Script Shadow wrote an excellent post this week about what made it so fantastic and the lessons we can learn from it about how to write action films. I encourage everyone to read it.
One of the other reasons I love Die Hard that he didn't really bring up is how each individual character gets his own backstory. The terrorists argue with each other about petty shit. That Asian dude wants a candy bar in the middle of a gun fight. The black dude is one cocky son of a bitch - probably made enemies of everyone he went to high school with. And that one Johnson really annoys the shit out of the other Johnson.
Each of these people gets a small amount of screen time but I know something about them besides that they are terrorists or FBI agents. It's usually the part they cut out of the movie when they show it on FX, but it's the very thing I love most about the film. Everybody gets their moment.
Thanks to that film, I always remember to have my "I was in junior high, dickhead!" moment. You know, the scene where the Johnsons are in the helicopter and the older Johnson is all excited and shouts about how it's just like Saigon and the younger Johnsons says "I was in junior high, dickhead!" and right then, right before the unfortunate explosion that pounded them both into bits of dust, you know these guys.
So as I'm working a screenplay, I always try to keep that scene in the back of my head. How can I give this minor character his moment in the helicopter? He's got five seconds; what can he do in that time that will demonstrate his true personality?
I don't know if anybody really cares whether my henchman is a coffee nut or not, but it makes me happy when I give him that little bit of extra love.
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