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John August: Hey, this is John. So today’s episode has no strong language, so you should listen to this episode with your kids. Get them in the car. Listen to this episode.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: And this is Episode 432 of Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the podcast we’ll be discussing what screenwriters can learn from watching movies and some techniques for making the most of the movies they watch. We’ll also have more advice from listeners about moving to LA and lots of answers for listeners who have written in with questions. And for Scriptnotes Premium members we’ll have a bonus segment on the Mandalorian and what we thought.

Craig Mazin, Happy New Year.

Craig: Happy New Year, John. We’ve done it again. The calendar has flipped around.

John: It has.

Craig: We’re still here. And by “we” I mean all of us on the planet. Not necessarily a guarantee at the moment. But somehow, so far, we’re still here.

John: We’re down one Iranian general. We’ll see how this all shakes out.

Craig: Yep. But you know what? That’s for other people’s podcasts.

John: Not our podcast.

Craig: No. And in fact I think probably people listen to our podcast to get away from some of that stuff.

John: 100%.

Craig: Let’s let them.

John: Craig, what are your goals, resolutions, plans for 2020?

Craig: I’m not a huge resolution guy, mostly because it’s just really a list of things that I hate about myself. That’s kind of the way I look at them. And then really the ultimate resolution is you’re fine. You don’t need resolutions. That said, in the spirit of trying to improve without denying that I’m a good person what I want to work on this year is handling frustration, because I think frustration is something that I feel all the time. Well, I guess frustration usually comes about when you think, right, I know what’s correct and everybody that has authority over me disagrees.

John: Yeah.

Craig: That’s frustrating. Whether it’s someone giving your notes, or it’s our government, or it’s our union. It doesn’t matter. If somebody is telling you this is the way it’s going to be and you think, no, that’s wrong, it’s frustrating. Which is fine, but I’m going to try and breathe through that a little bit more, because ultimately the frustration doesn’t actually improve anything.

John: No.

Craig: It just makes me frustrated.

John: Yeah. That’s a good overall goal. So no matter what 2020 brings for you that will be a useful thing for you to always be keeping in mind.

Craig: Yeah.

John: It’s sort of a mindfulness kind of thing. It’s being present in the moment to recognize this is what’s going on, this is why I’m feeling this way. I can choose to act on it or not choose to act on it.

Craig: Correct. The frustrating things will continue to occur, no question. And I will feel frustration, but if I’m aware of it then I think I can put it in its proper context. It’s when you’re not aware of these things you don’t even realize what’s happening. You think it’s you and it’s not really you.

John: Yeah. I get that. Like you, I don’t really believe in resolutions, but I try to have areas of interest or things I’m going to try to do more of in a new year. And so long time listeners will remember that years ago I wanted to learn more about Austrian white wines, or archery. And so my thing for 2020 is drawing, because I consider myself actually really bad at drawing.

Craig: I would love to have a contest with you. You’ll feel so much better about yourself.

John: Indeed. So we’ll have a still life drawing competition. And drawing is one of those things I find very difficult to do, but it’s also one of those things I know just with practice you can get much better. So I’m working through it and doing a little drawing every day.

Craig: I’m so bad at it. I’m terrible at drawing. Always have been. I can’t even figure out how to take some image in my mind and even begin to recreate it. When you were a kid did you watch this – there was a show on PBS I think, whatever your local channel was, and there was a guy who would tell a story from a kid’s book and then start painting it?

John: Absolutely. It was amazing. I also remember he could do things with perspective that were just crazy.

Craig: Amazing.

John: Connecting lines.

Craig: That guy was incredible. And when he would start to draw the picture the thing that would blow my mind is that I had no idea what he was doing. I’m like, OK, there’s lines there. There’s a circle there. There’s stuff there. And then suddenly–

John: It all comes together.

Craig: Poof. There’s an awesome picture. And I kind of hated him because I knew I could never do that ever.

John: But I also recognize that there’s people who feel that same way about writing. They can’t get the words to work right.

Craig: Thank god.

John: So, we were lucky to have that gift.

Craig: That gives us a job.

John: Yeah. It’s nice. Also I looked back at 2019 and I could not have predicted most of the things that I would be doing in 2019. So there’s a certain hubris to be looking forward to 2020 saying like, oh, these are the things I’m going to be doing this year. I’m going to be writing a bunch. But what will actually happen with it I’m not quite sure.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, future tripping. What’s the point? It does nothing but upset you.

John: All right. Some follow up. Last episode we introduced Scriptnotes Premium. That is the Premium feed for which you pay $5 a month and you get access to all the back catalog. You get bonus segments like the one we’re going to do on this show. You get bonus episodes. We did our Die Hard episode. I also put in the feed a 1917 Q&A I did with the writers of 1917.

Craig: Fantastic.

John: So we’re doing that. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to the new service. Some questions we’ve been getting in that Megana has been answering is people ask, hey, I’m already a premium subscriber. Do I need to do anything? And the answer is yes. You actually have to go to Scriptnotes.net and sign up for the new thing, because the old thing will be going away.

Craig: It changed. I mean, sometimes there’s change. It happens. And you know what? People will adjust. There’s an adjustment period.

John: Is it a little frustrating, Craig?

Craig: Not for me. Because I don’t listen to podcasts.

John: No, 2020 Craig is not frustrated.

Craig: Never.

John: He is frustrated, but he doesn’t ruminate on his frustration.

Craig: Correct. There’s a moment of frustration and then I say, hey there, Craig, cut that out. [laughs]

John: So if you would like to listen to all of the back episodes and the bonus stuff go to Scriptnotes.net. Sign up. Even if you signed up to the previous one you need to sign up for this new one. Once you’ve signed up you can cancel the old thing. You’ll get an email explaining how you cancel the old thing. Part of the reason we’re leaving that old service, it was really confusing. And so there’s actual screenshots that walk you through how to cancel the old one.

Craig: Amazing. I worked really hard on this.

John: [laughs] Yeah. So the old service will be going away in February sometime, but we wanted to keep it enough long enough so people who paid for it–

Craig: Guaranteed you’re going to get an onrush of emails saying what happened? It’s inevitable.

John: It will.

Craig: People are disappointing. Even our fans.

John: So Craig, one thing I’ve done in 2019 which was helpful and I’m definitely carrying it with me into the new year is when I watch a movie I try to take some notes afterwards about what worked in that movie for me. And so this first segment I want to talk through this idea of what we can learn from movies.

So I think so often we’re talking about screenplays or like reading scripts and all that stuff but really what all of us do is we watch movies and we take things from movies. And I want to have a discussion about how to be a little bit more systematic and really thoughtful about what we’re taking from movies as we finish watching a film.

Craig: Mindful viewing of movies. That’s a good idea. Everybody that does what we do uses other movies as examples or inspiration. Sometimes we use them as negative examples.

John: Of course.

Craig: But the movies that we love we tend to really think about carefully. It’s a little bit like what you and I do when we walk through one of these movies.

John: Exactly. And so we did our walkthrough of Die Hard and that was really trying to look systematically at what the movie was doing and how the movie was working. That’s a thing that people can do by themselves with every movie that they watch. And really if you’re aspiring to be a screenwriter, or you are a screenwriter, it’s not a bad practice to get into with everything. So if you watch a pilot of a TV show or you watch a movie, just take a few minutes and really look at how that movie worked. Because when you don’t do that it tends to be only the most recent thing you’ve watched is the only example you have in your head. And if you do it more systematically it will work for everything.

Craig: Yeah.

John: So my questions I want to ask myself when I finish a movie is what’s working in it, what’s not working for you in it? If it’s not working why is it not working? Really troubleshoot for yourself what didn’t click for you and why didn’t it click. And what could you have done differently in that movie to make it click?

Really you’re trying to focus on the how questions. How is the movie working and how could the movie be working better if you were to have access to the engine underneath it?

Craig: Yeah. There’s this saying that people put out there about social media. Don’t compare your inside to other people’s outside. And sometimes if we watch movies, particularly ones that we love, and we don’t think about them in a gear-watch-works way then we may suffer from that. We may think, OK, I’m currently sitting here with a pile of tiny little gears and cogs and springs and it’s not a watch. And I just saw the most beautiful watch. I suck.

If you start to really look at it from the point of view of a craftsperson then you can see that they had the same problems and limitations you did. And it’s really helpful I think to start to strip away stuff that isn’t purely writing. Start to strip away the lighting. Start to strip away the music. Start to strip away the performances. And just think about the movements of things that were commanded by text, because that’s what you’re doing.

John: Absolutely. So let’s start at the fundamental. Let’s start at the hero. Let’s take a look at who the hero is in this story and what the function of that hero is. So, as the viewer do you understand who that hero is? What they want? Both on a macro scale, the overall arc of their journey through the story, but on a micro level. On a scene-by-scene, moment-by-moment do you understand what that hero wants? And if you do how is that being communicated? What information are they giving you to let you know what that hero wants?

And that is purely craft. That is the screenwriter’s job is to make it clear what that central character is trying to go after.

Craig: And it’s perfectly reasonable to study how people do that elegantly. So Damon Lindelof and his team did Watchmen which I loved and a lot of people do. And one of the things that I thought was so good about it was what I call non-expository exposition. They were so clever – and that is craft – about making the information release interesting and meaningful beyond just you need to know this. They managed to weave it into other things. Really good lessons learned from that. And I think that when we watch movies it’s fair to look at those really hardcore craft things and say, oh, you know what I’m not going to steal the way, like their movie there, but I’m going to steal their ambition. Like they clearly aspire to do better than the usual. I should, too.

John: Absolutely. Watchmen is a great example for my next question which is how does the hero fit the story. So thinking about what story do you want to tell and which hero is the appropriate hero for telling that story. The fit between hero and world in Watchmen could not have been better. So you had a character whose grandfather was part of this sort of long story, this long struggle, to get us up to this present moment. So she was uniquely qualified to be the central character in the story.

Craig: And you can sometimes struggle when you watch a movie because you’re looking at the wrong person. This is another thing that movies do all the time, we just don’t notice it until we really watch meaningfully. And that is they have us following somebody that isn’t the hero. We think they’re the hero. They’re not the hero.

Sometimes the hero is this side character or somebody we think of as a side character because they’re not occupying this huge space in the story. But the story is really about this smaller – I mean, the most famous example that people kick around is who is Ferris Bueller about? Who is the hero of Ferries Bueller? And it’s Cameron. It’s the friend. Because he’s the only one that has a choice to make. He is the only one who has a problem, who is running away from his problem, who has to confront his problem, and overcome his problem. But he’s not Ferris Bueller. He’s not in the title. Nor is he the guy we watch in the beginning, or the end. It seems like Ferris Bueller is the hero but he’s not. So meaningful watching helps you get there.

John: Absolutely. And finding those situations where the central character of Ferris Bueller is not the protagonist. It’s not the one that actually undergoes the transformation, the journey. So really being deliberate to look at sort of who is playing what role in the story. And once you do that figure out how are they introduced. How are you as a viewer first introduced to these characters? And how quickly do you understand who they are and why you should be interested in them. Those initial scenes of meeting those characters we all know as writers are so crucial. Well, how did this film do it? And ask yourself what are the other choices they could have made and why was this the right choice or the wrong choice?

Craig: Introductions are something that I think writers probably glide past all the time and should not. Maybe it’s because they think their “directing on the page.” As you know I’m a huge fan of directing on the page. I think that’s our job. And I think of movies that are delightful and how often their delight is conveyed to us through an introduction of a character. Like so when we first meet Jack Sparrow in the very first Pirates of the Caribbean movie he’s on this ship, he is a proud pirate, he seems like just one of those plot armored heroes where no wrong can. And then you reveal that his boat is sinking and he literally steps off the top of it onto a deck as it disappears below the waves. That says so much not just about him but about this world, the tone. It’s delightful.

John: Yes.

Craig: In the second movie I believe he shoots his way out of a coffin. It’s another just – it’s surprising. So, another excellent thing to keep an eye on for all movies. And sometimes they’re not flashy like that. The introduction of the family in Parasite–

John: Yes.

Craig: Spectacular. Just the way that they’re living in a basement sort of, and how their day is consumed by trying to steal wifi. Brilliant.

John: It’s really talk about all these aspects, like who are the right characters for the story, how are we meeting these characters, and do we understand what they want? And Parasite is a great example of how you’re seeing all three of those things in one initial sequence that’s really telling you this is their situation. These are the people you’re going to be watching through the course of the story.

Craig: Yeah. If you’re watching a movie and you feel good at the end of a scene, stop. I don’t mean to say that you should do this the first time you see it. But when it’s time to watch it meaningfully and thoughtfully if the scene works for you stop and then roll back and then watch it again. And just think about the layers and why.

This is so much more important than why – I feel like our culture is just obsessed with people explaining why they hate things. They’re rewarded for it, I guess. It teaches you very little. It really does. I’ll tell you, more than anything when I watch something I don’t like I get scared. I get scared because I think would I have done the exact same thing in that situation? How would I have done it differently? I’m starting to get scared. Better to look at things you love.

John: Looking at any of these characters, a useful metric for me is could I describe this character independently of the actor? Do I have enough information about that character at the start and as the story progresses that I could talk about that character independently of the actor who is playing him? So I think Jack Sparrow is actually a great example. Because we think of him as Johnny Depp, but that character is very, very specific independently of the performance of Johnny Depp.

Same with all the family members in Parasite whose names I don’t know. And so they are such strongly drawn characters that I don’t have to fall back on a description of who the actor was playing them to be able to describe them as what they’re trying to do in the story.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, Disney, the folks who are running Disney very famously they knew they had hired Johnny Depp and when they saw what he was doing and what he looked like and how he sounded and walked they freaked out, because that was not some sort of inevitable thing that travels out of Johnny Depp. That was something specific and different. And it is a character that could be played by another person. It could be.

Would it have been played the same way? No.

John: No.

Craig: I think he was perfect. I really do. But in some alternate universe someone else is playing it and people also love the movie.

John: Agreed. So we talked about the hero, let’s talk about the antagonist. How does the antagonist arrive in the story? How do they challenge the hero? And in movies that work well the antagonist is so specific to the story and so specific to the hero that it’s hard to imagine them existing outside of that universe. So we talk about this in Die Hard. We talk about it in almost any of the movies we love, they have a villain or a chief character who is challenging the hero who is so specific to that story. So always look for how is that antagonist introduced and how specifically drawn are they to challenge your hero in the story.

Craig: And if it works for you, accept that. You know, you could fall into a trap of trying to fit things into categories and saying, well, sometimes I’ll see people say, “You know, I really liked this movie but it doesn’t follow the rule of blankety-blank.” Correct. It does not. Because that is not a rule. The rule that you just cited isn’t a rule. There are movies where the villain, the antagonist, is the weather. There are movies where it’s a dog. There’s movies where it’s a ghost. There’s movies where it’s fate. There’s movies where it’s the person you love the most.

It’s defined in so many different ways, so start with the fact that it worked. And then say, OK, I’ve just learned a new way of conceiving of what an antagonist is. The word villain, also, a bit of a trap.

John: Agreed. So then we have our characters. Let’s talk about the storytelling of the movie. So, how quickly and how well does it establish who is important and what they’re going after? How does the movie move between storylines? And this I think is the most crucial kind of craft question. Obviously there’s multiple things that are going to be happening. How does the movie decide how to switch back and forth between? Does it limit POV to only things that the hero knows? Or does the audience have omniscient POV? How is it working in terms of telling you its story? And how quickly – going back to the Pirates example – does it set up what its tone and genre are really going to be?

And these are fundamental things. And if the movie is not working you’re going to notice it here.

Craig: Correct. And that’s why it’s so important to carefully watch a movie that is working for you. Because when it is working it is designed for you to not notice any seams whatsoever. You won’t notice cuts. You won’t notice that one scene has changed to another. You won’t notice transitions. It will all seem inevitable and purposeful and of a single whole.

So take the time to now go, OK, but it’s not. So let’s be amateur magicians that are invited to the magic castle and we’re asking the really good sleight of hand guy, OK, slow it down for me. Let me see it bit by bit, move by move. That’s how you’re going to learn.

John: Absolutely. The last bit of technique which I think is so crucial to be monitoring is how does the movie surprise you? Because by this point you’ve watched thousands of movies. You are a sophisticated movie viewer. The movies that succeed are the ones that still manage to surprise you. That you feel like you’re caught up with them and they still have some more tricks up their sleeve. So how do they do that? How did they deceive you in a way that got you to that moment of surprise?

And those are the moments to really go back and really figure out what was the set up that got you to that misunderstanding.

Craig: Setups, payoffs, misdirections, but also just as important clues, hints. We will not feel as satisfied if there were no hints. I was watching, so Knives Out, written and directed by our friend Rian Johnson, which has done extraordinarily well and for good reason. I watched it again and there’s a moment that happens during the reading of the will when the lawyer announces that the old man has left all of his stuff, all of it, to Marta, his nurse. There’s one little thing that happens with one character that is a clue. But you sure don’t know it at the time because it’s a clever clue. It’s a smart clue. And I thought, OK, there’s intelligence at work and there’s also an understanding of how fair play actually improves the misdirection and the surprise.

It is, again, a very calculated, careful crafted bit. And at its best moviemaking is about marrying this really hardcore calculating craft with a kind of inspired wild creative abandon.

John: Yeah.

Craig: And that’s what good things like Knives Out do.

John: Absolutely. And I think a crucial thing about Knives Out is to remember like, so Rian Johnson is both the writer and the director. That scene is incredibly well directed, but that moment that you’re describing is a written moment.

Craig: Yes.

John: It was very clearly an idea that occurred in the writing stage of this. And so I think it’s also great to have a separate discussion about what works on a directing level, on a cinematography level, on casting, costuming. Think about all those things but as a separate conversation. Really just focus on what is it about the storytelling, about the writing that is working for you so well in this part of the process.

Craig: Whodunits are amazing for this. If you want to really study the craft of surprise and misdirection just watch whodunits. Because that’s all they’re about. I mean, they are about some other things occasionally. I mean, Knives Out has a certain commentary about class and what it means to be an immigrant in the United States and inherited wealth versus earned wealth. All of that stuff is there. But mostly it’s about the machinery of who did it. And that’s what’s so satisfying about it.

John: Well it’s also a meta examination of sort of the whodunit as a genre, because it ultimately is not so much a whodunit.

Craig: Correct. It’s sort of like we know who did it, but whodunit. And I love those movies because they really do instruct you. Comedies, also, I will say comedies are oftentimes–

John: Well, there’s setup, payoff.

Craig: It’s machinery.

John: Yeah, it’s machinery behind.

Craig: Study the machinery.

John: So we’ve watched the movie and now we’re trying to focus on it. Obviously if you have someone there to go have a drink with afterwards you can talk through all that stuff, which is great. But if you’re watching the movie by yourself what I found to be really helpful and I’ve started doing it much more for the last couple months is just one page of notes, bullet points of like these were the things I learned from this movie. And if it’s a movie that I loved, great. These are some things I loved and some things that this filmmaker was able to do in the writing that really worked for me and things I wanted to remember from this.

If it’s a movie I didn’t love, I find that also to be really helpful. This thing they tried to do just did not work, or I was confused by these moments. This isn’t a review. This is like what is it that you can take from this thing you just watched and apply to your own work. And what you said before about when you watch a movie that’s not working you get that moment of fear. Would I have made the same mistakes? And as I look at the movies that didn’t work, yeah, I definitely see some things where I probably would have tried that in that situation, too. So it’s helpful. It’s a chance to sort of have the experience of having made that movie that didn’t work and learn from it without having spent years of your life making a movie that didn’t work.

Craig: How nice is that, right? I mean, it’s hard enough doing these things. So if there’s anything we can do to save ourselves from a trap. By the way, we probably can’t. I mean, if we’re going to fall into a trap we’re going to fall into a trap. But studying other people’s good stuff but help I think but make us better. And if you do see, well, I guess here is how I would put it with the negative things. I do think of these things as relationships. We have a relationship with something. A movie. This is why very, very smart, cultured, tasteful people can have violent disagreements about the same movie. Because it’s not about the movie being good or bad, or you being a good or bad viewer. It’s about this unique relationship that forms between you and it, which is the sum of all of what it is and all of what you are.

So, when we watch these things and we find ourselves in a good or bad relationship, what’s worthy there is it will help us craft something that we have a good relationship with as we write. Because I’ve written things before where I just thought I’m fighting with this thing. I mean, this thing doesn’t want to exist, or it shouldn’t exist, but I’m being paid to make it exist and I am fighting with it. I am at war. And it’s not a good feeling. Figuring out how to have a good relationship with what you’re writing is something that you might be able to be helped to do by thinking about the good relationships you’ve had with other things.

John: Absolutely. One unique thing about the time people are living in now versus when we were starting out is that pretty much any movie you’ve really enjoyed you can read the screenplay of. And so if you have questions about how it worked on the page you can go back and look at those scripts. This is the part where you and I come clean and say we don’t read the scripts. We’re not reading those For Your Consideration scripts.

Craig: No.

John: But they’re available there for people to read. And it was very important for me when I was starting to write to read a bunch of those scripts. And so definitely go out and read those scripts if you are new to the craft and learning how it all works.

Craig and I tend to watch movies and we can sort of see the script coming through there. So, obviously we don’t know what the drama was and what changed on the set, but we get a pretty sense of what the storytelling was on the page that led to that movie. But if you’re new to this that’s a great place to start. And so I would recommend watch the movie, read the script, and see how it compares. Or if there’s something that you’ve not seen, reverse it sometimes and read the script, see the movie in your head, and then watch the final movie to see sort of how the filmmakers did the job of converting that screenplay into a movie.

Craig: I mean, really what you’re advising people to do is their homework.

John: Yes.

Craig: Do you homework, people.

John: Yeah.

Craig: This is a job. They don’t just pay you for nothing.

John: And I guess–

Craig: You got to know stuff.

John: In my taking notes on movies that I’m watching now I’m just sort of trying to do my homework a little bit more. I feel like I’ve been letting it slide for a few years and just like watching the movie just as a fan. That’s why I like to watch a movie just to enjoy it, but then afterwards take those notes. I’m not taking notes during it.

Craig: Well that’s a really good way to keep yourself relevant also. I think as people get older sometimes we think of them as losing a step or losing some zip on their fastballs, as we say, but sometimes I think all that’s happening is they’ve just disconnected from the churn of culture and what is relevant and what’s happening around us that is new and different. Because people are constantly kicking over the old stuff.

Like for instance what Rian did with Knives Out. It sort of kicks over the old stuff a bit. And if you’re not paying attention to that you will just make more old stuff. Sometimes I read things, I’m sure you have too, where a studio will say we really like this idea. It’s not quite working. Can you fix it? And you read it and you think, well, I get it. This is a good idea. It feels like it was written 30 years ago.

John: Yep.

Craig: It just seems like whoever wrote this stopped at some point and you can’t.

John: Move forward.

Craig: Move forward.

John: On the topic of moving we have some new responses about moving to Los Angeles.

Craig: Segue Man.

John: This is a follow up from Episode 428. Listener Mark was considering moving from NYC to Los Angeles and wanted advice. Craig and I moved so long ago that we did not have relevant advice, but we figured our listeners did. We had three people write in this last week with some good advice. Craig, do you want to start us off with what Eric wrote?

Craig: Sure. Eric writes, “I made the same move seven years ago after living in NYC for 10 years. It was not easy. Here are a few ideas about what made the transition easier in terms of writing and just being. First, get into a writing group. Can’t stress this enough. If you can’t find one, I will either join you or find one for you.” What a nice guy.

“My writing group was responsible for two managers and an agent for me. And it forces you to read scripts, watch movies, write pages.”

John: Let’s pause here. Writing groups are not a thing that I grew up with. They weren’t part of this. But Megan McDonnell and Megana Rao, our Scriptnotes producers, both have sworn by their writing groups because it keeps them accountable. It is people you’re seeing on a regular basis and you’re doing the work and you’re showing up and you’re giving honest feedback and criticism. So, yes on writing groups.

Craig: Writing groups are a good way to socialize yourself as a writer. When you get a new puppy you’re supposed to put it in a room with other puppies so it doesn’t not know other things. I think a lot of writers grow up alone in rooms like little mushrooms. And then they turn a script in and someone says something and they just collapse. Because they haven’t gone through the socialization process. So I agree. I mean, look, unless you really are somebody that is fully functional and self-aware on your own, or you have a writing partner that you really trust and love, this does seem like a good idea.

Eric then adds, “Get a job with value.” Oh, buddy, I love that advice. “Value can be defined many ways. Money. Flexibility. Proximity to industry. Exposure to writing or writers. I freelance edit commercials. And it exposed me to lots of places in the city and lots of creative people who make ads.”

John: Great.

Craig: Good. You know me. Take plan B, make a plan A. “Community. Writing and editing can be extremely lonely. It’s important to have people. Peruse LA Mag for fun events. The Comedy Bureau website was useful for me. LA has amazing free comedy shows every day of the week.”

Well, I would just stay home alone and play videogames, but.

John: Yeah. But he’s saying maybe you should get out.

Craig: Maybe? Maybe I need Eric’s advice. Oh, and just on time Eric suggests, “Mental health, healthcare. SCCC is a great resource.” And we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. Sliding scale therapy. Also Obamacare is wonderful in LA. Sort this out as soon as possible before it gets completely gutted in the case of disaster next November. You’ll be happy you did.” I think that’s probably good advice.

“California Driver’s license. Trust me. Get one.”

John: Yeah, you’re supposed to do it like right away when you move to Los Angeles. No one kind of does, but you should. The same thing about your plates. You’re supposed to change your plates right away, too.

Craig: I think they give you a six-month grace period or something. The reason that I took a little bit of time was because it costs more. So when I came out here with my Jersey license and Jersey plates I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Registration in California, quite a bit more.

John: Yeah.

Craig: So, you know, but I got there. “Apartment. There are some neighborhoods that are better for writers, newly arrived creative types. Lots written about this. If you cannot figure this out, email me. I will walk you through it. This is important. I don’t want to hear you landed in Reseda or Alhambra. No offense to those places.”

John: That is correct. So, there are places that are way on the outskirts of Los Angeles where you might as well not be in Los Angeles. You’re going to be driving for forever and you’re not really here.

Craig: Yeah. Just stay home at that point. “Coffee shops. There are articles about the best coffee shops to write at. Find them. Read them. Also libraries. Do not write at home. Remember, people need people.”

John: I write at home.

Craig: I mean, I don’t need people. People who don’t need people. Are the luckiest people.

“Patience and humility. LA is a great, inspiring, fascinating, beautiful city. Go on all the hikes and to all the beaches, Mark. Simultaneously, it can make you feel like a complete isolated failure and wreck of a human being and a total hack imposter. Listen to that song It Never Rains in Southern California if you don’t believe me. With lots of luck and labor your fortunes may change. Or maybe they won’t. But all you can do is write. Be patient. Be humble. Be compassionate to your fellow writers and to yourself. Best of luck to you, Mark.”

Eric seems like a very nice guy.

John: Eric is a very nice guy. That was very generous, very giving.

Craig: I would be so upset if he turned out to be a serial killer. I’d be so bummed out.

John: I would be, yeah.

Craig: Eric…

John: Frustrating.

Craig: I would be frustrated. But only briefly.

John: Yes, indeed.

Craig: And then I’d be OK.

John: Kristen writes, “I moved to Los Angeles in 2017 and coming from New York it had been five years since I had last driven. The freeways intimidated my new driver self. Someone gave me the tip to use the ‘avoid highways’ option in Google Maps and it changed everything. While it took me longer to get places I was able to slowly get comfortable with driving and as a bonus I was able to learn the neighborhoods and landmarks in the city that I never would have seen if I’d only stuck to the highways.

“Now over two years in I’m happy to report I am back driving as a highway pro.”

Craig: Well that’s good. I mean, the important thing is that it had a happy ending. Kristen is out there like all the rest of the lunatics, changing lanes too frequently and too quickly on our freeways. So that is good advice, Kristen.

Kate writes, “First, go in with a long haul mindset. While LA is a great place to further your career, it most likely won’t happen overnight. I made the naïve mistake of thinking that my networking skills and all-consuming desire to work in Hollywood would put me on the fast track to a career in writing and producing. So I was not mentally prepared for the opposite to be true. It took months and months of networking to get my foot in the door as an entry level assistant and even longer to form meaningful personal relationships. I’ve since learned that the counterparts to passion and enthusiasm are patience and consistency. All of which are needed to build a career in the entertainment industry.”

Patience and consistency is pretty much spot on.

John: That’s really pretty great.

Craig: I mean, that’s exactly right.

John: But I mean, the four points she has – passion, enthusiasm, patience, and consistency. That will do a lot.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, throw a little talent in there and–

John: Yeah, hey.

Craig: You’re pretty much good to go for decades. “Second, invest time in an activity unrelated to screenwriting. Be it hiking.” Hmm. “Salsa dancing.” Hmm. “Pottery.” Hmm. “Board games.”

John: Yes!

Craig: Hey! “Etc. Carve out a few hours each week for something that adds texture to your life and gives your mind a break. Not only will it energize you. It’s what will keep you sane during the ups and downs that you will inevitably face over time.”

John: I agree with her here. And a point I would add is that we were just talking about movies. Before you moved to Los Angeles movies were probably your escape time and that was the fun thing you did. You’re still going to go see a bunch of movies, but that is kind of also your work. So finding something that is not your work is a really good idea. And going back to Eric’s letter, hiking in Los Angeles is actually great and is a thing that you discover pretty quickly. Oh, there’s actually really good places to hike around here. If you don’t have a dog, you sort of get exposure to dogs because there’s dogs everywhere. So getting outdoors is crucial here and that would be a good first thing to do.

Craig: Moving around. Breathing. Seeing things. All good. Having a friend or two, crucial. Yeah, for anybody. By the way, this is – it doesn’t really matter if you want to be in LA, you want to write, or you want to be a plumber in New Zealand. Get outside. Breathe a little bit. Have some people in your life. Don’t be alone.

John: So a thing that I did in 2019 which I had not anticipated doing was I got into indoor bouldering. So that’s climbing in indoor gyms. And I ended up meeting some Scriptnotes listeners there who recognized me from the podcast, or because I was wearing my Scriptnotes t-shirt always, and talking with them. And so one of them said that when he moved to Los Angeles all the friends he first met were at the climbing gym because the climbing gym is a good place to sort of hang out with other people who aren’t drinking and there’s so much down time when you’re climbing. It was a good mingling spot. And again crucially not a screenwriting-focused thing.

So, finding a place to hang out with other people is a really good idea.

Craig: Yeah. And when it’s built around an activity all the pressure of we’re here to meet each other is gone. That’s why networking, just the word alone–

John: Drives me crazy.

Craig: Just gives me spinal shivers. Because I don’t even know what it is. I literally don’t know. Are we all here to exchange ambitions? What are we doing? If we acknowledge that this is networking isn’t that defeating the purpose of the – shouldn’t we just be meeting each other?

John: Yeah.

Craig: And talking to each other and finding something interesting about each other that does not accrue to our personal benefit?

John: Yep.

Craig: That would be nice.

John: It would be nice. Challenging to do. All right, so in addition to all this great listener advice, advice from listeners, we have questions that came in from listeners. The mailbag has been full, so let’s get to some of these questions that have been stacked in here.

Craig: Now we get to give the advice.

John: We do.

Craig: All right.

John: On Episode 428 a listener wrote in saying, “Regarding the email from Derek about being in a mini room and assigned a script. He referenced being asked to write the first draft of an episode that largely made it into what aired, but was then denied credit. Aren’t the companies producing the television shows WGA signatories? Are there fines for violating the WGA agreements that require them to pay for writing? If talking to the business producer doesn’t work it would seem helpful for the writer to be able to go to the WGA for help on this even if you’re not yet in the guild. And if there were fines for signatories for violations, say the amount of the WGA minimum for a TV episode for the infraction, there might be financial incentives to address this upfront and get an agreement on credit worked out.”

So, Craig, a bunch packed together here.

Craig: Yeah, but just the answer to all those questions is yep.

John: Yep. And complicated.

Craig: Correct. Yep in a perfect world. Yeah. You’re not allowed – if you’re a signatory you can’t ask people to do free work like that. And whether you’re in the guild or not if somebody is asking you to work for free on a guild-covered project you have the right to call the guild and say, oh, red flag. And there are penalties. And you can’t do these things. And…

John: Ultimately let’s say that this writer, so Derek went to the WGA saying like they had me do guild-covered work. This is a violation. The WGA then goes after that signatory, but goes through an arbitration process. And so these cases do happen.

Craig: Yep. They can’t just take your word for it. They have to investigate.

John: Yes. And so it’s not a simple matter of there’s a fine and it’s all figured out. It goes through a whole process. But I can tell you as someone who was on the board and I get to see all the documents, that does happen. So yes it does happen. Yes Derek should probably report it.

Craig: Well, it’s really, you know, a question for the circumstances there because there are times when a small justice will not be worth it because a large injustice will be perpetrated against you as a result. I’m not one of those people who says keep your head down and don’t snitch and all that sort of thing. But if there is a situation like this where you think, OK, there’s a great opportunity for me to kind of move onwards and upwards without fighting this all the way to City Hall then maybe that’s the kind of jujitsu way here. I mean, it happened to me on the very first thing I did where there was a credit involved. There was an unfair imposition of credit. And I chose to just let it go and keep on moving and that was the smart decision.

John: Here’s the other thing that’s complicated about this situation is that while the signatory, this company, is the one who is at fault, the actual person who was allowing this assignment to happen is a WGA member.

Craig: Correct.

John: And that is the weird problem here is that taking a complaint of a non-member against a member and having to sort it all out. It is genuinely complicated.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, Disney Television has no awareness whatsoever that the showrunner of one of their shows asked one of the assistants to do a first draft of something. No clue. When they hear about that they’ll go, oh, yeah, no that’s terrible. Can’t do that. Sure. But now back on the ground where all the boots on the ground are and people get hired and fired and let go, it’s just something to think about.

But the think I guess to our listener is the world isn’t insane. Yes. There are rules. And they are broken frequently. Just like the speed limit.

Josh asks, “Is it normal for a literary manager or agent to request material from a writer and then they never follow up? I’ve experienced plenty of silence with cold queries. I don’t even have a problem with it when the material is initially requested from a cold query. However recently I’ve had reps from Verve and other places reach out to me unsolicited and request scripts. Then crickets. I’ve sent a single follow up when I didn’t hear anything and most of those have gone ignored, too.”

So, Josh is wondering what do you do in a situation like this and what does this mean, John. What do you think it means?

John: I think it means that they’re not that into you.

Craig: Yeah.

John: Josh, this happens all the time. So, I would say this is probably more the norm than the exception is that someone should just not follow up with you and not get back to you. That’s just going to happen a lot. And so I think you can feel better knowing that it’s not just you. It does happen a lot. They probably read it. It probably didn’t spark for them. That’s OK. But I remember being in your situation.

So, the very first thing I’d written, I had a producer friend who took it into CAA to have them read it and see if they wanted to represent me. And they just never got back to her and never got back to me. I kept waiting. This is sort of pre-email really. I kept waiting for is there going to be a voicemail saying that they read it and that they loved it and whatever. And it just never happened.

Craig: It turns out that life is very simple. And Josh is clearly a thinking person. His gears are spinning here. He’s trying to solve this problem and untie this Gordian knot. But in fact it’s not a knot at all. It’s very simple. People will ask to read something because someone said to them, “Oh, you should read this guy’s thing.” That’s why. And so they do. And then they read it and they go, OK, either we hated it, or we loved it, or this or that, but the point is we think, yeah, probably not interested in representing him at this time based on this. So, yeah. That decision is done. Now what are we having for lunch.

There is no consideration to then go, OK, somebody call him back, make him feel good. That’s it. Just presume it’s a no until it’s a yes. And presume it’s a no until somebody pays you money.

John: Yeah. And thinking about it from the agent who requested your script’s perspective. What email did they send you saying like, hey, thank you for sending the thing, we didn’t really like it.

Craig: Right. Exactly.

John: So the polite thing for them to do is just sort of like just never follow up with you again.

Craig: Yeah. The email would be, “I thought I would like this. I didn’t. You surprised me in a bad way.” [laughs] Yeah, so better to just not send anything. That’s what’s going on there.

John: Gail from New Jersey asks, “I have a question pertaining to China and freedom of speech. Depending on the job field, what an employee says about China in and out of the professional work environment can be detrimental. Do screenwriters go through vetting when writing screenplays for studios? Are there certain ideas or concepts that you think would never be able to happen because it would upset China? Do you feel like this limitation is imposing on your creativity and rights as Americans?”

This is a big topic.

Craig: That’s a big topic.

John: Probably worth its own episode at some point.

Craig: I mean, just a general summary on it. I don’t know if anyone is being vetted per se. I don’t think anyone is being vetted in that regard. But, yeah, are there certain ideas or concepts that you would never be able to do because it would upset China. Yep. No question. Go ahead and try and make some sort of movie about Tiananmen Square and see how far you get. Because Chinese financing is so deeply intertwined with Hollywood at this point. And I’m not even talking about the entire exhibition side of things where if you are allowed into the Chinese theatrical market you can make an enormous amount of money that way.

Does it impose on my creativity? No. I can create whatever I want. If I want to write a book I’ll just write a book about it. Does it impose on my rights? I don’t have a right to have my script bought by anyone. But certainly if I want to work with big studios and big producers in Hollywood, yeah. It’s unfortunately a thing.

John: So I would say to this point I’m not aware of any vetting of screenwriters where like, oh, we would hire them but they’ve had some tweets about China that could be problematic. Could that happen? Yeah. That could theoretically happen. But that’s not happening yet.

Craig: Yeah.

John: But I would say China is worth its own discussion about the bigger issues because it’s a tremendous amount of money. It’s a tremendous amount of political leverage. And it’s a thing you touch very carefully as a writer.

Craig: Yeah. You know, I guess I’m kind of lucky in the sense that I’m not really committed to making movies or making television shows that are specifically critical of the Chinese government. It’s just not where one of my interests are.

John: Yeah. But if Chernobyl had happened in China that would be problematic.

Craig: Oh yeah. So there were movies that used to happen. Seven Years in Tibet. And was Red Square, was that about China?

John: Yeah, I think so. That was the one with–

Craig: Richard Gere?

John: Richard Gere, yeah. But the Red Dawn remake was originally China invading and then they changed it to North Korea or some undisclosed country.

Craig: Correct. Because that’s how that goes now. And, yeah, the foreign villain du jour has changed many, many times. There was a long stretch in the ‘70s, and ‘80s, and into the ‘90s where the villain was just some sort of generic Islamic terrorist. Russians used to be villains, then stopped being villains. And are back to being villains.

John: Back to villains. The third Arlo Finch book which comes out February 5th, a large part of it takes place in China. And I did have to be mindful of sort of like I was portraying China in it. So, the Chinese government has a role in it, but they’re not the bad guys in the story. I did have to think about what am I saying about China. And if you’re reading this as a Chinese reader what would you be taking from this.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, the world now is such that governments do coordinate positions online to impact culture. So, you know, Chernobyl sort of snuck up on the Russian government a little bit, both the event and the miniseries. So I didn’t get hit with a coordinated response. But there were some things. And little tiny things where you’d go, wow, just like people saying why are you talking about Ukraine like it’s really a country or place, it’s not. It’s really just Russia and they think that they’re Ukraine but they’re not. And I’m like–

John: Oh, OK.

Craig: OK. Mute. I’ll just mute that. I don’t want to get sucked into that whole thing. Similarly I will occasionally tweet in support of what we should be doing which is recognizing that the Armenian genocide occurred. And I’ll hear from Turks. And they say the same things. It’s out there.

John: Yeah. Our last question is from Rob. Do you want to read it?

Craig: Sure. Rob asks, “My agent tells me that no one spends on feature development. So the only solution is to spec. I have concepts in light treatment form, five pagers, but it seems crazy to invest months of work taking them further without clear interest. To me if there’s enough interest for me to write it that should be enough interest to pay and develop it.” Rob.

“I get why companies want this to be a way, but surely this can’t be the only way.” Would I have even a millionth of Rob’s confidence. How wonderful life would be.

John: Life would be great. Let’s talk through some terms here. Because I’ve heard about this from other writers at probably Rob’s level here. It sounds like Rob is someone who has not been produced but is someone who is getting read a lot, which is great. Rob, awesome. You have an agent now at one of the agencies who signed a deal maybe. That’s fantastic.

So you’re going and meeting with places. You’re kind of pitching ideas and you’re writing up on your own these sort of five-page little things. That’s great. But these places aren’t buying them from you, or they’re not going to pay you in advance to write this script because they kind of don’t have to. Because unless there was competition over one of these things they’re just not going to do it. And there isn’t just wait and see what the actual script looks like.

So you can say like, hey, the smart money would be to pay me to write this so that they can control it the whole time through. That’s not how they see the smart money because they have a limited development budget and they want to spend that on things that they really think are going to get made.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, there is development money, Rob. I mean, your agent is incorrect. They spend millions on feature development. But what John is saying is absolutely true. They spend it on stuff they know they want.

John: Yep.

Craig: So you are like a waiter coming up to somebody in a restaurant saying I know you ordered the this and the this. But would you consider the this that you’ve never heard of. I guess maybe. Could I taste it? Nope. [laughs] You just got to buy it. But trust me, because if I have enough interest to cook it you should have enough interest to pay me for it. So, they – look, they used to all the time because they had to make movies. They were starving for movies because of the way the video market worked. The more movies you made, the more money you made. So they needed people to come to them and say what if it was Die Hard in a dog house. And someone would go, great, money, go. Like a little bit the way Netflix works now.

They don’t do that anymore. Putting every movie out is a massively expensive proposition. I was reading about Cats which obviously has not done well at the box office and I think they said the production budget was $90 million. That’s a lot of money because they had to put CGI fur on people and whatever. The marketing budget was $110 million. That’s why they are so careful about what they make. That is why they try and only spend money on the stuff they think they already want.

So you’re coming in there with something new, then in all likelihood you are going to have to hand them not just a script, Rob. That’s not even enough. You’re going to have to give them a script with an actor and a director attached. Because that’s how you’re going to – I mean, I think of like the Dr. Dolittle movie that’s coming out. Stephen Gaghan wrote a script with Robert Downey, Jr. attached and Stephen Gaghan attached to direct. And that’s why there was a bidding war for that movie. Because it was sort of like we’ve done it all. Here it is. You can see it. It’s real. Yes or no?

So, when you say Rob if there’s enough interest for me to write it that should be enough interest to pay to develop it, all I can say is you’re interest has nothing to do with their interest.

John: No. When he’s describing this light treatment form, or this five-pager idea, that was never really a thing.

Craig: Correct.

John: Those haven’t sold.

Craig: Correct.

John: There never was a market for those.

Craig: Correct.

John: So I think that may be a very good way of expressing the movie for you and in some ways Rob it’s awesome that you’re thinking through the movie at that length and in that form rather than the whole 120 pages. Of those five pagers, pick the one that you actually want to write the most, that you would actually pay money to see, and write that as a spec.

Craig: Write it.

John: And then use the agency to help you get that in the hands of people who can actually buy that.

Craig: And if no one makes it they’ll hire you to write something else because they love it. If you really have to write something you write it. You know? You just have to. You do it. It’s when you’re writing it to, I don’t know, prove something or get a job or be paid money. Like I said before, you enter a weird relationship with the thing you’re writing where you’re now kind of like john and prostitute and you don’t want to be that. You want to be – not you, John.

John: It took me a while to get there, but I figured it out, yes.

Craig: The generic purveyor and solicitor. You want to be in love with it. You want to be in love with it. And then nothing will stop you from writing it. And then hopefully people will see that.

John: Yeah. You just said john and prostitute. Where do you think the john comes from?

Craig: In that usage?

John: Yeah.

Craig: I would assume just an anonymous guy.

John: Like John Doe, yeah.

Craig: Yeah.

John: I was Googling this past week for Parson Brown. In the Christmas song like we can dress him up like a snowman and pretend that he is Parson Brown. Parson Brown is actually just an old British term for a John Doe.

Craig: Oh, really?

John: Yeah. So it’s not a specific person. Parson Brown is just–

Craig: So you see a body, like who is that body? Some Parson Brown.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Wow.

John: Isn’t that crazy?

Craig: British people are fascinating.

John: They are.

Craig: They really are.

John: The strangest thing, those Brits.

Craig: Parson Brown.

John: Parson Brown.

Craig: There’s some filthy Parson Brown lying on the ground as I’m at my cottage. Dispense of him.

John: Nice. It’s time for our One Cool Things.

Craig: Great.

John: My One Cool Thing is an article by Timothy Lee for Ars Technica entitled I Created My Deepfake. It took two weeks and cost $552. And so this is a guy who decided to take footage of Mark Zuckerberg and footage of data from Star Trek: The Next Generation and swap faces with them. And wanted to see how feasible that was.

Craig: It’s a pretty good idea.

John: It’s a really good idea actually. And the end results are pretty good. They’re not fantastic. They’re not as good as like the Bill Hader ones that we’ve been seeing which are remarkably good.

Craig: Disturbing. Disturbing.

John: So, so good. But it’s a good walk through of the state of the art of the technology right now and sort of how it is done. It takes a lot longer than I would have guessed to do. It’s not a speedy process at all. With a lot of human–

Craig: It will be.

John: It will be. And that’s the thing. It reminds me very much of the early days of Photoshop. I remember Spy Magazine when they would put Sharon Stone’s face on a model’s body and it was like a sci-text machine. It was like $20,000 to do. And now it’s like any kid with Photoshop.

Craig: With a phone. No, it’s terrifying. And there’s going to be some way to kind of watermark things. We’re going to have to figure out how to verify things. Everything, by the way. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

My One Cool Thing has the coolest name of all time.

John: Tell me.

Craig: It’s the Vertiflex Superion.

John: I like that very much. Now it sounds like it could exercise equipment, or some sort of new investment thing.

Craig: Or a supervillain.

John: Yes.

Craig: Vertiflex Superion has landed on the planet and is going to devour your soul. The Vertiflex Superion is a very small little piece of titanium and I had it stuck between my lumbar four and five vertebrae.

John: Very nice.

Craig: Because I had some disk degeneration. When you sit your spine is somewhat flexed and open. When you stand your spine will curve back a bit to maintain your center of gravity and where it curves back typically L4/L5 is where most of it is. And those vertebrae will tend to start to collapse down. And when they do when you stand they will smush down on one of the nerves that’s exiting your spinal cord, heading down through your lower back, your butt, your leg. And it’s painful.

I’ve been dealing with this for like two years. And the only – so there’s some steroid injections you try. And if those work, great. They did not for me. I mean, they worked great for like two weeks. And then there’s just surgery. And the surgery is a lot. They whack you open and they scrape all the muscle away from the bone. And they chop some bone away. And then they fuse the bones together. And then they stick – and it is a lot.

Or, you can do this thing. Very non-invasive. A little one-inch incision and they put a little tube through and this little piece in. And it opens up and it basically props open your vertebrae when you stand. Very simple idea. It works brilliantly. I have – I mean, it’s really reduced the pain by like 90%.

John: That’s fantastic.

Craig: Which is amazing. Now, here’s the frustrating part. The Vertiflex Superion and basically all things like it, they’re called spacers. Vertebral spacers. They are approved by the FDA. You will be reimbursed by Medicare if you’re on Medicare. The big insurance companies consider it investigational and will not pay for it. So, I paid out of pocket. It is not cheap. And I am annoyed. And so this is for you, AETNA. Or what are we, Anthem? We’re Anthem.

John: Anthem/Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Craig: AETNA is the same way. Anthem/Blue Cross, I would like to say to you, “You guys are nuts.” Because what you’re saying to people and what they said to me was, no, you may not have this done with us paying. Instead you can have something done that is far more expensive. Vastly more expensive. Like ten times more expensive. And more painful. And has a much higher rate of opioid use after. It makes no sense. So, please, Anthem/Blue Cross, based on this anecdotal story of one patient, but they also have terrific results and scientific studies to back them up. Reconsider. The Vertiflex Superion.

John: Now, Craig, it does sound to the casual listener like–

Craig: I’m being paid?

John: No. That you have now become the robot. Because you actually have metal pieces inserted into your body.

Craig: I have a piece of titanium in me. So, to be clear I am not being paid by the Vertiflex Superion corporation or its subsidiaries or whatever parent companies.

John: But you do own a piece of that corporation.

Craig: I do own a piece of that corporation inside of me. Although maybe I’m just licensing it. [laughs]

John: What if they actually implanted that, because it’s feeding directly into your spinal cord.

Craig: Correct.

John: So it could–

Craig: The Vertiflex does talk to me. It tells me things. It has told me to be less frustrated. It does occasionally tell me to murder. [laughs] But we’re working through that.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. That’s the one downside to it. Can take over your brain and make you murder people.

John: We’ll hope not though.

Craig: Yeah.

John: That is our show this week. But stick around if you’re a premium member because after the credits we will be talking about The Mandalorian and what we both thought. Our show is produced by Megana Rao. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our Adam Locke Norton. Thank you for the disco, Adam. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com.

That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts.

You can find all the back episodes of the show at Scriptnotes.net. You can also download 50-episode seasons at store.johnaugust.com.

Links:

• Southern California Counseling Center
• How I Created A Deepfake of Mark Zuckerberg and Star Trek’s Data by Timothy Lee for Ars Technica
• Vertiflex Superion
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Adam Locke Norton (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The original post for this episode can be found here.

John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin, ho-ho-ho.

John: And this is a special episode of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

On this very special episode we are going to be looking at the 1988 film Die Hard, how it works on a story level. We’re going to focus on what screenwriters can learn from it and some of the mistaken lessons people have tried to learn from it. This is not going to be a detailed look at the history of the film or its place in cinematic canons, because we’re not that interested in that kind of stuff, are we?

Craig: Yeah. I don’t really care. I just want to know what about this works so well. You and I both started in the early ‘90s. And in the early ‘90s there were a few movies that you were lectured about over and over. And Die Hard was definitely one of them.

John: So, Craig, what is your first exposure to Die Hard? Do you remember seeing it the first time? What was it for you?

Craig: Yes I do. I was a perfect age for it. I was 17 years old. I saw it in the movie theaters. I don’t remember when it came out.

John: Summer of 1988.

Craig: Yeah, so it was a Christmas movie in Summer. Summer of 1988 I was 17. What a great time. And I remember thinking it was a blast. I mean, it was fun, and you got the sense that you had shown up for a dumb movie and gotten something that wasn’t dumb at all.

John: Yeah. So weirdly I don’t remember seeing Die Hard the first time, but I do remember the first exposure I ever had to Die Hard as a concept which was summer of 1988. I was over at my friend Ethan Diamond’s house. His older brother, Andrew, came back from seeing Die Hard in the theaters. And we were standing in Ethan’s kitchen and Andrew said like, “I saw the future of movies and it is Die Hard.”

Craig: That’s kind of crazy. I mean, I remember thinking that when I saw The Matrix. I don’t know if I thought that when I saw Die Hard. In fact, I remember thinking this is just a really good version of for instance I think around that time I remember going to see Commando in the theaters with Arnold Schwarzenegger who gets weirdly name-checked in Die Hard. And I thought like, oh my god, this is like the best version of Commando ever. Yeah.

John: So we just did a special live show and Kevin Feige actually mentioned Die Hard as being the first time he saw a “normal” movie that he really liked, so a thing that didn’t involve super heroes, or fantasy, or elves, or gnomes, or dwarves. It was just a really great action movie. And so I think it has had an influence on even things beyond the normal action movies. And I think you can’t look at a lot of modern action movies without having some sense of what Die Hard did.

Craig: I agree. Die Hard gave us a sense of action pacing that I don’t think we were used to. And it also had a very odd modernity. Now, when we look at it we’re going to look at it also through the lens of its time. It is one of the most Reagan era movies possible.

John: Oh yeah.

Craig: But the fact that it said we’re not going to be in space. We’re not going to be out in the open field. We’re not going to be doing car chases, running around. We’re going to dump all the things we normally do in a big cops and robbers movie and we’re just going to stick it inside a building and let the confined space and the weird specifics of that building work to our benefit. That was pretty revolutionary.

John: I would also say the comedy that’s consistent throughout the movie, and characters who show up very late but are given very specific character comedy bits, has had an influence on sort of how we think about all these kind of movies. There’s that sense that you kind of don’t make an action movie without some sense of what the comedy is going to be owes a debt to Die Hard.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, you could say that all Ryan Reynolds movies should pay a little bit of money to Die Hard every time they happen, because Ryan Reynolds’ character is kind of the best evolution of the wise-cracking tough guy. So he’s in great shape, he can run, he can shoot, he can kill if he needs to. When it is time to punch and get serious he can. When he needs to be heartfelt and care about a person and a relationship he can. But a lot of the times while he’s doing it he’s just tossing out these sardonic one liners. And Bruce Willis kind of invented that.

John: I think so.

Craig: Yeah.

John: So today on the episode I want to talk through a couple different areas. We should talk about characters. How we set up characters. How we know who is who. The characters have arcs. They’re shallow but they’re there. And I want to talk through arcs. How you find the beats in those arcs, the motivation behind characters. And how we signal to the audience what the characters want, both in the very near term and long term. Sort of what their overall goals are. This is a great movie in talking about hero weakness and villain strength, because the relationship between hero and villain is very different in this movie than we might expect.

And it’s also a great example of something we want to show to other action stars about like this is how you can be an action star and not be perfect in every moment. And it’s his weakness that I think makes the John McClane character so endearing to the audience.

Craig: Absolutely. He repeatedly shows fear, which I think we generally like. Maybe some actors don’t understand that. But we in the audience really, really appreciate it.

John: Now, rewatching this movie for this segment I was really impressed by sort of how well-structured and plotted it is. It is a jeopardy machine. And we have come to expect that out of movies, but I was surprised that there were very few scenes where you say like, oh, you could cut that scene and it wouldn’t have any impact. Everything that is there is there and very necessary. And it is setting up and paying off stuff constantly. So as we go through the movie from top to bottom we’ll try to point out situations where they are setting this up really well and they are going to pay it off and they have a whole plan. I feel like if you were to put this movie up on the whiteboard you would see like, OK, this is a really tight film just on an outline level.

Craig: No question. It does a brilliant job of setting things up and paying them off. And I’d actually forgotten how some of these little tiny things – I mean, the movie begins with one of the strangest conversations ever. And that conversation actually becomes incredibly important.

John: Yeah.

Craig: It has repercussions throughout the film. You just don’t realize it then. But it kind of works. It’s pretty remarkable in that regard. They’re really good at that.

John: We won’t get a chance to single out every joke, but what we were saying about the comedy of the movie and the specificity of the characters is really important. These aren’t just types of characters going through roles. They are very specifically drawn, which is nice.

But, Craig, you did in your How to Write a Movie podcast, you talked about theme and central dramatic question. And my rewatching of this I didn’t feel like that was a primary unifying element behind how Die Hard holds itself together. Did you in rewatching it do you feel like there’s a central dramatic question it’s trying to ask and answer?

Craig: Barely.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Barely. And it turns on the relationship and it’s very simply encapsulated by the beginning and end of John McClane’s interaction with his wife, or maybe ex-wife, separated wife Holly. He comes to visit her, but they’ve been separated. And he essentially says in so many words, “I’m more important than you are.” And by the end he understands, no, actually we together are more important than just me. My needs don’t matter. I want to be a good husband to you. Very simple. Very, very, very simple.

But, essential. If you don’t have it, it really just is a guy running around a building and you don’t care.

John: Yep. And I think that’s a lesson that was mislearned by a bunch of people who tried to be Die Hard in a blank is that they didn’t do that work of what is the emotional journey he’s trying to go through.

Craig: Yeah. I remember at the time somebody made the joke that they were going in and pitching Die Hard in a building. It was really funny. So we had a spade of Die Hard – Die Hard did Die Hard on a plane, and Die Hard in an airport. There was a Die Hard in an everything. And Die Hard in a spaceship. And it got really, really frustrating.

Well, I mean, look, the gender politics are incredibly regressive. I mean, we have to talk about for a second how brilliantly this movie encapsulates the Reagan era. So very briefly you have a story about a woman who dares to have her own career. And her husband doesn’t want to follow her to Los Angeles because he’s a New York cop. And bizarrely has a backlog of cases? That’s not how policing works. He can just go ahead and be a cop in LA if he wants to. He can join that police department, I’m sure.

So this is the root of their marriage problems. She has dropped his name and is using her own. At the end, the way he saves her ultimately is by getting rid of this token of her success, which is the Rolex watch.

John: The Rolex watch.

Craig: She earned because she’s really good at her job. That has to go. And also she takes his name again because she must resume being his property, fully more. And this is really where I love Die Hard for being so Reagan era and honestly Trumpian in this regard, too. The ethos of the movie is that the people in charge of stuff like the bureaucrats in charge of law enforcement and the FBI, they don’t know anything. They’re stupid and incompetent. The media elites are terrible, unethical liars who don’t care about anything. The only people that can save you in the end – oh, and Europeans are trash.

John: Yeah.

Craig: The only people who can save you in the end are just good old American men.

John: Working class men.

Craig: Working class men who are constantly rolling their eyes at the stupidity of those pencil neck “experts.” The insanity of the way that these police go about their job, not the police man we’re rooting for, but the police in charge. So like we’re procedure junkies now. We were not in 1988. So we watch this movie and we’re like, huh, I guess that’s how the police might. So there’s a cop car that’s been riddled with bullets, and a body also riddled with bullets has fallen out of a building onto the cop car. But the deputy chief of police is like, meh, I’m sure it’s nothing. OK, I buy it. No.

John: No. All right, but let’s talk about the gender politics for one second before we get into this, because looking at Bruce Willis’s character arc which is shallow but it is there, McClane does say, “Tell my wife I’ve been a jerk. I should have been more supportive.” He does have that epiphany as it comes through it. So I would say that they’ve drawn that relationship in a way that is meaningful within the course of the movie as presented. And I did like that it didn’t go out of its way to punish Holly’s character for being successful and being ambitious. They try to acknowledge that she should be able to do these things. The movie as a whole, everything gets destroyed, but I didn’t feel like they were trying to single her out.

And even though she is the woman who is being rescued, it didn’t have the very classic rescue princess tropes. She didn’t feel helpless through a lot of it. She was never screaming or panicked.

Craig: No.

John: She was incredibly competent.

Craig: But in the end they damseled her.

John: They did damsel her.

Craig: And it’s definitely a movie about a man rescuing a woman. She’s perfect. She has no flaws.

John: True.

Craig: Except for her weird insistence on being successful. [laughs] And a good mom. The Rolex thing is sort of startling. And the fact that at the end she’s like, “I am – no, my name is Holly McClane.” Look, it was 1988. I mean, she actually was a terrific character up until the kind of inevitable damseling. But I love the scene, and we’ll get to it, where she confronts Hans Gruber just in terms of you put me in charge. It was very well done. And Bonnie Bedelia.

John: Great.

Craig: A spectacular job. And this is a great place for us to stop and mention the writers that we’re talking about.

John: Yeah. So let’s talk about the background of all of this. This is a 1988 movie released by Fox. Directed by John McTiernan. Screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza. We’ll put a link in the show notes to the PDFs we have of it. Also we’ll have it up in Weekend Read. The script that we’re going to be talking about is a pretty close approximation of what the final movie is. So as we’re talking through this today we’re going to be talking in terms of like minutes in the movie, but the screenplay actually matches up pretty closely. The script I looked at was 127 pages and that feels about right to what the movie is.

Craig: It’s about a two-hour, ten-minute movie or so.

John: It’s based on a book by Roderick Thorp called Nothing Lasts Forever. I have not read the book, but I have read up some background on the book and I was surprised to see that the book actually has a lot more of the movie Die Hard in it than I would have guessed. Some of the stuff that’s in the 1979 book, so a retired NYC police detective, Joe Leland, is visiting the 40-story office tower headquarters of the Klaxon Oil Corporation, that changed, on Christmas Eve, where his daughter, Stephani Gennaro works. While he’s waiting for his daughter’s Christmas party to end a group of German Autumn terrorists take over the skyscraper, led by the brutal Anton Gruber.

Craig: Their gang name is Autumn-Era? So cool.

John: Joe had known about Gruber through a counterterrorism he attended years before. Barefoot, Leland slips away and manages to remain undetected in the giant office complex. Aided only by Los Angeles police sergeant Al Powell and armed only with his police issue pistol Leland fights off the terrorists one-by-one in an attempt to save 74 hostages and grandchildren. So that’s a Wikipedia summary, but there’s a lot of Die Hard in that summary. And so some of the things that are apparently in the book is McClane going through the air ducts, which is also a big pet peeve of mine.

Craig: Yep.

John: The C-4 bomb down the elevator shaft. Jumping off the exploding roof with a fire hose attached to his waist and then shooting through a window to gain reentry, which still feels like such a movie moment, but apparently was in the book. Taping his gun to his back in the climax. The book was apparently inspired by The Towering Inferno, which is obviously a clear prior to all of this.

Interesting piece of trivia. So Frank Sinatra starred in the first book in this series called The Detective and so he was offered the role of John McClane, but he would have been 70 when this–

Craig: I would love to see that.

John: It would be amazing.

Craig: Hey Hans–

John: You can really see him going through all the physical activity.

Craig: Absolutely. Well, I mean, the fact that the character of John McClane is running around. He’s a smoker. Looks like he’s, you know, getting close to 40. He’s a smoker. And he has incredible cardiovascular fitness.

John: Yeah.

Craig: By the way, this is back when you could smoke in a car, smoke in an airport, and you could bring a gun on a plane.

John: A gun on a plane.

Craig: Gun on a plane. Yeah, no big deal.

John: All right. Let’s talk about the movie. Let’s start at the top and we’ll be going through it. From the very start we need to setup John McClane. We need to know that he’s a cop. That he’s from NYC. That his wife works here now. We need to establish that he’s still interested in women, so we see him making eyes at another woman on a plane.

Craig: Classic. Yeah, so his character is family man, trying to get his wife back, but still, you know, he’s hot-blooded American. And he makes eyes with the, well, they were stewardesses then. It was 1988. But before all of that he has the weirdest exchange with this guy.

John: Tell me about it.

Craig: So like normally speaking you don’t want to start a movie with a long conversation about nonsense with a day player. But that’s exactly what Die Hard does. It begins with John McClane having a conversation on the plane with his seatmate. John McClane is clearly scared to fly. It’s a great opening shot. He’s white-knuckling, literally. And the guy next to him is like, uh, you’re not a good flyer. And he says something that literally makes no sense. It’s a non-sequitur. He goes from “You’re not a good flyer” to “I’ve figured out how to – what you do when you land.” Which doesn’t make any sense. “To get accustomed after you travel you take your shoes and your socks off and you walk around on the carpet in your bare feet and you make little fists with your feet.”

And I’m thinking what cocaine-fueled nonsense is this? But it makes sense later.

John: It is incredibly useful later on. And I feel like as the movie starts you’re kind of free to do anything. So you can put in that nonsense business at the very top of the movie because no one has any expectation about what’s supposed to happen.

Craig: Correct.

John: So you can just do it. Yes, it is sort of nonsense-y, but it totally works. And of course it’s setting up that he’s going to be barefoot through a lot of the movie. And so his barefoot-ness becomes a huge crucial plot point.

Craig: A huge crucial plot point.

John: All right. So we’ve established that John McClane is arriving in Los Angeles. Now we need to setup his not quite ex-wife, Holly. We need to see her at her office. We need to establish that they have kids. The kids are with the nanny.

Craig: All right. Let’s talk about race in this movie for a second. Let’s get the tough stuff out of the way. This movie has some very strange racial stuff going on, not surprising for 1988. Holly has a housekeeper/nanny. She is meant to be Latin-American of some kind. She is Latina. Her accent is bizarre. I get the feeling that that actor may not actually have had that accent. Also, they did a thing that movies used to do with people like that. Characters who were from another country would insist on speaking back – they can understand English clearly. So Holly speaks to her in English. And the nanny answers back in half-English/half-Spanish pointlessly. Like for instance she’ll use the word Si instead of Yes. Just pointlessly as if to say, see, I’m from another country, but I’m nice.

It’s bizarre.

John: But let’s talk about why that character exists. It’s because they want to establish that they have kids, but the kids are not going to be in the movie. Until they kind of very late in the story are in the movie. But that they’re not going to be a crucial factor in this. They’re not in jeopardy.

Craig: Correct. And if that character and those kids never came back again it would feel a bit cheap, like fake stakes. But they do interestingly enough in kind of a key scene later. So, again, the screenwriters here are doing an excellent job of making sure that they’re setting up pins. And I like it when movies setup pins and I don’t understand that they’re pins. I just think that they’re things. And then later I go, ooh, OK. I get it. I get it now.

John: So once we’ve established that Holly and John McClane have kids, that they’re with the nanny, we meet Argyle, who is to me a very problematic character in this story.

Craig: Yeah.

John: He was a good idea who has like three or four beats. None of the beats where Argyle is by himself work especially well. This initial scene where he’s sort of welcoming John McClane to Los Angeles is probably the best of his beats.

Craig: I mean, it’s the only one really where he gets to be kind of vaguely human. I mean, look, Argyle is a regressive racial stereotype. And that’s not any offense to the actor playing him. That guy did his job, right. He was paid to do a job. He was an actor. And this is reality. This is why Robert Townsend made Hollywood Shuffle. I mean, this was the deal back then.

But it is kind of this kind of over smiley stereotype. And in fact when John McClane realizes that Argyle, even the name alone feels regressive, when Argyle is going to be his chauffeur he looks at him like, uh, really. They sent me a black guy as a driver? You feel like he’s a racist in that moment. Like all right I’ll give you a chance, kid. I mean, it’s weird. It’s weird. Argyle’s insistence on being super friendly to John McClane is weird. It doesn’t…ugh.

John: Yeah. So I think of all the subplots this is a subplot you could entirely take out and the movie would survive well. Because Argyle does nothing especially important throughout the rest of it.

So John McClane could take a taxi to the building and the same conversation could have been happening with the taxi driver.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, honestly Argyle weirdly seems like he’s there to close one of the strangest plot loops ever, which is the two black guys in the movie have to like – one black guy has to knock the other one out. You can only defeat a black man with another black man. It’s the weirdest – it’s 1988. It’s, oof. Yeah. Not great in that regard.

John: So here’s a moment that I really enjoyed as I watched it again was that once John McClane gets to the iconic–

Craig: Nakatomi Building.

John: Nakatomi Plaza Tower. So if you are coming to Los Angeles you will see the Nakatomi Plaza Tower because it is still kind of by itself. It is at the edge of the Fox Studio lot. If you’re parking there you will often park in this parking structure where Argyle parks.

Craig: It is not actually the Nakatomi Building. It is the Fox Building.

John: It is the Fox Building. And it is nearly as empty now as it was during the time of this because everyone has moved out of Fox.

Craig: I have never been in that building.

John: Oh I’ve been there.

Craig: Who is in that building?

John: Well, different stuff is in there at different times. And it’s not entirely Fox stuff that’s in there. I think it was business affairs-y kinds of things would be in the Fox Building.

Craig: Business affairs-y kind of things.

John: Yeah. So he arrives at this building and in singing in he has to use a computer screen which felt like very impressive for sort of the time.

Craig: Right.

John: And it’s just there to establish that his wife is not using his last name. And that is both a character moment but it becomes a very crucial plot moment because it’s why Gruber does not recognize that Holly is McClane’s wife.

Craig: And this is something this movie does really well over and over and over. It’s not content with a very simple linear I’m going to show you a thing because it means one thing. They’re really good at multi-purpose use of things. And we love that as an audience. When we think we know why something is in a movie and then the audience says, oh no, no, no, no, there’s another reason why. It gets us very excited.

John: And so that front desk will also become a recurring set because they will be putting in their own fake person at that front desk who Al will be interfacing with. So that becomes useful later on.

Craig: At this point in the movie I think we’ve met Hart Bochner playing Harry Ellis.

John: We have met Hart Bochner. So this is another like only in the ‘80s kind of character we could find.

Craig: Wow.

John: So Hart Bochner as an actor, great, whatever, loving it. But like as a character I would say a smart choice to make somebody that you actually hate more than the terrorists, who you really want to see die.

Craig: Yeah, he was an incredibly broad comic character. I mean, someone said we want you to play – so again, 1988 politics. America was obsessed with Yuppies. So children, gather around. A Yuppie was a young, urban professional. Back in those days people were angry that there were people who were young, urban professionals. They hated them. They hated them for things like eating quiche. Quiche is delicious.

John: Delicious.

Craig: It’s eggs and cheese. If you have scrambled eggs and cheese, then you’re a perfectly fine He-Man trucker. If you eat cheese, then you’re no good. You’re Yuppie scum. And so they said to Hart Bochner we want you to play the scummiest, skeeviest Yuppie ever. And he probably showed them a version of it and they said, no, bigger. And then he’s like, OK. And then they were like, no, bigger. Snort coke. Say bubby. Be a total jerk. Bigger. Bigger!

And he did it. He hit the mark.

John: That’s what an actor does.

Craig: Listen, he followed his direction. Hat’s off. It’s not his fault.

John: So when he ultimately meets his fate we’re not that sad.

Craig: No. But I don’t remember necessarily feeling like thrilled either, because he just didn’t seem like a human being.

John: That is true.

Craig: He seemed so ridiculous. Whereas Bill Atherton, who made a wonderful career in the ‘80s of playing dickheads – “Yes, it’s true, this man has no dick” – from Ghostbusters. He’s playing the exact same character from Ghostbusters. A vicious prick. And he manages to seem real.

John: Yeah. A fine line. All right, so John McClane reaches the party. So to me it feels a little bit weird that you go to the party and not go to see your kids, but anyway he goes to the party.

Craig: I know.

John: But I buy it. At the start of this movie where I’m just learning the rules I bought that he’s going there first. And I do like that he’s seeing his wife. And it also feels like they might be getting – things might be going OK. And then they fall into their old patterns. And I thought those scenes were well handled.

Craig: I mean, there really is a scene. I mean, they have a scene. So he’s in her office which is more like a hotel room than an office. It just makes no sense.

John: Well, an executive bathroom.

Craig: Right. But then she says she’s really envious of Hart Bochner’s executive bathroom, which makes no sense because she’s technically his boss. I don’t understand any of it. And also she has a bathroom. It looks really nice. By the way, this is one of those movies that is simply impossible in the age of cell phones. But let’s put that aside.

They have one scene. And in that once scene you get the sense that she still loves him, which is important for us in the audience to know. That there’s hope. And then he has to be a dick about it because of the name thing. And when she marches out of there angry – oh, and I should say he’s washing up and in doing so he has removed his shirt to have his wife beater tee underneath. Did that cause any feelings for you as a young man?

John: Oh yeah. I think there’s a whole conversation to be had about sort of the wardrobe, but really Bruce Willis’s body which is sort of a central thing that changes so much over the course of the movie. He keeps stripping down to less, and less, and less.

Craig: But I didn’t remember that – in my mind I think he just flew out to Los Angeles in his wife beater tee-shirt. I forgot that he was wearing clothes and he just happened to have taken them off when things go down. So that’s such a – as a kid watching it I must have just thought, OK, he’s running around. Now I watch it and go, oh my god, there must have been so many meetings. And Bruce Willis was like, no, this is the one.

John: Yeah.

Craig: This one makes me look great.

John: And also if you look at sort of the wardrobe department and also makeup, having to figure out like how dirty he is at every moment.

Craig: Continuity. Good lord.

John: The continuity of that would be so tough. Because his tee-shirt goes through at least 17 shades of brown and gray.

Craig: I mean, I’ll say this much at least. For a movie that costs, I think it was like $25 million which was quite a bit back then, it couldn’t have been all blown on his wardrobe. You can get 1,000 of those tee-shirts to have 1,000 different stages of distress and you’ll be fine.

John: Yep. He arrives at the party. A guy kisses him. He freaks out about that.

Craig: He goes, “California.” But what he’s really is like, “Gay.” I mean, the whole thing, it’s so clear he’s just like, “New York is straight and California is gay. Argh.” Yeah.

John: And then suddenly we are in plot. We’re in a heist plot. And so this is 20 minutes in. We have the first hero shot of Rickman. We’ve taken out the security guard. And we’re starting to establish this misdirect that they are some kind of idealistic terrorists and quickly we’ll learn that they are just actually thieves.

Craig: No in today’s era because of our – in a weird way Die Hard is one of the movies that starts to accelerate first acts. Because the first act is rather short here. If you want to call it acts. I mean, one of the nice things about watching Die Hard is you never feel an act ever. It just sort of proceeds. Today people might say to you, “We need to start with these terrorists doing something terrible so we know who they are before we meet our guy.” No. This is a much better way. And in so many ways this movie is special and works because of an actor that we were introduced to, the late, great Alan Rickman, who seems like he has parachuted in from an entirely other genre.

John: Yes.

Craig: He’s like a Bond villain almost. He’s brilliant. He’s so well spoken. And fascinating. And small in his behaviors. And we’d never had villains like that. Traditionally in these movies we have psychos or we have steroid freaks.

John: Yeah. And so if he were the Bond villain then we would have a James Bond opposite him. So to have like an ordinary guy opposite him is fascinating. The other thing I think works so well about Alan Rickman’s character is from his perspective he’s Danny Ocean and this is Ocean’s 11.

Craig: Right.

John: And so, yes, he’s willing to kill some people to do it, but like killing people and doing evil is not his goal at all. His goal is the $640 million of bearers bonds. He has a plan for how he’s going to do that. And he is methodical. He has assembled a team. You could have a whole other movie which is just about him putting the script together and planning this heist.

Craig: Yeah. And what’s really interesting about his whole the villain is the hero of his own movie essence is that while we have a very simple motivation which we need, we’re certainly clear about what he wants. He makes it clear to Takagi, “Who said we were terrorists?” So that’s the first big twist. Like, oh, they’re not terrorists, they’re thieves, which was great. But later you also learn that he was a terrorist. He was part of a terrorist movement. And they kicked him out theoretically because he actually was just more interested in being a thief. That’s a fascinating guy.

I’m not as interested in zealots as I am in calculating people who are just one millimeter away from the reality of what our hero is like. A man of purpose, as it were.

John: So thinking about him as the Danny Ocean of this movie, he has a plan and a timeline and they lay out the timeline very clearly. So, it’s going to take two hours to break this code, then 2.5 hours to break through these different locks. So, you know, we very explicitly put out the exposition of this is what’s going to need to happen. You’re giving the audience a road map for these are the things that are going to have to happen for this to progress so we know that, OK, the movie cannot be over until all these things have happened.

Craig: Yeah. It’s perfect. Of all the mechanisms to provide an audience with a sense of structure. When we talk about structure we’re saying something is holding all of this up. There’s a spine. And to say here’s this big ass vault and it has seven locks. And it’s going to take me a few hours to get through one through six. But I’ve already told you I don’t know how to get through seven. And Alan Rickman says, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle number seven.” We know that there is a countdown of locks. Literally a number. And we can watch them as they go. It’s not a ticking clock at the end. The whole thing has a clock to it and that’s gorgeous.

John: Yeah. Once they start shooting up the party and once things start going down, John McClane has escaped from there. He’s running through the hallways. He’s going up the stairs. And he starts to do what I think is appropriate. What is the best thing for me to do right now? And he doesn’t just charge in to try to save everybody. He’s like I need to get help and he works on trying to get help, which is a good, natural response, and not a movie hero response, but is actually what a real person would try to do. How do I get somebody to show up here?

Craig: Right. And there’s a line that Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza have in here. He is present but hiding when he sees Mr. Takagi murdered by Alan Rickman. And he runs away. They hear him. They chase after him. But they don’t see him. He escapes. And when we see him next he is by himself and he is saying, “Why didn’t you do something, you idiot?” And then he goes, “Because you would have been as dead as he is.” So in his mind he’s talking it through so that we know – and this is important – you can feel the note on this. So is he a coward? No, he’s not a coward. He literally says out loud, “I’m not a coward. I’m smart.”

John: His plan is to contact the police and get police out there and get this handled. He tries to do it and this is the first of many classic examples of just like he has a plan and it falls apart because of this obstacle, things he couldn’t anticipate.

The police just don’t take him seriously.

Craig: Right. This is the beginning of incompetent police work. But before we get to the police we have another relationship that we learn about, for a very fleeting moment, but it is perfectly efficient. It is the relationship between Karl and his brother. These are two German brothers, although one of them is a Russian in real life. A ballet dancer at that. And they are both criminals, obviously as part of this gang. Karl seems to be a bit of a hot head. His brother is a bit more methodical and careful. And that’s all we know. That’s all we need to know. Because what’s going to happen is Karl’s brother will be the first terrorist that dies, not because McClane murders him, importantly because they fight. He doesn’t murder him. They fight and they fall down the stairs and Karl’s brother breaks his neck.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Smart choice. And now we know that Karl, hot head that he is, has become essentially the nemesis here, which is really smart. Hans Gruber is the brain. He’s the real villain. But Karl is like nature. And you can’t stop Karl. Wonderful. We do have gratuitous nudity as well, very classic 1980s. Classic.

John: Yes. Hard to fit into a modern movie than before.

Craig: Wouldn’t do it.

John: We’re fast forwarding through the movie as we look at this. One of the things I will say is that I was impressed by the photography overall in Die Hard. A thing you definitely notice about 1980 that was hard to do is big wide night shots. We just didn’t have the technology to make those look great. And so there are moments where the helicopter gunships are coming and it’s OK as long as they’re in the city space. But there’s just not enough light to sort of light the city of Los Angeles. And some of the big nighttime shots are really dark.

Craig: Yeah. They do a great job here. They also use so many different environments in this building. You feel like they devoured this building and used every possible piece. You have cinderblock environments. You have construction areas. And they even set up the fact that the building is not complete. Takagi says, “It’s still a work in progress.” And you can see that. So that’s explained.

You’re in elevator shafts. You’re in ducts. You’re in these beautiful offices. You’re in an atrium. They really do use everything, every part of this building. And then that great roof. I never – and I still don’t – understand exactly how a building like this is put together. It seems like it has been put together for the purposes of a movie. There’s all these cool railings and grills and fans and things. But it never crosses the line into what I would call Michael Bay-ville where everything seems art directed. It doesn’t. It actually seems real even though it’s not.

John: In terms of talking about the physical spaces, watching this again I noticed that there’s a pinup poster on one wall. And we come back to it a second time. He notices it the first time and he comes back to it again. And it’s a very useful way of reestablishing, OK, we’re back on that same floor. Because things would otherwise be very confusing.

Craig: Again, using gratuitous nudity.

John: But it helps you remember that you’ve seen that thing before and we’re back in that same place.

Craig: I remembered it.

John: Otherwise rooms could look the same.

Craig: No, exactly. And this was another way that they could answer these questions. And these are the kinds of questions that you and I get all the time. I remember when I turned the first script in for the first Chernobyl. One of the questions was, “How are we going to tell all these people apart? We don’t know the actors. We don’t know their names. And they’re all wearing the exact same thing.” And we were like I guess we’re going to have to cast carefully. But the truth is these are the things you’ve got to worry about.

John: You do.

Craig: I could see in Die Hard like how are we going to know what floor we’re on. Well, most of the times you don’t. But some of the times – there was a computer room. That was its own thing.

John: I had no sense of where that computer room was in the building. It does not matter at all.

Craig: Doesn’t matter.

John: I know the lobby is on the ground floor. I know the party is up high. The reason why we needed that pinup is because the fact that we’ve been there before means he has a knowledge of how to get out of that floor, which is very important.

Craig: Exactly.

John: All right. So finally he gets up to the roof. He uses the radio. He calls the police. They don’t believe him. But ultimately they say, “OK, we’ll send a car to do a drive by.”

Craig: It’s insane. So in this world the Los Angeles police department their special thing that they monitor, they’re all in some kind of weird Death Star environment. It’s this dark room with blinking lights. And they don’t believe anybody who calls them about anything.

John: No.

Craig: There’s even gunshots in the radio. They don’t care. And John McClane bizarrely – oh, well, he doesn’t identify himself as a police officer in part because he knows that they’re listening. And then you get this other relationship in the movie which frankly for me as a kid was the relationship I felt, more than his relationship with Holly.

John: Well let’s talk about Al Powell. So Al Powell is the guy who shows up. When we first meet Al Powell he is buying Twinkies at a convenient store. It’s not an amazing scene. It establishes him as an ordinary Joe. Again, a working class man.

Craig: You know–

John: He’s not eating the fancy pastries. He’s eating Twinkies.

Craig: If you watch this movie one thing you will notice is that everything that happens that’s funny happens when Alan Rickman is doing it, or when Bruce Willis is doing it. If those guys aren’t in the scene and funny things are happening they are not funny.

John: They’re meant to be funny, but they don’t really work.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t think John McTiernan was necessarily the funniest director. So, your choice there is he’s an overweight cop and he’s buying Twinkies, but he has him buying like 12? Who can eat 12 Twinkie boxes?

John: They’re talking about his wife being pregnant. It didn’t make sense.

Craig: None of it works. None of it works. Similarly when Hart Bochner is giving his whole, “Hey, bubby, I’m going to…” Doesn’t work. It’s just not funny. Rickman is funny and Willis is funny. But, Al Powell is instantly likeable.

John: That’s what you needed.

Craig: He is a sweetheart. He lets the 7-11 guy kind of push him around even, you know. And he’s smart, clearly. And we’re immediately on his side. We feel good about this. We’re just a little worried that maybe he doesn’t fit the action hero vibe. So if this is the only friend that our action hero has, what does that mean for our story?

John: The other crucial thing about the Al Powell/John McClane relationship is that McClane can’t be honest with him about certain things because other people are listening in.

Craig: Right.

John: So it’s that challenge of how you establish a relationship with somebody you don’t know and who cannot be fully honest with you. And so that starts the whole cowboy discussion. And call me Roy. All the stuff that they’re doing, they can talk about some things, but there’s a limit to it. And that’s a great obstacle to put in front of your characters.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, Al Powell literally says to his awful boss, who was the awful teacher from Breakfast Club, “I think he’s a cop, because I basically have a hunch.” Meaning we’re talking guy talk to each other. Like we’re men. We’re having a man conversation. Again, you pencil neck twerps would never understand. But that is the bond they have. They’re two regular guys.

And that eventually will blossom into something really meaningful when they have this kind of – one of the more famous “my brother fell into a lake” stories in any movie ever. Which is the story of what happened to Al Powell.

John: Yeah. So when we get to one hour, one minute into the film we introduce a brand new obstacle, brand new character, which is the news reporter who wants the scoop. And so this conversation that has been happening on the radio, they get word of it. They get word that there’s an incident happening at this tower. The news reporter is obsessed with getting the scoop and getting there. It’s late to establish new characters, but one of the things I love about this movie is that this movie is not afraid to introduce new characters late and just create new problems and new obstacles. So this is a character who has a three or four beat arc and it mostly works.

Craig: It mostly works. Look, one of the beautiful things about casting is sometimes that solves your screenwriting problem. If you cast William Atherton in 1988 and you put him in that suit and that tie you know he’s a problem. He’s a jerk who cares only about himself. He’s going to be arrogant. And he’s going to screw things up in a way that makes the audience go, “No, you idiot!” That’s what he does. You don’t need a lot of explanation.

But all these pins have been lined up. We know that this marriage is in trouble. We know that Holly knows that John’s running around the building because only John can make people that upset.

John: Yes.

Craig: We know that Karl is a hot head who now has a reason to hate John McClane irrationally. We know that Hans Gruber is a cold, calculating man. We know that there’s a guy out there who understands what’s going on but he himself is limited. He seems scared and timid. All these things are all set up and the pins will fall.

John: Yes. And consider the studio note saying like, “Oh, can we set up the news reporter earlier?” The answer is no. Because if we set up the news reporter earlier we would expect to have an arc or more important stuff and you would need to be checking in with that character again. And we’d really have the same problem that we have with Argyle in the limo which is like there’s not enough for him to do, and so we have to sort of keep checking in and giving him BS stuff to sort of remind you that he exists.

Craig: Yeah. It would be cut. You don’t need – I’m sure that they looked at Ghostbusters and said, yeah, they didn’t need to set up the EPA guy either. Just being him in. Announce that he’s EPA and have him start being a dick.

John: That’s all you need.

Craig: That’s all you need.

John: All right. So then we get to another big action sequence. Send in the tank. Which is the first idea – send in the car which is really this tank which is going to charge up. It’s the first time we see that – this is also very 1980s. Very sort of like bring in the military, like bring in the big power stuff. And we also see that the bad guys have [unintelligible] grenades and they were prepared for this.

Craig: Just like John McClane warned them. But because they are elitists, probably globalists, they don’t care. They are too self-assured. And through one of the strangest exercises of chain and command ever they make one of the dumbest possible decisions that no police department – I mean, police must have been so frustrated watching these things back then. But regardless, it goes poorly for them.

And this is important because what the movie continually reinforces for us is that the only way this is going to be fixed is by one guy in that building. Not only is the cavalry not going to help. They’re going to make things worse over and over and over. And they’re going to make things worse in a beautiful way.

When the cops finally do arrive Hans Gruber says to his men, “OK, calm down, it’s a little earlier than we thought. But it was inevitable. It was going to happen no matter what. And in some ways it needed to happen.” Well that’s an interesting bit. And I definitely didn’t pick up on that as a kid as being somehow foreshadowing in any way, shape, or form. But you got the sense that that wasn’t normal. Like this guy really is in remarkable control.

One more screenwriting note that I love. John McClane makes his presence known to the terrorists by after he kills Karl’s brother he duct tapes him to a chair. He writes, “Now I have a machine gun, Ho-Ho-Ho,” on his shirt, which is the greatest thing of all time.

John: Writes it on a [crosstalk].

Craig: And he sends him down the elevator. Alan Rickman is explaining to the hostages that there’s nothing they can do. They have thought of everything. Nothing has been left to chance. And then the elevator door opens and there’s one of their guys murdered. It’s really funny. And it makes us appreciate the whole thing. That little bit of kind of counterpoint was I thought really well done. And again Alan Rickman makes it funny.

John: Yes. All right. So the tank did not go well. Basically we see the police fail again and again, because they are not doing what John McClane would have them do. John McClane has limited ability to influence what they can do and he doesn’t want to reveal who he actually is.

Craig: Obstacles.

John: Yes. These are obstacles. These are all good things. Now, Ellis, who is another person we know is going to be a problem, because we set him up from the start that–

Craig: He loves cocaine and he wants to sleep with Holly.

John: And he wants to intervene. He wants to prove that he’s the person who can solve the situation. He goes in to negotiate.

Craig: More great Alan Rickman stuff. Because Hart Bochner is like, “You know, the way I see it you guys are…” And Alan Rickman just goes, “Amazing. You figured it all out.” He’s just so great. He’s so funny. And as that’s happening you’re like, oh man, Hart Bochner. You’re going to die. I can’t even get excited about you dying. You’re so definitely going to die.

John: But what surprised me watching this again is I assumed that the Ellis character was going to give up Holly. And instead he tries to play this thing that they’re old friends. And for a moment you’re like, oh, you’re not as dumb as I thought you were. This could work out. And you have little moments of hope. And then it doesn’t go well and McClane says like don’t believe this guy.

Craig: He’s trying to save him. And this is a classic hero moment. Great thing for screenwriters to do. When your hero attempts – is such a good person, despite the many killings that they are doing, that they’re even trying to help somebody that’s trying to betray and hurt them.

John: Yes. Ellis does not survive this discussion.

Craig: Nope.

John: Nope. And a good escalation. After Ellis has been killed, Rickman takes the radio, holds it out to the crowd so that McClane can hear everyone screaming. Making it clear to McClane and to the police outside this has ratchet up a notch.

Craig: And now you get the sense that Hans Gruber is punching back. Also incredibly important. So one of the things that I talked about in How to Make a Movie is when your character is kind of doing well, you have to punish them for it. Because you need to feel that what they eventually have to do has to be really hard. You just don’t want to give them too many wins. You want to make it hurt as much as you can. So in the theory that you’re an angry god punishing your hero, Die Hard does a great job.

John: Absolutely. Rickman asks for some prisoner releases. He wants these terrorists released from prison. Again, it’s a misdirection. And at this point we fully know that it’s not real. But it starts things scrambling. And it’s also going to be a way to involve the FBI because it goes beyond what the local police could do. And we realize that Gruber actually wanted a certain plan to be put into place.

Craig: It’s a great plot twist. The FBI is even stupider than the Los Angeles Police Department, which again – note, again, when Rickman or Willis are not on screen the jokes are not great jokes. The whole like we’re two FBI agents with the same names, it just–

John: Actually I kind of liked that.

Craig: It’s fine, but it’s not ha-ha funny.

John: Here’s what it was. I liked that they showed up and they were given some line and some bit of business to let me know – some sense that they did exist before they walked onto that screen.

Craig: Sure.

John: There’s also a moment in the helicopter where they say, you know, “It reminds me of Saigon.” I was in Junior High. There is a tension there before this all happens.

Craig: Sure. Yeah. It’s just broad.

John: It’s broad.

Craig: It’s broad. I mean, that’s the thing. When you look at what – I mean, Alan Rickman, who I didn’t know Alan Rickman before Die Hard. He walks over and he looks at that shirt and he says in his accent, which is barely German-tinged, but mostly just Alan Rickman, “Now I have a machine gun.” And they were so smart to smush up the shirt so he has to push it down. “Ho-Ho-Ho.” It’s so great. He’s so funny. Ah, the best. I miss him.

John: So an hour and 28 in. We go back to the newsroom and this is a scene that no one remembers, but they have an expert on terrorism there who has written a book about terrorism. And they’re interviewing him and they say like Helsinki, and then he goes Sweden, no Finland, just to show that they’re buffoons.

Craig: Experts are stupid and bad. And only the average Joe on the street can solve a problem.

John: Looking at this I was trying to decide why it stayed in the movie and I think it’s actually just to provide a little space between some other beats. I feel like this scene could be dropped, but you look at what’s before and after they needed just a tiny breath and this little scene with this terrorism guy gives you a tiny breath. And reminds you that the news people are going to be in this movie.

Craig: Yeah. It does. It may also be the result of personal ax-grinding. I mean, sometimes when things stay in movies it’s because somebody goes, “Yeah.” Like maybe Joel Silver was like, “Yeah, screw you experts. I love it. It’s staying in.” You never know with these things.

John: Now, one hour, 31 minutes into the film a surprising moment happens which is a face-to-face meeting between Gruber and McClane, which is completely unexpected and it’s not set up. It’s suddenly just happening. Gruber is for some reason looking at the detonators that are on the ceiling. We don’t know what they’re there for. Is it a bit of a stretch that he’s doing this himself? Sure. But most of his men are dead, so OK. But it’s one of the sort of signature moments that happens in this film which is that you have the two characters together. They don’t know who each other is. And we see that Gruber is really smart in the moment and is playing himself as a hostage who escaped.

Craig: It is one of the best things I’ve ever seen in a movie because until it happens you don’t even realize it was possible. You’re so surprised by it. It’s not like you’re sitting around going, you know, they haven’t seen each other’s faces. He doesn’t know what Hans Gruber looks like. What if he runs into Hans Gruber? Will he know? Because they’re in a building. I mean, Nakatomi Corporation apparently is a business corporation that does business. We don’t know what they do.

John: No.

Craig: But they’re all in suits and ties. And so is Hans Gruber.

John: Yeah.

Craig: In fact, he makes a point of saying that he’s dressed like them. That he has suits just like Mr. Takagi. Ah, it’s gorgeous. When that happens it is so shocking, it is so delightful, and it’s also terrifying. Because your hero that you root for has never been more vulnerable. The movie actually becomes a horror film at that point. And it is awesome.

John: So let’s talk about who has access to what information, because that becomes a crucial thing throughout all of Die Hard is that as the audience we tend to have more information than any of the characters do. We’re largely omniscient. We get to see everyone’s point of view. So, we know a lot of things that McClane doesn’t know. We know things that Gruber doesn’t know. That’s all really helpful.

In this one small tiny moment the delicious agony is that we know that McClane is in great danger and McClane does not know that he’s in great danger. And we are terrified that something bad is going to happen to him. And the movie has to make the decision about are we going to show to the audience that McClane has caught on or not. And I bet they went back and forth 100 times over that.

Craig: It also does this incredible service to the ending, because what you don’t want is for them to come face-to-face at the end and go, oh, that’s what you look like. And now let us have our final. This creates an additional level of relationship between the two of them. There is a formidability to this back and forth. And if you are looking at Die Hard as a celebration of the common man against the snobby thinkers of the world, the so-called smart people, this is what you would do. This is where the common man may take a step back because that smart guy is plotting and scheming the way that smart people do. They can manipulate. They can fool you. But in the end you’ll beat them with your heart and muscle.

John: Yeah.

Craig: But it’s a great moment. And I think that there’s a moment where he realizes that Hans Gruber is not–

John: Watching it again, it doesn’t telegraph itself too big or too loud that he really is ahead of him. It’s not until you actually hear the click-click that the gun is empty that you realize that McClane was onto him or at least was suspicious.

Craig: Right. There’s apparently a scene that was cut, or a moment that was cut where, a bunch of moments, where every time McClane would kill one of these guys, when he first kills Karl’s brother he–

John: Takes off the watch.

Craig: Yeah. He checks his shirt and goes, OK, they’re dressed in fancy Euro clothes. But, yes, he looks at the watch and apparently he was supposed to look, and there’s footage of him, looking at all their watches. Because they all sync their watches in a scene that was also cut. So when he notices Hans Gruber’s watch that’s when he apparently in the cut version, the cut scene, that’s when he actually put it all together on screen.

John: Following this moment is another iconic Shoot the Glass.

Craig: Shoot the Glass.

John: Basically there’s a lot of automatic weapon fire happening. Somehow desks are able to withstand a tremendous amount of bullets.

Craig: Yep. [Unintelligible] armor.

John: But by shooting at the glass he sees that McClane is barefoot. We’ve established that Gruber knows that McClane is barefoot and he tells them shoot at that glass because it will hurt him.

Craig: One of the best and strangest moments in film history. A German man says to another German man, “Shoot the glass,” in German. And the other German man just looks at him like, what?

John: [Speaks in German].

Craig: And he repeats it in English and that’s what the German guy understands. Shoot the glass. It is so odd. I have been laughing about this since 1988. But I love it. What can I say?

John: So if this wasn’t bad enough, at one hour and 38 minutes the news reporters have discovered John McClane’s home address. And so we know that’s a thing that’s going to happen.

Craig: Oh, William Atherton. So this accelerates the ending. So this is what’s pouring fuel on the ending. And now we know that there’s a real ticking clock. So we have the ticking clock of the vault being opened. But the ticking clock for John McClane isn’t enough like we’ll kill you. The real ticking clock is we know who you are, so we know who Holly is, so now she’s in jeopardy.

John: Yep. She’s in individual jeopardy.

Craig: Correct.

John: As he’s picking glass out of his feet we have this scene which I think you referred to earlier on which is the Al scene of “I shot a kid.” Talk to me about that.

Craig: Correct. So we sometimes talk about this about “my brother drowned” scene. A character will tell a sob story about their past. It usually involves somebody dying that they couldn’t save but wanted to. And in this case it’s a variation of that. Al Powell shot a kid and it was a mistake. It was justified. They craft the story very carefully so that you understand he wasn’t like some hot head jerk cop. He really did think his life was in danger. He just was wrong. And he’s been beating himself up over it ever since. And therefore can’t get back on the horse. He’s not suitable really to be a real cop because as we know from these movies real cops shoot people.

John: They do.

Craig: That’s what they do. They’re constantly plugging people and they don’t hesitate. So that’s his damage is that he actually feels bad about murdering someone, which is amazing. But, it is the kind of hetero male bonding that was allowable in 1988.

John: Absolutely. I think it’s an important moment. It gives Bruce Willis something to do other than just pick the glass out of his feet. Bruce Willis is doing a great job of acting the pain of that. And it’s a gruesome moment. But if he hadn’t had a conversation during that time you would never have been able to stay in that scene as long as you did.

Craig: This is the last break you get. And it’s important to give people a break. Actually it prepares them. Because what’s going to happen from this point forward is a relentless race to an explosive end, and then another explosive end. It’s going to be exciting. They need a breather. And they need some context. And they need to feel something, especially because this is going to set up the ending for Al Powell.

John: So once the news report happens Gruber realizes that Holly is McClane’s wife. A great line I loved here, she says that, “He’s a common thief.” “I’m an exceptional thief. And since I’m moving up to kidnapping you should be more polite.”

Craig: Right. And the way he says these things is just so great.

John: And the FBI of course is going to accelerate things in stupid, dumb ways. So first off they want to cut the power. That was always part of the plan because the electromagnetic locks–

Craig: He says in the beginning, their hacker safe cracker says, “The problem with the seven is it’s an electromagnetic lock. And the power cannot be turned off locally. It has to be the whole grid.”

John: Does that make any sense? No. But it doesn’t have to.

Craig: Doesn’t have to. Makes no sense. But Hans Gruber, he knows that the FBI as a matter of protocol will shut the power off on the grid. Which again, OK, fine, not sure about that either. And he says something that has been rattling around in my brain for all these many 32 years. And that is, “You ask for a miracle, I give you the F. B. I.” And now musically, there’s been little hints of Ode to Joy throughout this whole thing, and weirdly usually presented with Hans Gruber in a kind of weird creepy style. And now the full Ode to Joy begins. And, again, this is a smart again.

John: Yeah. Again, this is the Ocean’s 11 part of it. He’s Danny Ocean. He had a secret special plan. This is also around the time where a van backs out of this truck, or an ambulance backs out of the truck which is meant to be their getaway thing.

Craig: Right.

John: It doesn’t really pay off right. And in reading about that it looks like there was a different thing that sort of got cut and moved about that. But we’re seeing their whole plan and it does look like their plan is going to work out properly.

Craig: Precisely. And you want that. You want to believe that they have many more tricks up their sleeves. You want to feel like your hero is behind the eight ball here because the only way they’re going to succeed, the only way that John McClane is going to save his wife and defeat Hans Gruber and these kidnappers and save all these hostages is by doing something we can’t foresee. Something that is going to require him to do things he didn’t even know he could do.

John: Yep. Including defeat the giant Russian guy in a fist fight.

Craig: Correct. And that is something that we’ve been waiting for the whole movie. We’ve been waiting for this beast, this uncontrollable irrational beast that even Hans Gruber can’t control to face off with John McClane because, well, he feels like death is coming for you. He’s huge and he’s angry. But, you know, the good guy always wins.

John: The good guy is going to win.

Craig: Yeah, yeah. He chokes him with a chain.

John: With a chain. So by being smarter and more wily he’s going to beat him. Because he’s not going to beat him through–

Craig: You can’t punch that guy out.

John: So the plan was to blow up the roof when the helicopters land because it will create such chaos. It won’t be clear who lived and who died. The roof does blow up. John McClane does jump off the building with the hose. It really is an amazing–

Craig: It’s awesome.

John: Amazing idea. Amazing moment. Really well shot. It works great.

Craig: It’s great.

John: And I loved that the second beat of like shooting through the window, getting in, and getting dragged back out by the weight of things. Just remembering that gravity exists. Terrific.

Craig: The physics of it are great. It was beautifully directed. I mean, John McTiernan did an incredible job there. Yeah, no, love it.

John: Cool. Finally, we get the final showdown. So Holly is now a full damsel hostage. We have Gruber and one guy who is still left alive.

Craig: Sure.

John: And we get to the moment of John McClane only has two bullets. There’s no way he’s going to be able to make this thing happen. We don’t know exactly what he’s going to do, but we see him looking at some wrapping people and such.

Craig: Because it’s a Christmas movie.

John: Because it’s a Christmas movie. It’s fundamentally a Christmas movie. He ends up when told to drop his weapon he drops his weapon. Of course he has the gun taped to his back.

Craig: His police gun.

John: His police gun. His real gun.

Craig: The only gun you really need as a cop.

John: Absolutely. Because only terrorists use–

Craig: Only terrorists. That stuff, it’s like poison. No, a man uses a gun that fits in his hand.

John: And then with two amazing perfect shots, because he’s apparently an amazing shot.

Craig: Of course.

John: Even though no one tends to get hit by actual bullets in this movie, he is able to hit two people in precisely a single shot.

Craig: Storm Trooper rules at work.

John: Absolutely. Gruber goes through the window, still holding on to Holly.

Craig: Yes.

John: The watch has to be removed.

Craig: The watch needs to be removed because honestly, you know, she needs to come back home. It’s regressive. But regardless at least it was set up. And Hans Gruber falls to his death with this great look on his face of like how did this happen. Like this is not how this is supposed to end. He seemed so confused.

I also like the fact that honestly, so 1988 green screen was still kind of, you know, it had been used for about a decade or more, but it was still a little funky. And I kind of like that it’s funky. It made things special back then. Now I just feel like, oh yeah, it looks so real that it’s fake.

John: So the legend is that they actually dropped Rickman before they said they were going to drop him and that’s why he has that expression that he has. They said we’ll drop you on three and they dropped him on two.

Craig: Oh, I like that. That’s cool. I mean, he definitely looks scared.

John: He does look scared. Let’s do the Lindsay Doran, making sure that we’re talking about what the real victory is in the movie versus the fake victory. Because Alan Rickman’s death is not the victory of the movie. The victory of the movie is getting back with Holly. And it is walking out of the building with the wife. You’re both wearing your first responder jackets over your ruined clothes.

Craig: As you should in these movies. You always have to wear a blanket or a jacket because saving the world makes you cold. We know this for a fact. But in the end there are two relationships we care about. John McClane and Holly. And John McClane and Al Powell. And both of those relationships are how this movie ends. That’s how a movie should end. Karl rises from the near dead–

John: Classic Fatal Attraction. You have to.

Craig: Classic Fatal Attraction. But who kills him? Al Powell, who has regained the courage to murder people. [laughs] I assume he gets a promotion because of that.

John: Absolutely. It’s like a Christmas Carol in a very messed up way.

Craig: I can kill people. [laughs]

John: The miracle of Christmas.

Craig: Yes, Merry Christmas everyone.

John: Oh, and then Argyle drives them home.

Craig: And then Argyle.

John: And gets the last line of the movie.

Craig: What is the last line of the movie?

John: Last line of the movie is, “If this is their idea of Christmas, I got to be there for New Year’s.”

Craig: Well there you go. There’s your sequel setup. That also feels like Joel Silver.

John: It does. And so watching the movie I was like, oh my god, like the last line of Go is almost the same line.

Craig: What is it?

John: I had no idea. “So, what are we doing for New Year’s?”

Craig: It’s also the last line of Chernobyl. [laughs]

John: It’s a great last line. It makes sense. To me the going home with Argyle in the limo, fine, whatever.

Craig: It’s full circle.

John: It’s full circle. It is full circle.

Craig: They’re together. They’ve solved all their problems. And they’ll never have another problem again. Now, of course, Bruce Willis does have many more problems. There’s been a Die Hard 2, 3, 4, possibly 5?

John: I think there’s only four.

Craig: Four. One of the problems, sequels are really, really, really hard. And one of the problems is that the movie that happens in 1988 is of its time. As the years go on this guy isn’t really of his time. So, you know, it was harder and harder. I mean, I didn’t mind the sequels. Just, you know, this was special.

John: Well, also coincidences can happen once. And so–

Craig: It’s a little Murder She Wrote. Like maybe you’re the terrorist.

John: Yeah, maybe you’re the problem.

Craig: Maybe just stay home.

John: So let’s wrap this up by talking about what lessons we should be taking from Die Hard and which lessons we should not be taking from Die Hard. My lessons are that it is important to really be thinking about who is the central character in this story and not it’s this genre in a blank. And sort of like don’t just create the environment. You actually have to create who is the fascinating character in this environment who you want to follow through it.

Craig: Yeah. I would say that the big screenwriting lesson that I draw from Die Hard is if you want something to happen that solves a problem in a cool way in your script, that’s great, now go back and set it up. And don’t set it up in a way that’s obvious. Set it up in a way that will make the eventual emergence of this thing surprising and fun. Gives the audience a sense that there was an intelligence working behind the scenes that they weren’t aware of.

John: Yeah. The bad versions of this movie that I’ve seen since then, they do things in the setup that feel like, oh god, that’s so clearly a setup that’s going to payoff later on. And so when you can hide the setup that is so smart. So like the computer system with Holly’s name. That is a hide the setup kind of thing. And that’s what works.

Craig: Correct. One of the great terrible setups of all time is in a movie I love. Real Genius. I love Real Genius. William Atherton is in Real Genius.

John: Again.

Craig: Playing a dick. And early on in the movie he says to Val Kilmer, “I hate the smell of popcorn.” [laughs] Val Kilmer is eating popcorn. He goes, “What is that? I hate that smell. I hate the smell of popcorn. It’s disgusting.” Which is weird. And then at the end of the movie the big comeuppance is that they fill his house with popcorn. It’s just – when you see it you’re like there’s literally no reason for this to be here except to set something up later. So, yeah, don’t be obvious with the setups. They’re really good about this. And I also think there’s no wasted energy in this movie. Everything feels like it’s needed and necessary. And every scene propels to the next one.

John: Which is very crucial. Craig, thank you for this deep dive Die Hard. Merry Christmas.

Craig: Merry Christmas, John. And you know what?

John: What?

Craig: If this is your idea of Christmas, I can’t wait to see what you do on New Year’s.

John: Thanks.

Links:

• Read the DIE HARD script on Weekend Read.
• Feminist Analysis of Die Hard
• Sign up for premium here.
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Andy Roninson (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

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