Die Hard: Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman)

Comments for death : Die Hard: Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman).

This is a very good death overall and for it's time. The shot into hans stoach is almost unseeable(I think thats where he is shot), but his death by falling is incredibly done I would definetly watch the movie to see this scene.

yes, i really like the way he falls, it looks a bit dated now, but at least they didn't use a dummy!!

Mouseburger

did his brother Simon meet the same fate Hans did?

Good description, yes, but missing the delicious irony of Gruber's death: that the watch which McClane unclasps is the very watch Holly received as a bonus for her hard work ("It's a Rolex," smarms cokehead co-worker Ellis, in an earlier scene). Thus in one fell swoop, McClane undoes not only Gruber's plans for grand-scale robbery and misdirection, but also a symbolic tie of the distance between himself and his wife.

D

I have heard from various places that Gruber is one of the greatest movie villains ever, I however, disagree. He was afterall, just a thief, an exceptional thief maybe, but still, just a thief! In my opinion, although Gruber was a great baddie, he doesn't place in the top ten! Try his hulking assistant, Karl.

Ah, but isn't Karl also just a thief? In fact, aren't all of Hans' gang members just thieves? There's plenty of great and memorable villains whose occupations and ambitions don't involve trying to take over the world.

I may be stupid but how did they do his fall?

Lower a stuntman on a harness at a certain speed or something?

For the close-ups, they dropped Rickman himself on a blue mat that they later replaced with the ground. The long shot is achieved via a dummy (the SE DVD shows an outtake which clearly shows the trouble with doing this).

Oh, darn it! I don't own the DVD!

Thanks though. Dang, I wonder how the dummy swung its hands and legs around like that.