v Speaker 2>CGI, and you can't yea. So it was still the
<v Speaker 2>best take.
<v Speaker 1>Every time I watch it, I'm like that those cuffs
<v Speaker 1>break instantly and they hold hands all the way down. So,
<v Speaker 1>but that scene is great because you learn that Riggs
<v Speaker 1>really is suicidal, right.
<v Speaker 2>Because what follows immediately after that is Murta offering him
<v Speaker 2>his gun, trying to get him to prove that he's
<v Speaker 2>really not crazy. But what he does instead prove I mean,
<v Speaker 2>gets his thumb caught in the hammer of the gun
<v Speaker 2>as the trigger gets pulled.
<v Speaker 1>That and I watched that with my son. He didn't
<v Speaker 1>catch that until this last viewing. Yeah, and when he
<v Speaker 1>sticks his hand, the hammer hits home and pinches his finger.
<v Speaker 2>Yep. So yeah, I mean half second later and he's boom,
<v Speaker 2>he's brains on the wall like full metal jacket. Yep. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>all right, you're ready to talk enemies, Yes, okay, we
<v Speaker 2>have in both circumstances, a bad guy and a bad
<v Speaker 2>guy's number two, which might be worse than the bad
<v Speaker 2>guy himself.
<v Speaker 1>True.
<v Speaker 2>Right, You've got Hans and you've got Carl. Hans' job
<v Speaker 2>is to keep things in order. He's not concerned about
<v Speaker 2>John McLean insomuch as getting revenge on him or anything
<v Speaker 2>like that. He just wants to keep him from up
<v Speaker 2>the plan. You've got to stick to the plan, right,
<v Speaker 2>stick to the plan. And then Carl I want blood.
<v Speaker 1>Carl doesn't want neutral, he wants dead.
<v Speaker 2>And then for lethal weapon, we of course have the
<v Speaker 2>General General Mcowster, that's right, who is ultra calm in
<v Speaker 2>all circumstances. Right, and then we've got Joshua, who is
<v Speaker 2>reserved in control but has the crazy behind his eyes,
<v Speaker 2>which is why Gary Bucy was the perfect choice.
<v Speaker 1>He was awesome that he's that albino jack rabbit son
<v Speaker 1>of a bitch that shoots rigs.
<v Speaker 2>Right, okay, And so the distinction is on the enemies
<v Speaker 2>here though, is in die Hard, You've got a whole
<v Speaker 2>slew of bad guys, and they did really a very
<v Speaker 2>good job of giving each of these what would normally
<v Speaker 2>be just kind of faceless henchman names and personalities.
<v Speaker 1>It's really true.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, John is also, as I said just before, working
<v Speaker 2>against Dwayne T. Robinson and Johnson and Johnson and Thornberg. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he's got everybody in the world against him.
<v Speaker 2>Here's the interesting part. You've got well trained German mercenaries,
<v Speaker 2>and then you have well trained American mercenaries, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>Diard versus Leath a weapon. But the superiors don't seem
<v Speaker 2>to be against Mertaw and Riggs in this movie. It
<v Speaker 2>kind of happens that way in the following movies a
<v Speaker 2>little bit, not so much this one, and the other
<v Speaker 2>police officers are helping out like this is. It's definitely
<v Speaker 2>they've got some support, whereas John is acting completely on
<v Speaker 2>his own, well except for Ellis. He's gonna help him out.
<v Speaker 1>John Boy, Hey, John Boy, Hey, you know one of
<v Speaker 1>the things I was gonna mention. You kind of brought
<v Speaker 1>it up there. But in the Lethal Weapon movies, the
<v Speaker 1>LA cops are not incompetent. In Diehard, the LA Cops
<v Speaker 1>are completely incompetent.
<v Speaker 2>Certainly Detective Dwayne t. Robinson, Well and Al Palell drives
<v Speaker 2>a car.
<v Speaker 1>Like the turning a car and that Swiss cheese. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but you got Dwayne t Robinson. The guy's coming in
<v Speaker 1>the front door, clueless guy who grabs the rose sticker
<v Speaker 1>on who.
<v Speaker 2>The quarterback is? By the way, do we like THEO.
<v Speaker 2>There's a lot of hate for the there and I
<v Speaker 2>think THEO is absolutely hilarious. I love the fantastic When.
<v Speaker 1>He comes in his opening scene, he's like magic. This
<v Speaker 1>is just to a c back to magic, over to
<v Speaker 1>Kareem boom. Yeah, just he has that great interesting Hey
<v Speaker 1>do you want to hear my Danny Glover invitation more
<v Speaker 1>than anything in the world. Okay, I don't do invitations.
<v Speaker 1>I got when invitation is very short. Danny Glover as
<v Speaker 1>Roger Murta, Yes, hey, rigs, he riggs, thank you, thank you,
<v Speaker 1>thank you. That's all he said, is like a fifty times.
<v Speaker 2>He does do that a lot. It doesn't do that
<v Speaker 2>a lot. Okay, So what do you think is the
<v Speaker 2>lowest point for these guys, Like, what's the lowest point
<v Speaker 2>let's start with John mclan what's the lowest point in
<v Speaker 2>the movie.
<v Speaker 1>When he's picking glass out of his bare feet.
<v Speaker 2>Totally agree, Totally agree.
<v Speaker 1>That's not an eighties tough man. When he drags himself
<v Speaker 1>into the bathroom leaking blood everywhere.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it's that. I mean, have you ever stepped
<v Speaker 2>on glass before? Oh? Yeah, hurts, Yeah, yes, it does.
<v Speaker 1>All things being equal, I would rather be in Philadelphia when.
<v Speaker 2>I step on glass. Yes, nice, nicely done. It is
<v Speaker 2>a fly in the oit Mann. So at that point,
<v Speaker 2>this is where he when he reaches that low point,
<v Speaker 2>he has that moment of revelation where he realizes what
<v Speaker 2>a jerk he's been to his wife. And this is
<v Speaker 2>the thing he talked about Jeb Stu realizing whenever he
<v Speaker 2>almost got you know what, it gets hit by the
<v Speaker 2>what he thinks is a refrigerator box. I mean it
<v Speaker 2>is a box, but it's just the box, right. He
<v Speaker 2>thinks he's gonna die, having just had a fight with
<v Speaker 2>his wife where he knows he's wrong and is never
<v Speaker 2>going to have the opportunity to just say I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 1>The low point for Martin Riggs, Yeah, when he pulls
<v Speaker 1>the trigger of the gun and murt Todd gets his handcut.
<v Speaker 2>By the hammer.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, okay, like you said, half a second later, brains
<v Speaker 1>on the wall.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that for it to be truly the
<v Speaker 2>lowest moment, there has to be the turnaround, Like, there
<v Speaker 2>has to be the turnaround. And so I'm gonna say
<v Speaker 2>after he's been tortured by the electric shock, because he's
<v Speaker 2>just I mean, he's hanging defeated, he appears to be
<v Speaker 2>dead and still manages to come back to life. And
<v Speaker 2>I'll say this, the scene where he grabs the guy's
<v Speaker 2>head with his legs is a bit absurd.
<v Speaker 1>It's absurd because the.
<v Speaker 2>Guy's just letting his hands. Really, this guy's just gonna
<v Speaker 2>let his hands hang back.
<v Speaker 1>They need to register Riggs's ankles as leith.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And so I would say that also Murta's lowest
<v Speaker 2>point is that same incident. Right, they're both captured, they're
<v Speaker 2>both tortured or beaten, and his turnaround is I'm ready
<v Speaker 2>to break the rules. Yeah, I'm ready to do whatever
<v Speaker 2>it takes to get these guys.
<v Speaker 1>Hey. One of the things I want to point out,
<v Speaker 1>just a little tidbit, go ahead, a little side tidbit. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how to verify this, but there's a
<v Speaker 1>scene right after the suicide jumper, Riggs pulls down the
<v Speaker 1>suicide jumper. Yes, Murta uses a mobile phone to call
<v Speaker 1>the psychiatrist and says, look, this guy's really crazy. She's like, absolutely,
<v Speaker 1>he's crazy. You should not be around him when he blows.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 1>My understanding is that is the first on screen use
<v Speaker 1>of a cellular phone.
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, that's interesting.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how to verify this. That's one of
<v Speaker 1>the things I read.
<v Speaker 2>Interesting.
<v Speaker 1>You know what the internet is?
<v Speaker 2>You get me to drive?
<v Speaker 1>No, you want a fresh cry?
<v Speaker 2>Okay? And then again another parallel, the Triumph saving a
<v Speaker 2>kidnapped member of the family. Right, yeah, both movies. You
<v Speaker 2>have a kidnapping. Both movies, the heroes are related to
<v Speaker 2>the kidnap victim and have to save them and paying
<v Speaker 2>frea fantastic No, it's amazing. Love it. So that brings
<v Speaker 2>me to the death of the bad guys. So let's
<v Speaker 2>talk about enemy death in lethal weapon. Okay, death number
<v Speaker 2>one is the general, right, Murtag gets the general so
<v Speaker 2>to speak. My who was it? I think Caleb was
<v Speaker 2>watching my eleven year old It's like he doesn't even
<v Speaker 2>get to shoot him. Right, That was that was an
<v Speaker 2>interesting thing. You know, He's he dies kind of of
<v Speaker 2>his own.
<v Speaker 1>He flips the car, the car's on fire, and there's
<v Speaker 1>grenades laying around.
<v Speaker 2>Right. It's his it's his own instruments to put him
<v Speaker 2>to death. And it's his own arrogance that puts him
<v Speaker 2>to death because instead of like taking cover or backing
<v Speaker 2>the car back into the garage, they're like, let's just
<v Speaker 2>drive as fast as we can at this police officer
<v Speaker 2>who has to have a gun at this point. Right,
<v Speaker 2>but you see him break down. I mean that death
<v Speaker 2>scene where he's just panicked. He's lost all composure.
<v Speaker 1>It's there's a grenade by my face, yep, and I
<v Speaker 1>can't reach it. Yeah, hey, right before that scene, just
<v Speaker 1>back up just one second. So Riggs does the lethal
<v Speaker 1>ankles on. The torture guy comes in, takes over, shoots
<v Speaker 1>some bad guys. Joshua and the general get away. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>Now the pursuit is on at this point, and he
<v Speaker 1>rescues Rhann and Mercha. Yes, when they come out, they
<v Speaker 1>go to the heavy metal dance club whatever it is, right,
<v Speaker 1>oh yeah, and he.
<v Speaker 2>Just starts blowing people away, right, and like, nobody notices
<v Speaker 2>right after they shoot the bartender. That was another thing.
<v Speaker 2>I was like, why did people not start until like
<v Speaker 2>the fifth guy died.
<v Speaker 1>Riggs just walks out and just starts shooting people. Yeah, Now,
<v Speaker 1>we as the audience just take for granted that those
<v Speaker 1>are bad guys. Clearly it's a front.
<v Speaker 2>For They had a name tag on he said, bad guy.
<v Speaker 2>It is all right.
<v Speaker 1>Riggs just walks out and blowing people away. Hey man,
<v Speaker 1>we're closed.
<v Speaker 2>Boom boom boom. You don't have to go home, but
<v Speaker 2>you can't stay. And then we have the death of Hans.
<v Speaker 1>The death of Hans.
<v Speaker 2>So we talked about these movies being cowboy movies, yes,
<v Speaker 2>and we'll talk in a bit about them being Christmas movies. Yes.
<v Speaker 2>But you've got the hero at the end of his rope,
<v Speaker 2>and what does he do when he realizes he's only
<v Speaker 2>got two bullets? Two bullets, two bullets and two bad guys. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>so you have the perfect end to a cowboy movie,
<v Speaker 2>a joke followed by a bullet in the head. It's awesome,
<v Speaker 2>so awesome. So what does he do? He comes in
<v Speaker 2>with the machine gun in his hand because he has
<v Speaker 2>taped his revolver, although I know it's not a revolver.
<v Speaker 2>Folks don't know. Write in to his back with tape
<v Speaker 2>that says, season's great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I know, more Christmas. Yes, yeah, absolutely, it's a
<v Speaker 1>face off here it is. It's the show down.
<v Speaker 2>And to further emphasize the cowboy moviness of it all,
<v Speaker 2>Huey Lewis gets the bullet in the head after in
<v Speaker 2>the middle of his laugh jack funny joke. Actually, I
<v Speaker 2>guess it's Hans that makes the joke. It is the
<v Speaker 2>worst pronunciation of mother ever. What was it you said again? Oh? Yes, a.
<v Speaker 2>Then Hans doesn't die right way. And of course the
<v Speaker 2>damsel in distress has to be saved. And you know,
<v Speaker 2>she's being pulled out of the window. And what is
<v Speaker 2>it that won't release from her hand? It's that Rolex
<v Speaker 2>watch for that job she got.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the one that Ellis was so intent on John
<v Speaker 1>looking at the beginning.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, so has to release the rewards of her women's
<v Speaker 2>lib so that the cowboy hero can save us.
<v Speaker 1>Right, quit your job, stay on with your husband.
<v Speaker 2>Is that the message? Yeah? Kind of is, right, kind
<v Speaker 2>of is. But hey, you know what, that's part of
<v Speaker 2>the reason that guys love this movie. All right. Well,
<v Speaker 2>that does it for episode two of the Diehard Versus
<v Speaker 2>Lethal Weapon.
<v Speaker 1>All right, d The good news is you don't have
<v Speaker 1>to wait that long. We're actually going to release episode
<v Speaker 1>three tomorrow. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.