For movie buffs- Do real life heroes really get treated like this?

NamelessMC

NamelessMC

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I was watching Die Hard: Live Free or Die Hard, Die Hard 4.0, whatever.

WARNING: Massive Die Hard Spoilers ahead.

I noticed- John McClain saved people four times, in really extraordinary ways. Of course, it's a movie. When heroes like that make an appearance, it's often an extraordinary situation and someone gets really lucky and it's not that monumental. It's like, "This guy at 711 round house kicked a stick up thief and knocked him out, now he has a congressional medal of honor" or something.

But with John McClain, he saved a the Nakakagi building and all the hostages, stopped a German terrorist. Stopped a renegade military leader from saving a Colombian drug smuggler/corrupt militia leader, then he stopped another German military guy from stealing 500 billion dollars of Federal Trade gold.

Then in Die Hard 4.0: He's some lowly cop, making 30k a year with a crappy pension, and he says his whole ordeal about: Heroes aren't appreciated, they're forgotten and not wanted.

What I wanna know is, if some guy, in real life, kills like 100 terrorists, saves people, survives. What happens? Does he become some famous celebrity? Does he become a political figure and make money from endorsements? Does he write books?

I mean, if you are some kind of hero, but you stay in your regular job, do you get a bonus?

I wonder if things like that are the reason people don't try to help people. I mean, if you saw some guy getting attacked by a guy with a knife, and you knew if you tried to help him, you'd only get a thank you, maybe get arrested and fined for hurting someone and a mention in a newspaper. Do you help him?

Would you help him if, however, you knew it meant you'd be rewarded with money, recognition, a Plasma TV or something?

I'm not saying helping people should be circumstantial based on reward, but there's plenty of things people get rewarded for that don't make sense. People make a million dollars for going on a stupid show and picking suit cases with Howie Mandell.
 
If anyone does kill 100 guys they would be lucky if they aren't suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
 
[quote name='NamelessMC']I was watching Die Hard: Live Free or Die Hard, Die Hard 4.0, whatever.

WARNING: Massive Die Hard Spoilers ahead.

I noticed- John McClain saved people four times, in really extraordinary ways. Of course, it's a movie. When heroes like that make an appearance, it's often an extraordinary situation and someone gets really lucky and it's not that monumental. It's like, "This guy at 711 round house kicked a stick up thief and knocked him out, now he has a congressional medal of honor" or something.

But with John McClain, he saved a the Nakakagi building and all the hostages, stopped a German terrorist. Stopped a renegade military leader from saving a Colombian drug smuggler/corrupt militia leader, then he stopped another German military guy from stealing 500 billion dollars of Federal Trade gold.

Then in Die Hard 4.0: He's some lowly cop, making 30k a year with a crappy pension, and he says his whole ordeal about: Heroes aren't appreciated, they're forgotten and not wanted.

What I wanna know is, if some guy, in real life, kills like 100 terrorists, saves people, survives. What happens? Does he become some famous celebrity? Does he become a political figure and make money from endorsements? Does he write books?

I mean, if you are some kind of hero, but you stay in your regular job, do you get a bonus?

I wonder if things like that are the reason people don't try to help people. I mean, if you saw some guy getting attacked by a guy with a knife, and you knew if you tried to help him, you'd only get a thank you, maybe get arrested and fined for hurting someone and a mention in a newspaper. Do you help him?

Would you help him if, however, you knew it meant you'd be rewarded with money, recognition, a Plasma TV or something?

I'm not saying helping people should be circumstantial based on reward, but there's plenty of things people get rewarded for that don't make sense. People make a million dollars for going on a stupid show and picking suit cases with Howie Mandell.[/QUOTE]

In real life John McClain would be famous and most likely rich. Take the case of Jessica Lynch for example, she was a POW in Iraq and received media coverage throughout the world. Eventually she was rescued and recovered and all that ....... . Back to the point, a movie was made about the whole ordeal which i'm sure made her money and brought her fame. According to wiki "she testified in front of Congress that she had never fired her weapon—her M16 rifle jammed". So she never killed terrorists or did anything as heroic as McClain did. (People who are for the war, I'm just making a point. Don't flame me or get angry, I respect what the troops are doing in Iraq.) If McClain was famous in the movie it wouldn't make any sense. Why in the world would they get someone famous to drive to Camden, NJ (which was rated as the most dangerous city in the US two years in a row a couple of years ago) to pick up the kid from the Apple commercials.
 
You know I was actually thinking about this the other day.

I don't think this would be possable for several reasons

-As another poster said, killing all those people would cause PTSD.

-He probably either would have been

A. Repermanded for not calling for and waiting for back up.
B. Loose his badge (as mentioned in part 3)
C. Forced to resign because of the pussy media and people in his area bitched to the major and head of the PD saying "He's too dangerous to be a cop and not someone I want my children to see as a role model"

Not to mention his excessive force and destruction of private property to get the job done. :bouncy:

He either should have been kicked out of the NYPD or promoted to some special forces unit by now, but hey this is hollywood so anything goes.
 
The thing is, he was promoted, but then he fucked up his job and got demoted again. He does like one heroic thing every few years, he gets promoted, then he pisses everyone off and gets demoted again.
 
Okay, obviously we all realize it's a series of over the top action movies...thus reality flies out the window.

However, I would have to think, just looking at how the character evolved, that McClane did suffer PTSD, considering he could never stay reconciled with his wife Holly, he was a TOTAL drunk by the start of #3, and pretty much a burnt out desk jockey by #4, with obvious mental problems considering it could be argued he was stalking his estranged daughter (yes, he was being the overprotective father but still...he took his police vehicle out on a personal trip to stake out his daughter).

Basically, John McClane is an anacronism, a relic of a bygone era - a man out of place in the modern world. He's a man's man, John Wayne type hero, that can't relate to the modern touchy feely EMO world of modern day 'heroes'.

He could definitely have been brought up on charges after the Nakatomi (not Nakakagi) incident if deputy chief Dwayne really wanted to continue to be a punk, but doubtful that anything would have come of it.

No doubt he would have been a minor celebrity after the first incident, wrote books, TV appearances, etc. but looking at the character I doubt the fame would have gone over well. Note the comment the main bad guy (Colonel something or other) makes to him at the beginning of #2 (can't recall the exact line) - "I saw you on Nightline or Larry King etc. it wasn't your best performance". Something to the effect that John didn't come across as warm and fuzzy, and appeal to the public as a hero.

For him it's always been about doing what he feels is his job, and stepping up in these desperate situations. He's the reluctant hero, not going for the fame and fortune and accolades, just out to save lives but really wishing there was someone else to do the job and realizing there isn't.

If you want to see how a real life hero often gets treated, take a look at the tragic case of one Richard Jewell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell

This guy was a wannabe hero all his life, finally gets an ooportunity to be a hero, and gets treated as a suspect and pretty much character assassinated/crucified by the Feds/Atlanta cops with the help of the media for his trouble.
 
In Dirty Harry 5 (The Dead Pool), Dirty Harry was starting to get some recognition from a report; There was a dinner scene where she mentioned that he was written about in the paper.

Harry Callahan did save the Mayor in the third movie. Maybe the press was just starting to catch up with him in the 5th film...
 
Real heroes aren't respected, of course not. Movies like Donnie Brasco and Breach both touch on this.

I like the end of "Donnie Brasco" was just epic - when
Joe Pistone gets the medal in a closed ceremony for taking down a major New York mafia group. The guy had lost his identity and his marriage was nearly destroyed, and all he got was a medal and a check for a few thousand on top of a govt salary. The real Joe Pistone had to go into hiding to this day, and for a while a 1/2 mil mafia contract was out on his life.

I was listening to an interview with the real detective who took down Robert Hanssen (the story behind Breach) and he was talking about how he loved working for the FBI but the pay sucked, the hours sucked (as a field agent in a sting like that you're never really off the clock), it was hell on his relationship, he was constantly in mortal danger, and he could never talk about his job with anyone. And he got a movie deal comission out of it - he was one of the rare lucky ones.
 
[quote name='Xevious']In Dirty Harry 5 (The Dead Pool), Dirty Harry was starting to get some recognition from a report; There was a dinner scene where she mentioned that he was written about in the paper.

Harry Callahan did save the Mayor in the third movie. Maybe the press was just starting to catch up with him in the 5th film...[/quote]

I loved how the movie "Zodiac" referenced the Dirty Harry movies, that was my favorite part.
 
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