09 Mar 2013, 4:13 pm
Nothing Lasts Forever (1979) by Roderick Thorp
Die Hard is one of my five favorite films, one of those things I could talk to you about all day. About a decade ago, I noticed in the opening credits that it was "based on the novel by Roderick Thorp," and I immediately bought a copy online and read it. Last month, it was put back into print for the first time in 25 years, apparently to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Die Hard, and I decided to give it a re-read.
First, a little history. In 1966, Roderick Thorp published a novel titled The Detective. It's a pretty straightforward cop story involving the murder of a gay man committed by a self-hating closet case unable to accept himself, and it offers very little of interest to a Die Hard enthusiast, beyond the fact that it later ended up being a kinda sorta prequel. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Frank Sinatra.
Thirteen years later, Thorp wrote a sequel to The Detective titled Nothing Lasts Forever. Far from a straightforward cop story, it's an exciting and action-packed thriller involving the now-retired hero of The Detective, Joe Leland, single-handedly taking on the European terrorists who have seized a Los Angeles office tower. Nothing Lasts Forever was also adapted for the screen, but as a stand-alone story instead of as a sequel to the Sinatra film. The older Joe Leland became the younger John McClane, his daughter became his wife, and the title became Die Hard.
The most surprising thing about Nothing Lasts Forever is how similar it is to Die Hard, at least in terms of plot. A ton of memorable scenes from the film are present in the book: Leland/McClane crawling through air conditioning ducts and getting covered in soot and grease, lowering himself into the main ventilation shaft with the strap of his machine gun, putting C4 on an office chair and throwing it down an elevator shaft, throwing a dead terrorist off the roof to get the attention of the police, walking barefoot over broken glass, taping a gun to his back in the final confrontation, sending a dead terrorist down an elevator with "now I have a machine gun" written on his shirt (in the book, it's "now we have," to make the terrorists think they're up against more than one enemy), and jumping off the roof with a fire hose tied around his waist and shooting a window to get back inside. Many characters from the film can be found in the book: Ellis, the yuppie who tries to sell out Leland/McClane; the lead terrorists Karl and Hans Gruber (here named Tony Gruber); Al Powell, the cop who communicates with Leland/McClane via radio; and Dwayne T. Robinson, Powell's a-hole superior officer.
Where Nothing Lasts Forever differs the most significantly from Die Hard is the tone. Die Hard is a dark and violent film, but it's also very fun and entertaining. Nothing Lasts Forever, on the other hand, is dead serious and frankly depressing. If Die Hard is Iron Man, Nothing Lasts Forever is The Dark Knight. The villains of Die Hard are merely thieves out for a heist while posing as terrorists fighting for a political cause, while the villains of Nothing Lasts Forever actually are terrorists fighting for a political cause. They're quite ruthless, and lengthy sections of the book are given to Leland's thoughts about the state of terrorism these days. The ending in particular, which plays out very similarly to the film's with one big difference, is enough to ruin anyone's day.
I could write a whole lot more about Nothing Lasts Forever, but it's my hope with this topic that people will read it and discover its surprises for themselves, especially fans of Die Hard. Whether you get the new edition or an old copy like I did, you'll be in for a treat. A dark and depressing treat that you shouldn't read if you're feeling down.
