Anyone see Live free or Die hard yet?

I saw it last night with a bunch of guys and gals and we all liked the movie.

However, we got into a bit of a 'discussion' about whether this whole "Firesale" idea in the movie is even plausible.

What're everyone's thoughts on this? (If you've seen the movie)

I thought it was a bit ridiculous and not even (at this point in time) imaginable. Sure the government has security holes and bugs in some of their security, however, i know that the FBI and NSA as well as CIA have some of the smartest, brightest minds in the field working for them in computer security so i would imagine not even the slyest of hackers could pull off cracking the FBI infrastructure, let alone every government infrastructure in existance!

Neat idea, great movie, but not even remotely plausible, IMO.

Yea i just saw it a couple of hours ago.

I thought it was very entertaining, and despite his age, i think Bruce Willis does a great job at -once again- being John Mcclane.

One thing that got me wondering:

If the terrorists are capable of blowing the entire plant up by diverting gas through the wrong pipes, like they did in the scene just after Mai dies, then why didn't they just do that to begin with, remotely. Rather than sending out one of their own to do the job manually? It doesn't really make sense, they manage to blow the entire plant up within seconds from hundreds of miles away in their semi, but yet they still send one of their own to shut down the plant manually? Why?

I agree with the movie being far from plausible, even though i know nothing about FBI security. The hacker kid manages to reprogram the PDA to use satelites rather than the phone network, in under 20 seconds, that a bit too impressive i think.

The movie was great but it certainly was a movie. The entire time I'm sitting there saying 'no way in the world' much to the chagrin of my wife and other movie goers. Hehe. :D

Great movie
Must see movie and very nice to see Willis back in action as John McClane and he did a helluva job if you ask me. It was also nice to see a modern movie that did not have some serious comment about current political policy. The movie was just pure 80's-90's style in your face action flick. Thanks to the cast of the movie for giving us one wild ride this summer. I hope they make another. I think the series still has some life in it.

Firesale?
The firesale idea: simply not possible. I love on movies how people can program computers without being within twenty miles of a compiler. You certainly cannot do what they did without using some type of compiled code. They show them hacking into a lot of systems and yet the characters never said one thing that was remotely 'high-tech'.
It would certainly require tons of C code to even begin to do what they did. Java, VB, Python, HTML...sorry folks it's just not gonna happen. Now with C and assembly language you could do it but it's not as simple as they show.

The whole cell phone/PDA thing is true. Your phone is locked out by the manuf. and by your provider. Breaking the locks however requires more than what they show in the movie. Some time ago I did some research on this because I got locked out of my phone. So yes you can break into your phone......but when you do the entire network will know what's going on. Just because you break the locks on your phone doesn't mean that every sattelite is there for your browsing pleasure. Quite the contrary. Break the locks, break your contract, break your service.

I don't think you have to be a programmer to say the idea of a Firesale is implausible... however, I would say it is significantly more plausible than the idea that John McClane would be alive after all of what he went through in the movie. Action movies are fun... I enjoyed it from beginning to end. What I didn't get was why Gabriel, who apparently was an amazing hacker, was so incapable of doing the easiest things in the movie and always relied on some kid to do them.

Further more. . . . Have these people (the writers) not ever visited a power plant???? Okay, the controlling system is done via computers, but first off, these suckers couldn't run the "modern programs" that they were running. We're talking about 30 year old technology that people are afraid to attempt to replace. Also, I don't know of any of the hydro/coal plants around here that are wired to be "controlled by a central hub". . . that's just nonsense.

$0.02

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Originally Posted by Kennedy

Further more. . . . Have these people (the writers) not ever visited a power plant???? Okay, the controlling system is done via computers, but first off, these suckers couldn't run the "modern programs" that they were running. We're talking about 30 year old technology that people are afraid to attempt to replace. Also, I don't know of any of the hydro/coal plants around here that are wired to be "controlled by a central hub". . . that's just nonsense.

$0.02

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I've personally installed modern technology in power plants, so you're wrong about some of that.

The controlled by a central hub thing is probably laughable, though. I haven't seen the movie yet.

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What I didn't get was why Gabriel, who apparently was an amazing hacker, was so incapable of doing the easiest things in the movie and always relied on some kid to do them.

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I think the whole point is he is a deranged megalomaniac that likes to be in control. Its a power trip telling people what to do. Besides he probably didn't want to risk spraining his fingers or getting carpel tunnel.

Wow, this thread is full of spoilers. Not that it matters to me anyway. I limited going to the cinema once a month. And this month it's Transformers. Maybe I'll wait for the DVD version so I can borrow it from my friend. :D

Well, you guys got me curious.

The preview wasn't very appealing. You know, somehow jumping of high places and computer hacking... I had enough of that nonsense in matrix. But it's John McClane. So it would always deserve its DVD shelf at my home in a few months.

But now you say it's an ok movie. Think I'm going to see it.

It's not an OK movie. It's slightly below that. I saw it because my friends were going and I had nothing else to do.

I don't know... I liked it. Who cares that the hacking scenes weren't plausible... that's not what I was looking for. It had good action and good special effects and it was pretty funny.

I liked the camera movement in the car chase... amazing! Must've been CGI involved there... but amazing nonetheless.

I know the implausible hacking scenes shoudn't be able to destroy the movie for me... but sadly they did.

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Originally Posted by Junior89

I saw it last night with a bunch of guys and gals and we all liked the movie.

However, we got into a bit of a 'discussion' about whether this whole "Firesale" idea in the movie is even plausible.

What're everyone's thoughts on this? (If you've seen the movie)

I thought it was a bit ridiculous and not even (at this point in time) imaginable. Sure the government has security holes and bugs in some of their security, however, i know that the FBI and NSA as well as CIA have some of the smartest, brightest minds in the field working for them in computer security so i would imagine not even the slyest of hackers could pull off cracking the FBI infrastructure, let alone every government infrastructure in existance!

Neat idea, great movie, but not even remotely plausible, IMO.

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Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) was one of NSA smartest, brightest minds which makes him capable of doing such thing, plus according to the story, He was the project manager of the NSA failsafe system.

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Originally Posted by Neo1

Yea i just saw it a couple of hours ago.

I thought it was very entertaining, and despite his age, i think Bruce Willis does a great job at -once again- being John Mcclane.

One thing that got me wondering:

If the terrorists are capable of blowing the entire plant up by diverting gas through the wrong pipes, like they did in the scene just after Mai dies, then why didn't they just do that to begin with, remotely. Rather than sending out one of their own to do the job manually? It doesn't really make sense, they manage to blow the entire plant up within seconds from hundreds of miles away in their semi, but yet they still send one of their own to shut down the plant manually? Why?

I agree with the movie being far from plausible, even though i know nothing about FBI security. The hacker kid manages to reprogram the PDA to use satelites rather than the phone network, in under 20 seconds, that a bit too impressive i think.

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According to Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), he still intends to bring all things back to normal. he just wants to give the people who neglected him a big scare and understand his point, plus of course getting some money out. So he had no plans of destroying any power plant or such, but when it got personal because John McClane (Bruce Willis) killed Thomas' asian chick, things went out of hand.

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Originally Posted by Sang-drax

It's not an OK movie. It's slightly below that. I saw it because my friends were going and I had nothing else to do.

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Same here. Plus it was one of those laughably-over-the-top-stupid-crazy-insane-in-your-face-action type of movies (which admirably was still a fresh genre when the original Die Hard came out, but mimicked/copied/ruined by every action movie thereafter) that kept you watching not because of an intense plot, or depth of characters, but rather, the complete lack thereof, just so you could say "I wonder what crazy thing they are going to come up with next." And I think the scene with man vs multi-million-dollar-state-of-the-art-aircraft-warmachine (a.k.a F35) pretty much reached the height of that (well, actually I was half expecting him to get in, regain control, and place an impossibly accurate precision shot of the 30mm cannon through the back of the fleeing vehicle, hitting the driver without managing to hit his daughter or iMac boy there, or just plain old rip the vehicle apart, as a 30mm high-explosive shell might tend to do).

If you're looking for a grab-and-take-hold plot, three-dimensional characters, and immersive action, go elsewhere, this is not the movie for you. If you're looking for something to see after/before you plan on injesting some acohol with your friends (preferably the TnA type of crowd), and a good excuse to change the subject of the morning after talk from "why you woke up in the middle of the street with your pants down" to "that wicked car-blowing-up-helicopter scene", then by all means, get yourself a ticket.