# One little thing you wish you could change in a movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [January 14, 2025, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944 "2025-01-14T00:39:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/201 "2025-04-14T17:12:27Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I’ve heard there was a cut scene that explained how McClane knew who Gruber was. IIRC (and maybe I’m misremembering) when Hans is smoking he is holding his cigarette in the European manner. We see McClane give the briefest of glances to his hand. OK [found it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLl942BoyVg) and even more subtle than I remember. Look at how Gruber holds his cigarette at 0:24. Now they cut to McClane at 0:28 and look how he is holding it the American way. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/202 "2025-04-14T17:16:53Z")
I just thought McClane had good “cop instincts”, that’s all. You can spot a phony victim as easily as a phony ID. Neither one “looks right”. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/203 "2025-04-14T17:21:42Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > OK [found it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLl942BoyVg) and even more subtle than I remember. Look at how Gruber holds his cigarette at 0:24. Now they cut to McClane at 0:28 and look how he is holding it the American way. Yeah, that could work as an explanation. Though oddly, at about 2:13 in that clip, McClane takes a last puff and he’s now holding the cigarette the same way as Gruber, between his thumb and index finger. Maybe he’s subtly mocking Gruber. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/204 "2025-04-14T17:24:25Z")
He held it that way to put it out, but decided on one last puff for effect. Still works I think. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/205 "2025-04-14T17:26:15Z")
When I watched the director commentary on the DVD he says there was supposed to be a scene where McClane sees the watch that Gruber is wearing and that’s how he knew. The one thing that gets me is John had all the detonators with him, why didn’t he just chuck them all down the elevator with the chair. He had no need of them and he had to know there were other explosives around. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/206 "2025-04-14T17:30:36Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I’ve heard there was a cut scene that explained how McClane knew who Gruber was. > [@Edward\_The\_Head](#): > > When I watched the director commentary on the DVD he says there was supposed to be a scene where McClane sees the watch that Gruber is wearing and that’s how he knew. That’s it. I _thought_ a watch was involved, but I wasn’t sure if I was conflating my memory of a watch with the [later scene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard#Plot): > Gruber crashes through a window but grabs onto Holly’s wristwatch and makes a last-ditch attempt to kill the pair. McClane unclasps the watch, and Gruber falls to his death. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/207 "2025-04-14T17:35:52Z")
My dad was a long time smoker and that was also always his explanation for why John knew, it’s like the scene in Inglorious Bastards with the different way of showing 3 fingers. ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/208 "2025-04-15T01:28:51Z")
_A propos_ not-giving-away-being-non-German: in _Shadow of the Vampire_, they employ the convention that if the character is German, he therefore speaks all his lines in English but with a German accent. Common enough. But they cast John Malkovich as the German director Friedrich Murnau, and Malkovich’s German accent is both bad and inconsistent. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/209 "2025-04-15T01:46:58Z")
In _The Fifth Element_ I’d tamp down Ruby Rhod’s personality into something way less annoying. I realize that the character was _supposed_ to be annoying but they did much too good a job of it for my taste. > [@solost](#): > > In the original _Matrix_ movie, it made no sense for the humans to be used as batteries by the machines. I thought early on that it would have made more sense for the machines to be using the humans’ brains as parallel processors while using the Matrix virtual reality to distract their conscious minds. > > Later on I believe I read somewhere that the Wachowskis and / or the other writers did want to use that plot idea as the reason for the humans’ subjugation, but didn’t think the audience would be knowledgeable enough to understand the concept. I always heard that it was a matter of executive meddling; that the original idea was that humans were being used as co-processors, but with the higher ups ordering the Wachowskis to dumb it down to “batteries”. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944/210 "2025-04-15T02:01:26Z")
In John Candy’s _The Great Outdoors_ I’d get rid of the subplot about the romance between the older son and a local town girl. The sappy teen romance takes away from the overall vibe of the movie, especially the scene that would otherwise be the best scene in the movie, John Candy taking on the Old 96er. The older son constantly looking at his watch while Candy does battle with the steak takes what would be a great scene and turns into a just above average scene. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-little-thing-you-wish-you-could-change-in-a-movie/1012944.md?page=10)