I am watching the most excellent Christmas movie Die Hard, and noting all the most excellent, classic and collectible firearms in it. Almost every gun is a desirable classic.
HK P7
Steyr Aug
MP5s aplenty.
Did the producers of this film cause these to be so collectible or were they already known as just being awesome guns in 1988?
Would they be as collectible without the film?
Either way whomever armored this movie had great taste.
Last edited by Doc_Glock; 12-24-2019 at 09:05 PM.
IMO it’s just economics. Stuff from 30 years ago gets trendy again, whether it’s guns/clothes/cars etc. Cool thing is you can get a Beretta just like John McClaine’s if you join the right military branchOriginally Posted by Doc_Glock
The Minority Marksman.
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
-a Ch'an Buddhist axiom.
If you haven’t seen it, Hollywood Weapons Season 1 Episode 4 is available through Amazon. They test shooting out a skyscraper window with M9 and MP5 and shoot ballistics gel through a simulated boardroom table. It’s nothing we don’t already know but entertaining, nonetheless.
No, I don't think so, but the exposure certainly didn't hurt those guns' notoriety, either.
Gun aficionados were already well familiar with the Steyr AUG and H&K's MP5 variants, and the H&K P7M8 had made a prominent film appearance (though not its debut), in Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986), some 2 years before Die Hard.
Not to mention that John McClane's Beretta 92F was already popular since it was well known as the US military's new sidearm for some three years by the time Die Hard came out.
I do agree that the film's armorer made good choices.
"Therefore, since the world has still... Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure, Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good." -- A.E. Housman
Indeed. We're watching it tomorrow.
Yes, but Martin Riggs made the Beretta cool!
-All views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect those of the author's employer-
In the book (Nothing Lasts Forever), the inspiration for McClane (retired NYPD Detective Joe Leland) carries a Browning Hi-Power. Considering the book was written in 1979, I'd say Roderick Thorpe was still ahead of his time, as most police were still armed with revolvers until the later 1980s.
Awesome movie fact - one of the 92 prop gun used in Die Hard by Bruce Willis was previously used in Lethal Weapon by Mel Gibson. It is currently on display at the NRA National Firearms Museum.
The NRA National Firearms Museum is home to a 92FS that was not only used by Willis in “Die Hard,” but was also on screen with Mel Gibson. “Every film’s propmaster has several pistols available for filming if any go down,” explained Doug Wicklund, senior curator, NRA museums. "Ours has the serial number shown on a poster, and it was also used in 'Lethal Weapon.'"
Last edited by JSGlock34; 12-24-2019 at 10:07 PM.
"When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."
Yeah, except when he held up and described one of his gun's 9mm cartridges as "(it's) got a hollow point", while displaying a FMJ round.Yes, but Martin Riggs made the Beretta cool!
Guess JHP ammunition was considered by Hollywood to be too radical to show on the screen back then.
"Therefore, since the world has still... Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure, Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good." -- A.E. Housman
That was a Christmas Movie tooYes, but Martin Riggs made the Beretta cool!
This is just a guess but I would say "indirectly yes".
My belief is that one of the key drivers of gun... collectability? Collectableness? Desirability for the purposes of collectors.
My belief is that one of the key drivers of DFTPOC is now whether the gun has been featured in hugely successful video games. A lot of games are pretty specific about what gun your character is using; we all recognize stuff in movies but you can be totally new to guns and still read the "you have found an MP5" alert in a game.
So I think a lot of today's collectors were influenced by whatever was featured in GoldenEye etc. They buy up the guns, and that creates a feedback loop of price increases and the perception of desirability.
And I think the guys who programmed those games WERE directly influenced by movies like Die Hard.
I don't know any games enough to know what guns were in them but I bet you could go back and find that the cool guns in Die Hard make a lot of appearances in video games five years later.
This is just my theory, I have never tested the hypothesis.
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