It took four months to assemble and combine archive footage of past American presidents fromFranklin D. Roosevelt toGeorge W. Bush to create the televised warning from Gabriel. The goal was to create a video representation of a ransom note.

In their first phone conversation, Gabriel tells McClane he knows him pretty well, as he's got all the info concerning him displayed, including all career records. Among the decorations received, we see he has been awarded a commendation in 1987 for the Nakatomi Tower incident in LA (referring to the events in "Die Hard"), and a citation for the swift resolution of the Chicago Airport Incident in 1990 (referring to those in "Die Hard 2"). This last record is wrong, as "Die Hard 2" was set in the Washington Dulles International Airport, and not in the Chicago Airport.

After the 20th Century Fox opening logo has been on for a while, it suddenly "short circuits", causing flickering as the the searchlights fade, climaxing in a total power outage.

The unrated DVD (also known as the Ultimate Action Edition in some territories) contains frequent use of strong profanity and stronger violence (bullet hits are more graphically seen with blood spraying out). Also, McClane's signature line is now heard in full, as the gunshot does not obscure the latter part of it.

Edited fromTotal Fears (2002)