We joke sometimes about how ha ha, there are only three Indiana Jones movies or only so many Star Wars movies, but we all still know CRYSTAL SKULL or the prequels exist. But we have all collectively, unconsciously agreed and accepted that there was never a fifth DIE HARD movie.

Like, I never saw it. I saw all the SW films, I saw CRYSTAL SKULL, I saw the first two THOR movies. But I don’t even know what the fifth DIE HARD movie is *called.*

Even as I’m writing this I’m like, “There WAS one though, right? Am i having a stroke? Is imagining a fifth DIE HARD sequel a symptom of COVID?”

“Did you know there was a fifth DIE HARD?”

“Yeah, the one with Timothy Olyphant.”

“No, that’s the fourth one.”

“Wait. There was one AFTER that?”

“I think.”

“Did you see it?”

“No. Did you?”

“God, no.”

“Who was in it?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“What was it about?”

“I guess... dying hard?”

It’s not like the MATRIX sequels where, when pressed, we still acknowledge and can talk about them. The last DIE HARD lurks forever in a dead spot, a void, a phantom zone where it’s not simply ironic detachment — it’s a film that only barely exists, as if it was hexed by a witch.

CRYSTAL SKULL is like having a sibling who’s a fuckup. “Yeah, Dave stole some old lady’s dog last week while high on model glue.”

DIE HARD 5 is like having Jeffrey Dahmer as a sibling. You don’t talk about Little Jeffy anymore. “Jeff? Jeff who? Hnn-hnngh, Never heard of him.”

It’s tempting to find it and watch but I feel like I’d be slipstreaming into some worse world, like if I watch DIE HARD 5: THE DIE HARDENING I’ll accidentally wake up in a world where we re-elected Trump somehow.