25 things you didn’t know about your favorite action movies

Die Hard – German fans had a very different viewing experience

Why not start off with a bang? Die Hard is the ultimate action movie, with bank robbers, explosions and, of course, Bruce Willis.

When NYPD officer John McClane (Willis) goes on vacation to visit his wife in Los Angeles for Christmas, he gets more than just a Christmas gift. Her work Christmas party at Nakatomi headquarters gets interrupted by a group of bank robbers led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and they hold everyone hostage. McClane manages to get away and has to take matters into his own hands to take care of these terrorists.

Much of the plot of Die Hard revolves around the German terrorists who take control of Nakatomi Corporation and fight against All-American hero John McClane, but in the German version of the film, things are a little different. Not surprisingly, the German that a lot of the terrorists in the film speak isn’t grammatically correct. Most of the actors were not actually German; they were hired because of their menacing appearances and towering heights rather than their ability to speak the language.

In fact, Bruce Willis was actually more German than most of the “Germans” in the film! He was born in West Germany to an American father and German mother, whereas Alan Rickman was English and Alexander Godunov was Russian.

So when the film was released in Germany, they altered the story a bit and made the terrorists from “Europe” instead. Most of the German names were changed into English equivalents (like Hans Gruber became Jack Gruber) and they were portrayed as radical Irish activists instead. The changes were because the topic of German terrorism was a touchy subject for the German government at the time.

The major changes to the German release obviously led to huge plot holes in subsequent Die Hard films, but some of the issues were fixed in later special edition releases.