Top 12 Prequels Hollywood Should Make Instead of Die Hard

Edited by Robert Beach 

In case you hadn’t heard, there’s been some recent talk about making a new Die Hard film. The twist with this proposed 6^th installment of the most overrated action franchise the world has ever produced is it would be a prequel of some kind. Obviously, most folks have picked up on this as a terrible idea given that there’s really nothing for a Die Hard prequel to actually explore.  Everything interesting in the Die Hard universe started with the first film. 

There’s no point in extending the universe prior to that point as it’d more or less be the same as our world. That’s the thing about bad prequels, which is to say most prequels, is that they make the mistake of trying to follow a character back to a time when they were less interesting; however, this announcement has got me thinking about prequels that would be interesting to see, so here’s my top 12 prequels list.

Movie Monthly - Leviathan (1989)

For some reason in 1989 the world just decided it was obsessed with deep sea diving and exploration.  This was the year that gave us The Abyss, DeepStar Six, The Evil Below, Lords of the Deep, The Rift, and today’s topic Leviathan.  Now for most folks that list probably seems pretty obscure aside from James Cameron’s The Abyss but chances are if you grew up in the era of video rental stores chances are you know quite a few of those entries by sight if not by name.  Almost all of these deep-sea base films had a very unique and similar box art design, which is actually how I stumbled on Leviathan as a choice for this review.  That was just nature of rental video in the days before the immediate reward and no risk structure of streaming.  This also means that even when you’re talking about low-rent video rental scifi horror like Leviathan you can count on it to at least look good and be bonkers in all the right places.  

Panel Vision - Punisher, Revenge Fantasy, & Visceral Violence

Punisher #19 is intended as a revenge fantasy comic.  The plot, such as it is, is that psychotic killing machine Frank Castle is contacted by an elite special ops group known as the Howling Commandos.  The commandos are asking for Punisher’s help to take out a terrorist cell in the Middle East.  From there the comic is just a slurry of sequences as the Punisher shoots, explodes, and tortures his way through various terrorist cannon fodder.  Additionally, nothing about this issue actually works.  There’s a plethora of reasons why the book falls apart but its simple existence has made me keen to discuss revenge fantasies in general along with the idea of highly fetishized vicarious violence, using Punisher #19 as a contrasting example of what not to do to craft these kind of stories in a cathartic and satisfying manner.