Now That Christmas Is Over, Can We Stop Arguing Over Die Hard

Whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not recently came into question. Now that the holidays are past, here are some Die Hard facts you probably don't know.

You would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't like Die Hard. The whole series of movies is good but that first one is the best one and firmly implanted the (unscripted) line "yippy ki-yay motherf*****" into our collective conscience.

Anyway, Christmas movie or not, it's one of the greats. I recently found a few cool "insider" facts about the movie. Read on:

The fear in the eyes of terrorist leader "Hans Gruber" as "John McClane" drops him from the skyscraper window is real. That's because he was to be dropped, from about 40 feet or so, (onto a cushion), on the count of 3. Instead, director, John McTiernan, dropped him on 2, eliciting that truly frightened reaction.
The German terrorists don't actually speak German. In the original version, their dialogue was mostly gibberish. The movie was done on a budget so, I guess, they couldn't afford a German vocal coach. (Foreign releases leave their nationality unclear.)
The movie was done by 20th Century Fox and, again with an eye toward finances, they rented their own building to themselves. Nakatomi Plaza is actually the Fox studio headquarters.
The actor playing uber terrorist Hans Gruber, was afraid of gunfire. Watch the scenes where he fires a gun closely and you'll notice the camera always cuts away so we never see him flinching.

For more "secrets", click here. As for whether it's a Christmas movie or not, I say it's an "anytime" movie.