Nice read my friend Bryce 
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As one of the (extremely small) minority of people that actually thinks that Die Hard 2 is the best of the series (I know, there’s like 3 of us, and that’s on a good day)
Thank God, I thought I was the only one! 
Make that 5.
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Die Hard 2 was actually on Epix Drive In last night and I watched the second half. I love it. It may be a sideways rehash of the first, but it has always worked for me. I personally prefer it to the third by a wide margin as I feel the third becomes too outlandish at times and I always really disliked the fact that he and his wife have split up after all they’d been through in the first 2 movies. It felt kind of like killing Newt off at the beginning of Alien 3.
I think an argument can be made for it being Renny Harlin’s best movie. I think it passes the sequel test of being good enough that it stands on its own and would have been deserving of a sequel had it not been a sequel itself.
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I feel the same way. While I liked the differences the third part established (wide open space, Summer setting) I always felt that McClane should remain a loner. And the pairing with Jackson seemed to be a too obvious nod to “Pulp Fiction” (“look, we’re a big studio film, yet so hip that we bring these guys back together”).
However, I think the action sequences in Part 2 are already outlandish (the ejector seat-sequence, for example). And to destroy a plane full of people just to illustrate a bad guy´s nonchalance left a very bad aftertaste for me.
The first one will always be the best IMO since it focussed on one guy in a desperate situation, suffering, full of fear and succeeding only with chuzpe and good luck.
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His best movies is a very short list. However, he did do a very good job of DH2. But i’d say it’s his 2nd best movie.
For me The Long Kiss Goodnight is not only his best movie by quite some stretch, but has a place in the all time top tier of action movies. In the main it’s down to Shane Black’s sharp script and pacing, but Renny guides it with a sure hand and some aplomb.
Btw, fans of that movie should check out Black’s other under the radar 80’s action classic The Last Boy Scout.
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We’re getting off-topic…
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To be fair, Joel Silver-produced action movies did hurt LTK at the US box office… 
Just finished reading the latest issue of Empire magazine. There is a big feature on Danny Boyle and his films, and a section where he answers readers’ questions.
He is asked: “Which of your projects that have fallen by the wayside do you regret not doing?”
Response: “The Bowie film we talked about, and the Bond, actually, because our version of it was good. Those are the two which kind of haunt you. They could have been really good”
Ahhh I was so excited when he was initially announced as director. He refuses to say what his and Hodge’s idea was, out of respect to Cary.
I’m just counting down the days til the presser. Whenever that may be!
Discussion on this started a while ago, before the thread derailed into a Die Hard appraisal…
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And GoldenEye did rip-off Die Hard 2’s ejector seat stunt!
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Which TND used once again in its PTS. But it gets a pass because it cleverly inverted the stunt by turning it into a weapon.
I find it interesting that more light is being shed on the Boyle situation right as production is set to begin. From what tidbits I’ve caught up on, I’m sensing a faint odor of sour grapes.
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As in, Boyle being upset he’s not the one directing? Or EON still bitter about Boyle’s exit?
Eon had a story idea from P&W before Boyle came aboard and pitched his, so I imagine he (and everyone else) is curious if the current approach borrows from his, or reverts back to the original - or is a combination of both. If I had a really good idea and ended up having someone else use it and get the credit - I’d have sour grapes.
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It’s a Bond movie! It’ll be a combination of everything with a last minute kitchen sink tossed in for ‘good’ measure.
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That’s not how it works. Boyle and Hodge will have signed a contract, selling their work to EON in order to enable the producers to use it. But still they will have to credit Boyle & Hodge. This is different from script doctors who often stay uncredited by contract.
In the end, it will be interesting to see how the writing credit for BOND 25 will end up.
I suspect this: Written by Neil Purvis & Robert Wade and Scott Z. Burns. If they use the Boyle idea it will most probably be credited as Based on an idea by Danny Boyle & John Hodge.
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From the tidbits we heard of the Boyle/Hodge story, it seems vastly different to what is being filmed. Boyle said his story was going to be a modern day Cold War story with a supposedly polish villain. Fukunaga’s film seems to be a direct sequel to Spectre with no elements of a modern Cold War story. I’d say the Boyle/Hodge idea went out the door with Boyle and Hodge. It seems more likely that this is the original idea turned in by P&W that Burns and Fukunaga have then reworked.
Depends what was meant by ‘cold war’. Probably an east/west dynamic. But couldn’t that take place almost anywhere and couldn’t Malek’s character be a player for the ‘cold foe’?
Even with the east/west dynamic ditched Eon could still salvage scenarios, action set pieces and maybe even characters and story beats.
Not saying it’s so, just that it’s entirely possible.
The new breed of “Cold War” is ripe with options. M’s statement in SF summed it up perfectly while also making a case of, in the present day, the need more than ever for HUMINT beyond tech overwatch.
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