{"id":39773,"date":"2015-10-15T14:27:47","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T03:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/?p=39773"},"modified":"2015-10-15T14:27:47","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T03:57:47","slug":"cease-desist-why-the-die-hard-prequel-idea-is-terrible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/2015\/10\/15\/cease-desist-why-the-die-hard-prequel-idea-is-terrible\/","title":{"rendered":"Cease &#038; Desist: Why The Die Hard Prequel Idea Is Terrible"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-39775\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Die-Hard-Prequel-Terrible-Idea-Logo.jpg\" alt=\"Die-Hard-Prequel-Terrible-Idea-Logo\" width=\"984\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Die-Hard-Prequel-Terrible-Idea-Logo.jpg 984w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Die-Hard-Prequel-Terrible-Idea-Logo-300x90.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Die-Hard-Prequel-Terrible-Idea-Logo-720x216.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 984px) 100vw, 984px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So, I&#8217;m sitting on my couch this morning drinking my coffee and perusing my iPad for the latest film news and reviews, and I get an email alert from one of my many websites telling me that Fox, the studio behind such cinematic behemoths as the recent <em>Fantastic Four<\/em> reboot, <em>Speed 2<\/em> and <em>Freddy Got Fingered<\/em>, have come up with another way of keeping their corpse of a <em>Die Hard<\/em> franchise alive &#8211; make a prequel. Damn, coffee actually came out my nose. It was not nice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-39776\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper-720x405.jpg\" alt=\"206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/>I&#8217;m as big a fanboy of the original three <em>Die Hard<\/em> films as anybody, (my reviews of those films will be coming later in November) and my thoughts on <em>Live Free Or Die Hard<\/em> can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/2008\/08\/19\/movie-review-die-hard-40\/\">be read here<\/a>, but following the critical and fanboy lambasting Fox took over <em>A Good Day To Die Hard<\/em> (a film I&#8217;ve really no interest in re-watching for review), I thought the franchise was as good as finished. But, good ol&#8217; Fox, I guess they can be counted on to drag that carcass back into the lab and see if they can reanimate it, Frankenstein-style.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Quite honestly, I&#8217;ve<em> no<\/em> interest in another <em>Die Hard<\/em> film, prequel <em>or<\/em> otherwise. Neither does anyone else, I suspect. A prequel, mooted to include Bruce Willis as &#8220;Old John McClane&#8221; and a new actor in the younger version of the role, is a nonsensical idea that needs desexing before it is allowed to propagate (a little like Adam Sandler&#8217;s career has done&#8230;.). The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/heat-vision\/die-hard-6-works-len-832278?utm_source=twitter\">Hollywood Reporter article<\/a> published reads thusly (their emphasis):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The franchise centering on the near-immortal NYPD cop John McClane is gearing up for its sixth installment at Fox, with <em>Live Free Or Die Hard<\/em> director <strong>Len Wiseman<\/strong> and producer <strong>Lorenzo di Bonaventura<\/strong> teaming to develop the project, <em>THR <\/em>has confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>The film is still looking to attach a screenwriter, but the story is meant to be a prequel to the action series. Set in 1979, the newest addition to the franchise will show how McClane became the rough and tumble cop that audiences know.<\/p>\n<p>The plan is for<strong> Bruce Willis <\/strong>to reprise his role of McClane, with a different actor coming in to play the younger version of the character.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yeah, that sounds stupid in every way. I&#8217;m guessing an old John would be sitting back telling his story in flashback, which is critically ill-advised for a number of reasons. Firstly, it&#8217;s stupid: John McClane doesn&#8217;t sit around a campfire and tell old war stories, he goes out and kicks ass and takes names to get the job done. Second, there&#8217;d be no sense of jeopardy. We all know McClane is alive and well today, so any sense that he may be killed or injured in a prequel falls flat on its yippee-ki-yay ass. If you rob a premise of jeopardy, why bother in the first place?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-39777\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/greg-a.-skoric-02-720x405.jpg\" alt=\"greg-a.-skoric-02\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/greg-a.-skoric-02-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/greg-a.-skoric-02-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/greg-a.-skoric-02.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/>You&#8217;ve also got the problem of Len Wiseman, a director of pulp crap like the<em> Underworld<\/em> movies, and that hugely mediocre <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/2013\/05\/02\/movie-review-total-recall-directors-cut\/\"><em>Total Recall<\/em><\/a> remake; the man&#8217;s basically a hack, a director who points the camera and hopes for the best, without nearly the same level of artistry enjoyed by John McTiernan or Renny Harlin &#8211; and yes, I know how far Harlin has fallen, so <em>that&#8217;s<\/em> how much I think of this as an idea.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The fact is that nobody&#8217;s even<em> vaguely<\/em> interested in another <em>Die Hard<\/em> movie, although considering the last one made plenty of bank perhaps it&#8217;s not <em>surprising<\/em>. But audience apathy is a terrific thing, especially when studios are planning out their film projects many years in advance, and telling people about it. It could be that the wave of negative reaction to this news might just give Fox a reason to rescind the idea, which would be nice. But Fox is a studio notoriously idiotic when it comes to mismanaging their franchises, particularly their good ones. Look what a has they made of those last few <em>Alien<\/em> movies. Look at<em> Alien vs Predator<\/em>. Hell, they nearly derailed the <em>X-Men<\/em> franchise at one point, by having Brett Ratner direct <em>The Last Stand<\/em>. Fox&#8217;s disdain for fanboy expectations, or even just plain common sense, doesn&#8217;t bode well for <em>Die Hard<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Please, Fox, if you&#8217;re reading this, just stop. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Don&#8217;t do it<\/span>. Bruce Willis hasn&#8217;t been interested in making films for the best part of the last decade and a half, and his phone-it-in performance in the last Die Hard was indicative of his current attitude to not give a shit about quality when he can just take a paycheck. Dumb f@ck priced himself out of those <em>Expendables<\/em> movies too. <em>Die Hard&#8217;s<\/em> legacy remains relatively untainted by lackluster sequels this millennium. Let&#8217;s not give people a reason to hope for <em>no<\/em> &#8220;complete box sets&#8221; of the entire franchise.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, I&#8217;m sitting on my couch this morning drinking my coffee and perusing my iPad&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48482,"featured_media":39776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",1920,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",640,360,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper-720x405.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",1536,864,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",1920,1080,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",1024,576,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",540,304,false],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",24,14,false],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",48,27,false],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",96,54,false],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",150,84,false],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",300,169,false],"sow-carousel-default":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/206385-a-good-day-to-die-hard-a-good-day-to-die-hard-wallpaper.jpg",272,153,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Rodney Twelftree","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/author\/rodney\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/category\/film-general\/opinion\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Opinion<\/a>","tag_info":"Opinion","comment_count":"15","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}