How could McClane be sure that Hans wouldn't react to the dead terrorist in the elevator by executing random hostages every five minutes until McClane gave himself up?
Huh, that's exactly what I thought after seeing the film. Why didn't Gruber do it? He had a lot of hostages and he was planning on killing them all anyway.
I also had the problem with Close Encounters the article describes, except I didn't have to grow old for it. I haven't actually seen the movie, but I read the novelization as a child. There's a scene in it, I don't know if it's in the movie, where Roy tries to build a model of the mountain he's obsessed with. Early in one morning, his little daughter comes in, and asks if he's going to yell at them again today.
"Neary gazed down into her clear, guileless eyes. That was how he looked to her - a yelling machine. And she was prepared to accept more yelling because she loved him."
Roy is overwhelmed with guilt, and decides to destroy the model. But when he breaks off the top, he realizes that's how the mountain is supposed to look like, and he starts to build it with renewed enthusiasm. That's when his wife leaves him and takes the kids. And we're supposed to see this as a positive thing? Fuck, no. Yeah, establishing contact with the aliens is important, but professionals were working on it.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
--Carl Jung