Die Hard With A Vengeance's Forgotten Alternate Ending Is Completely Absurd

John McTiernan's "Die Hard with a Vengeance," the second sequel to the director's beloved and fan-dubbed Christmas action film "Die Hard," is easily one of the best, if not the best entry in the franchise. Adding Samuel L. Jackson's Zeus as a comic relief to Bruce Willis' hard-headed, tough, and resourceful John McClane was maybe the greatest thing that ever happened to the film series between 1988 and 2013. But the third installment also featured the franchise's savviest and most cunning villain, Simon Gruber (played by the terrific Jeremy Irons), a German terrorist and older brother of Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber from the first movie.

In the original ending, Simon gets his comeuppance in the finale from McClane as he shoots a power line outside a warehouse to cut into and derail the helicopter Simon is shooting from, which ultimately blows up in spectacular fashion. What many might not know (or might have forgotten), however, is that "Die Hard with a Vengeance" had a second and utterly bonkers ending, too.

In this alternate ending, we learn that Simon escaped after successfully stealing the gold he was after, and he's hiding somewhere in Europe. McClane tracks him down in Hungary and forces him to play an alternate version of Simon Says, renamed McClane Says. It's essentially Russian roulette with a rocket launcher that our hero altered by removing its directional indicators so they couldn't tell which way the weapon would fire. After giving him a few riddles that Simon cracks rather quickly, he gets the last one wrong, and McClane holds him at gunpoint to pull the trigger after spinning the launcher multiple times. Simon turns the weapon once more and shoots himself dead. Game over. "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf***er."

The alternate ending of "Die Hard with a Vengeance" was first included on a 2001 Special Edition DVD for all the fans to see, and later on some other editions. In retrospect, it's easy to see why the director landed on the other finale, though. Overall, the alternate ending feels like it belongs in a completely different movie. It's dark, viciously vindictive, and way too calculated and mean for a heroic and sincere cop like John McClane. Meanwhile, the ending we got instead stays true to his just nature and morals, and despite its violence, it feels rather upbeat and amusing in a satisfying way. Not to mention that it features yet another great Samuel L. Jackson performance in the wounded and physically exhausted Zeus bantering with McClane — and nailing the quintessential '90s buddy-cop vibe — and encouraging him to finally call his wife back. 

Looking back on such an iconic actioner as "Die Hard with a Vengeance," it's fun to see what could've been, but I think most fans would agree (including me) that we got the right ending — and the one that fit the movie perfectly. Other films tried replicating "Die Hard" and failed, which further proves the original ending wraps up the film perfectly.