Reverse Pop Culture Primer: Die Hard vs. Every Reference to ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay, Motherf–ker’

Welcome to Reverse Pop Culture Primer! Every week I take a famous catchphrase, punchline, or spoiler that I learned from another part of pop culture without ever seeing the movie it references. How does knowing the joke backwards affect my experience of the movie once I finally watch it?

By the time I was aware of the Die Hard franchise, it was somewhere in the long wait between 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance and the most recent installment, 2007’s Live Free and Die Hard. If the titles weren’t enough of an indication, the movies seemed to have taken a turn for the parodic at this point — and honestly, I was too exhausted at the prospect of catching up on all four of them.

Action isn’t a genre I go out of my way to keep up on, so I just let it slide. Especially because I felt like I’d had all the good parts spoiled for me already. Bruce Willis plays badass New York City cop John McClane (check). Alan Rickman is, improbably, a German terrorist with the laughable name of Hans Gruber (check). McClane stages some sort of one-man anti-terror attack that culminates in some big building getting blown up (check). Oh, and he jumps out of a window with a machine gun while shouting,

“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”

Seriously, I thought at the time, why would anyone want to hear that catchphrase uttered over and over again?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0s_wZgxA7s&version=3&hl=en_US]

Then I got an invite to a press screening for A Good Day to Die Hard next week, before the fifth John McClane movie hits theaters on February 14th. As cute as it would be to play “lol this review is written by someone who hasn’t seen the films” angle… I knew that it would be a disservice to myself and to Movie Mezzanine readers. So, with winter storm Nemo bearing down on New York City, I cozied up with some blankets, tea, and Die Hard on my TV. (And being German, I have a morbid curiosity to see how my people are portrayed, even when it’s not attractively.)

And oh my God, I love it. It was so fun! But the most interesting part of the movie was that I had the wrong impression of several key moments, including that catchphrase. It’s presented almost innocuously at first, a hurried little retort McClane whispers before retreating further into the building. When Gruber utters the same phrase mockingly at the end and McClane bursts into hysterical laughter, you realize just how screwed the terrorist is.

In fact, tracking this catchphrase’s evolution from aside to the kiss-off you wait for in every sequel, is also a key way to approach the Die Hard movies. They start out seemingly straightforward and logical before escalating into utter WTF territory. Like, it shouldn’t make sense that one man can send computers strapped with C-4 down elevator shafts to foil terrorist plans — or that he can swing down the side of a thirty-something-story building, bleeding from his bare feet and tied to a fire hose. But it all holds up! So that when you get to that final showdown, you just can’t wait for McClane to utter those four words.

And who knew the true love story of Die Hard is between McClane and Sergeant Al Powell after they coach each other through walkie talkie? I definitely squeed when they finally meet in-person and hug like they’ve been old friends for years. If the other installments play with audience’s feels this much, then I completely understand why A Good Day to Die Hard is coming out on Valentine’s Day this year. It sounds like just my kind of movie, and I’m excited to bring you the review next Thursday.

Lesson: Even if you think you know a classic movie backwards and forwards, still give it a watch, ’cause it’s bound to surprise you.

Photo: 20th Century Fox