What if you had to cover "Die Hard" on a deadline...

So I'm watching the greatest Christmas movie ever and the thought "what would happen if you were working the LA Times news desk on 12/24/88" occurred. I know, it's sad, but I also counted the number of f-bombs in "Scarface" (226), breasts in "Showgirls" (forgot it, but it was divisible by 2) and the "Space Jam" box score (Jordan was 22-22 from the field)

Here are my first eight paragraphs...If you wanna add to it, go right ahead...

LOS ANGELES – A barefooted off-duty New York City police officer all but single-handedly foiled an elaborate Christmas Eve robbery attempt at the Nakatomi Plaza that left 23 dead Friday.

John McClane, whose wife, Holly, is a senior Nakatomi Corporation executive, waged a one-man battle against a group of 12 led by an expelled member of the German Volksfrei movement. His actions saved the lives of approximately 30 Nakatomi employees but left the uncompleted 35-story corporate headquarters practically demolished and encompassed in a surreal winter-like wonderland with debris falling like snow.

All but one of the robbers were killed, including leader Hans Gruber. McClane killed 10 of them, with LAPD sergeant Al Powell, who was taken off street duties years ago following the shooting death of an unarmed minor, killing one group member on the Plaza steps as a large group took for cover. The one robber that did survive was knocked unconscious by a trapped limousine driver that brought McClane from Los Angeles International Airport.

Also perishing were Nakatomi Corporation President Joseph Takagi, 51, and Harry Ellis, age unconfirmed, a self-described “white knight” who oversaw international sales for the Japanese-owned conglomerate. Two security guards, who have yet to be identified, also died.

The LAPD lost two members of its SWAT team when their armored vehicle was hit by two rockets fired the robbers. Four helicopter pilots and two possibly related FBI agents died when the robbers blew up the roof during an apparent escape attempt.

The group seized control of the building at approximately 7 p.m. under the guise of terrorism, but its actual goal was the $640 million in bearer bonds located in the vault.

McClane, an 11-year NYPD veteran, sprung into action while washing up after his flight from New York City but did so without his shoes, which would later cause intense suffering during a shootout in a glass-fill computer room.

Gruber’s planning kept his group one step ahead of the FBI and LAPD responders led by Deputy Chief Dwayne T. Robinson, but McClane was “a fly in the ointment” as he systemically took out the robbers in a cat-and-mouse game through the building’s elevator shafts and uncompleted areas.

 

This is really good. If you wrote a gamer for "Space Jam," please post it.

 

Assume it's a Muslim. /YF

 

That's a lot of rich, detailed reporting on deadline. I'd nominate you for a Pulitzer.

 

Glad you didn't address the unconfirmed rumors of Powell having flat feet. Just not necessary in a professionally written movie gamer.

 

Outstanding. Or, yippe-ki-a, mother fucker.

Damn. Now I need to watch Die Hard again.

 

Yeah, I doubt you'd find out a lot of the details until much later. Among the stuff that would not be known until at least the next morning. Certainly not before McClane had been debriefed:
1) Takagi's death. That happened under the radar in the grand scheme of the plot. Hell, considering he was on one of the upper floors they might not have even found his body.
2) The bit about the bearer bonds. That wasn't revealed until the very end, and IIRC only three of the people who knew about it (John, Holly and Theo) survived.

 

So it's a rewrite.

 

You should have slipped in a Snape reference, just to see of the copy desk was paying attention.

 

Damn dude, that was money. Very nice. I'm eagerly awaiting the "Optional with Quotes."

 

On deadline it would be tweeted and Facebooked.

OMG! /SlateVoxMJ

 

In 1988?