The soldier and I watched Die Hard
last night which believe or not, I had never seen. He stopped the movie repeatedly to explain how technically accurate it was as far as how an operation is actually planned and executed. Specifically familiar with every weapon used in the movie, (and calling himself the Special Forces weapons sergeant of all weapon sergeants) he explained whoever wrote the money had done their homework to the nth degree.
For example Bruce Willis has a beretta in the movie, a gun the soldier does not prefer but he says one of it’s features is an ambidextrous safety. You can use either hand to engage or disengage the safety of the gun and he pointed out how Bruce Willis kept changing hands to highlight this.
Now there were more than one type of (foreign) sub machine guns used in the movies and he stopped to film at one point where the terrorist holding one uses a specific (dramatic) hand motion when readying to shoot. The soldier explained he had been through their version of SF training around this weapon (Heckler & Koch which he calls Heckler and Crotch) and they insist you do this maneuver in exactly this way. He demonstrated the other ways you can achieve the same end but said they INSIST you use this specific motion.
Later in movie, Willis gets one of the guns and uses it to brace and anchor a rope in a window so he can lower himself down. The soldier said this was also to show off the gun – They go on about how much abuse it can take in the field and still be accurate.
At one point, Willis throws an explosive down an elevator shaft and because of the narrow space it has maximum power when it explodes. The soldier said that was the perfect thing to do and you get the idea. He really enjoys movies that are realistic.
In the beginning of the movie the leader of the terrorists run down the life history of the CEO of the corporation which the soldier says is also accurate.
“By the time you go after a target, you have spent months studying every detail about him. Yep, you have been in isolation learning everything under the sun about the guy, watching films and examining him from every angle so by the time you get there, he doesn’t know what hit him. It’s psychological…”
He compares this movie to the type he hates… people who make movies about war who know nothing about it:
“Yeah, I can’t even watch that. There is a line in there where they say, regular army. The other guy says something like, can’t we just call everyone regular army? What is there, a irregular army?”
I stared.
“Well there are irregular forces but that is not what they mean. Regular army is the regular army, it means you are in full time. The others are the reserve army. The reserve army not the irregular army, you dumbass. Yeah, P. I can’t watch stuff like that – People making movies about things they obviously know nothing about.”
They are in boot camp, chanting:”This is my weapon, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun”.
It’s funny you should write about this. One of the quirks of my Merc. Scorpio unaspected as a child was that I knew pretty much every combat aircraft, specification, armament, engine, you name it of WW2. I don’t know why that happened, I was just fascinated and to this day I can tell a Focke Wulf FW 190 from a Messerschmitt Me109 by its silhouette and even engine sound. I have actually forgotten much of that information over the years though; I could recite the maximum speeds of maybe 100 different aircraft too.
It still has a weird ambience in my life. I get kind of tearful at the sight of a Spitfire even now, and I have read maybe fifty biographies or autobiographies of fighter pilots during the 2nd world war.
I know its weird and actually this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned it publicly although my family are well-aware of what a ww2 aircraft geek I am even though I don’t have the same interest at all nowadays.
Interesting, Kat. I think I am more like him. If I were to see bad astrology I would want to turn the thing off. Feel the same when I read astrology I think is ridiculous but quickly get over it because I know there are legions of astrologers who think the way I use astrology is ridiculous so this is hard to apply.
And this brings up the Saturn Uranus opposition again doesn’t it? Damn am I going to get in trouble with that one. It is starting to smell as difficult as Pluto to the Moon to me… gah!
Except for Pluto Moon was not (is not) as hard as Pluto Sun by a shot. I lost my daughter during this transit (for all intents and purposes) and can still say that. I just think (know) that Pluto and the Moon are compatible.
Why are they all holding their crotches?
Yeah, I’m a little like that. In that I can get hung up on some detail in a movie that they’ve gotten wrong. Definitely it can make me enjoy the movie less.
Of course I’m probably almost nothing like the soldier. I know nothing about guns. Although when I was in Cadets as a teen we went out to an old abandoned army base. It was called Mt. Lolo (not sure how it’s spelled). Anyway, we did get target practice, and the gun we used was called the FN. Had a fair bit of kick to it, I got to witness.
Hmmm, yeah, it is fun! :o)
I’m pretty much exactly the opposite…I’m a big believer in “willing suspension of disbelief.” If the subject is one I’m well versed in, I would definitely notice the indiscrepencies but they’re not likely to ruin the movie for me.
However, I love that movie and it’s nice to know that they did such a good job on it 🙂
My dad is like this about movies set in the past, he always points out the cars, aircraft, tanks, whatever that aren’t supposed to be there. My father-in-law, a retired cop, does this about cop shows (although he’s a big fan of “The Shield” anyway).
I can suspend my belief, though. Case in point: “The Core,” where a group of specialists have to burrow into the center of the Earth because it’s stopped moving and is going to solidfy. The science was pure and utter crap, but the movie was a decent waste of two hours if you could overlook that major flaw.
I notice stuff like a camera on someone driving and they’re not watching the road. it totally kills it for me cos I’m noticing it’s a movie, not real. I also hate it when a one of the principles goes out of character to drive the plot. like the psychology is all wrong. you know, like how the cad becomes the hero at the end. as if.
Wow this post was amazing. I havent watched Die Hard for years. I cant wait to watch it again knowing it is accurate. I love learning stuff like this, must be my 8th house Mercury.
I would love to watch action flicks with the soldier! 😀
I’m watching one of my favorites right now, the Bourne Identity. Oooh, Matt is so hot in these movies. I especially love this first one with Franka Potente, they have good chemistry together
But the any of the action scenes are amazing… has the soldier watched these? They’re prob. a bunch of nonsense, I guess, but I still love them.
yeah, i get so pissed off at the bad physics in most movies i have a hard time enjoying them except as cartoons. or character studies, but often the characters don’t hold much water either, and i wonder why i waste my time 😛
but i grew up watching war movies with a father commenting on whether things were accurate or not so i guess i have a warped perspective.
that was a d*mn good movie. maybe partially because accuracy is frighteningly rare otherwise.
Having a parent that plays “spot the anachronism” is kinda fun in some situations, I think. It teaches you to look at things critically, which is good (if you can turn it off sometimes).
And as an added bonus it clued me into the ending of “The Village.” 😛
I’ve seen that movie. Anyway, I was born with Mercury in Taurus opposition to Pluto in Scorpio. And I guess that you can say I possess deep, penetrating…hidden knowledge! 😉
This is the kind of information I love; tasty, like a good vintage cheese.
Mercury in the 8th house, exactly opposite Pluto.