Number one actor for me!!

no. there was a ton of "everyman' action before Die Hard. Burt Reynolds for one.

He was actually cast against type. Before Die Hard he was know as a comedic romantic lead from Moonlighting. As for his appeal, for the time Willis was shluby everyman who literally fell into fighting terrorists.

I would argue that Harrison Ford was with Indian Jones

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Does how sexy he was take away from him being an everyman? He was a golden god

An everyman more handsome than every man

I wouldn't go that far. Die Hard was a rarity in that John McClane was an every day person. He wasn't some special forces, goes to the gym 6 times a week, knows 5 fighting styles and cooks too, kind of character like you see anymore. You had Murtagh in Lethal Weapon, and a few others but we have since migrated away from them. One other thing that set them apart from modern action stars is that they got FUCKED up. Most action movie characters get some soot on them, maybe a bleeding lip and some scrapes and scratches but that's about it. I always liked Die Hard because John got absolutely fucked but still kept going. I miss when action stars could get wrecked honestly. It felt more realistic and honestly made the characters more likable and you rooted for them more because you saw they weren't these impossible beings. I hope action gets back to that some day.

Yes. Audiences laughed at the previews.

like Bruce Willis wasn't already a sex symbol ? He was already a "heart-Throb" because of moonlighting.

I still cringe when he gets glass in his feet

Oh God me too. Like imagining having to pull all that shit out just....no thanks.

Interesting. What set it apart for me was the beautiful head and body of hair.

Sexy-off: Willis v Reynolds. Two titans of the hunk industry, this needs to be settled.

I got the impression that people just didn't see David Addison from Moonlighting as an action star.

Lol. Just thinking about it reading this gives me the Willy’s

Glass? Who gives a shit about glass?

John Wick gets beat to shit in every movie

This movie and Home Alone ( when Marv cuts his feet on the Christmas bulbs) always make me cringe.

Very much so. He was a comedian and TV star, how was he supposed to be an action hero?

An 'everyman' as I understand it means some kind of guy who's just a typical regular guy, could be anyone. I always thought Bruce Willis was normally some jacked beast of a man who can take down waves of international criminals normally hailing from somewhere like Russian with a teaspoon

Every time he takes his shoes and socks off to make fists with his toes I think "don't do it, you'll regret it!"

And then Die Hard became the greatest story ever told.

If you enjoyed "Die Hard", I think you might also enjoy "Three Days of the Condor" (1975).

Robert Redford plays an analyst who reads data and writes reports for the CIA. He has no super-spy training and has never done field work. Something goes horribly wrong.

It's a relative thing. For most of the 80's Arnie and Stallone were the big budget action heroes. Willis was best known for Moonlighting. The big action hero persona Willis has came about because of Die Hard. John McLane first kill in the movie was an accident.

Foreshadowing.

Yes, but to OP's point, John Wick plays to type: in fact, one Russian guy once saw him kill a guy with a pencil. A pencil!

Interesting tidbit. They made special shoes that look like feet, so he could run through the glass without injury.

Even in the context of film I don't think this is what you call an everyman. It's definitely not in literature and theatre. I would have heard the term first studying literature. I didn't finish my degree thoughso take what I say with a pinch of salt

Charles Bronson in Death Wish predates him. I feel like the “everyman” thing came out of the 1970s.

I would also suggest Charles Bronson and Gene Hackman. I don't really feel like people perceived Bruce as an "everyman" based on his looks and his prior work in TV. He was only written as a hard working cop from New Yawk.

No, that would be Gary Cooper to Jimmy Stewart. Maybe someone even earlier.

Like I said it's more of a relative thing for the time and genre. There was some negativity because Willis was not seen as a super tough guy not even like earlier action stars like Steve McQueen. He was also typecast as a goofy guy. He certainly is not an everyman by reality's standards but action movies aren't reality. The decade started with Harrison Ford as the big action hero but bulky muscle men replaced that ideal. Willis was probably more of a return to form.

It was a weird to me, a kid at the time, as I loved Moonlighting (not that I got all the jokes) seeing David Addison shooting people. He’s still a cop in the movie so not quite an “everyman” but very capable.

North by Northwest has more like an “everyman” (even though Cary Grant is a big star) because he don’t know how to do shit.

No, it's a reference.

I know the line. I’ve seen the movie 100+ times.

When McClain delivers that line it’s foreshadowing to later in the film when HE has to care about glass. The glass blocking his way and in his foot.

I’ve certainly lusted after his rear end many a lonely night…and I’m a straight male! 🥰

I know the line. I’ve seen the movie 100+ times.

When I delivered that line, it was a reference to when that happened.

My family will random shout “shoot the glass” at each other in our worst Alan Rickman voice. Just got a huge dose of it during the holidays lol.

Who does that...?

Indian jones

I thought of Charles Bronson, and also Clint Eastwood. The "everyman" action star was done many times before Die Hard.

Well, John Wick. 😊

Actually that's one aspect of No Country for Old Men that makes it great to me. Both hero and villains get injured and most battles have real consequences for them.

Unpopular opinion maybe but I think almost all the superhero movies are boring because of the lack of this. Let them get injured and killed off game of thrones style. Then just reboot with different actors once you kill enough off. Or even the same actors but a different universe or something.

Not a U.S. action star initially. But Jacky Chan kind of always played scenes that constantly have him taking a beating to a comedic degree. And escaping the situation, not always winning, just escaping.

He shows pain shows some ineptitude, but maybe it's a different category?

>Unpopular opinion maybe but I think almost all the superhero movies are boring because of the lack of this.

Completely agree with this. This is why the Daredevil season 1 hallway fight was so damn good. It was brutal, but you could see him getting hurt and getting tired. It made it believable. If they can't match that mentality when filming fights for the new DD series, it will be very disappointing.

I'm not so much on the "kill them off GoT" style but I would definitely love to see more shows have that "anything can actually happen" vibe that made GoT so engrossing. Characters lived and died based on their decisions, whether it was simply misplaced trust, or tactical errors.

Rambo first blood, 48 hours, Terminator

Interestingly though, that wasn't a boon in his cap at the time. He was a "heart-throb" sure, but it was for a comedic tv role in a comedy drama show. Not exactly a role that screams action movie star, so there was actual concern by many at the time about whether or not people would go see him in a movie.

>John McLane first kill in the movie was an accident.

I always pay attention to the stunt guys in this movie, that guy got blasted against every wall in the Nakatomi, McClane has zero easy fight in the first movie.

Schiess dem Fenster...

Right? I think DC is the biggest culprit of this so far with Marvel quickly moving in. You watch Captain America: Winter Soldier, Tobey McGuire's fight with the Green Goblin, and Tom Holland's first fight with the Green Goblin, they get fucked up. I would say Cap gets it the worst out of the 3, considering he gets shot too, but they all get absolutely thrashed to the point they're barely holding it together. Anymore though, I can't really think of a Marvel hero who got it even half as bad. Chadwick Bosman from Black Panther, but...nope nothing else comes to mind.

A) John Wick is one of the aforementioned "impossible beings". B) I also stipulated "Most".

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you sure bout that?

I’d hit it, so what I keeps it real

And Bourne before him.

100% MCU was doing pretty decently with some of it's films from Iron Man 1 to Endgame. Characters got put through the ringer. And while I like the first 2 Nolan movies, the only one Batman even got hurt in was 3, but he it was more plot points to hurt him than just a by product of a brutal fight. At least with Pattinson's ending fight Batman nearly went down if it wasn't for what I suspect was venom but could have just been major steroids.

And Marvel is definitely moving away from realism it seems. Falcon and the Winter Soldier, did anyone even look tired after a fight, or like they broke a sweat? And Love and Thunder..... it was basically a Saturday Morning Cartoon when it came to Thor's fighting prowess, we were only missing him raising the hammer to the sky and yelling out that he had the power.

It's getting the point where it feels like the characters being tired or hurt is like a gun running out of ammo in an 80s action movie, only when the plot needs it to happen.

SHOOT tha glassssss!

Yep. I genuinely can't bring myself to watch Love and Thunder past the one time. Marvel doesn't need to go to extremes but damn I would like the people to actually be people. That's what Marvel marketed their heroes as in the first place. Hopefully they swing things back the other way but I'm not holding my breath for it.

Cary Grant - North.By.Northwest?

Probably some westerns?

Three Days Of The Condor 1975

Clint Eastwood did it first.

That was the key aspect of the film. The studio wanted Arnold or Stallone to star, but McTerinan wanted to do something different and cast an everyman to make it more realistic.

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon as well.

While more noir than action, Bullitt has some of the same elements. Frank is supposed to be just a jaded average middle-aged cop, apparently described in production as "eats a lot of ice cream and never solves a case". Though obviously casting Steve McQueen upped the attractiveness level he's still pretty grounded compared to the roided-out 80's action stars OP is comparing to.

Die Hard was in some ways more of a return to form from Stallone and Arnold.

Jackie's style (both in fight choreography and film-making) was a deliberate subversion of Bruce Lee's film style. He's talked a lot about how he was getting typecast into that mold but decided to flip everything in order to stand out.

Not saying it was easy but I he first baddy to die happened after they fell down a flight of stairs and the badfu broke his neck. John was just trying to survive not kill him.

We named the dog Indian!

Maybe not the first but Death Wish certainly predates it.

My criteria for this question: characters that aren't cops, characters that aren't in a Hitchock movie (North by Northwest isn't a typical or even prototypical action movie), no cowboys (since these are by definition not modern day "every man")

The funny thing about Death Wish is that Willis ended up starring in the remake that I heard was very bad.

I mean yeah Mclane is a cop. Guess who else was a cop? Mad max.

What do you consider modern? The "Hero's Journey" coined by Joseph Campbell in 1949 speaks of: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day."

In the call to adventure: "the hero or protagonist lives in the ordinary world." And this wasn't invented by Campbell. He was the one to break it down, but it can be traced back to mythology.

An "everyman" becoming a hero is about as classic a plot as you can get. Luke was an everyman moisture farmer. There are many other examples in this thread.

Even if you want to narrow it down to real-world plausible situations, there are plenty of action movies where "everyman" characters have to be heroic. Personally, I'd give Indiana Jones the nod before John McClane. After all, McClane isn't truly an everyman. He's a trained police officer who may be off duty, but it's basically his job. Indiana Jones is a professor with realistic flaws ("I don't know. I'm making this up as I go.") who ends up fighting Nazis.

It just makes sense that the protagonist who we're rooting for is kinda like us. It makes us wonder what we'd do in a similar situation. It makes us like the main character more.

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You’re getting pushback. The answer is yes, but people forget about Moonlighting.

Modern. And Everyman. not just “who historically has filled this role.” May as well say a thousand iterations of Django at that point.

An Everyman caught in extraordinary circumstances is a trope as old as Dog Day Afternoon

I think Matt has broken ribs through all three seasons lol.

Man. Winter Soldier is still my favorite MCU movie.

Yes

I would say Clint Eastwood. He is the first Everyman tough guy I remember seeing. You could also say Paul Newman, but he is widely regarded as a very handsome man in his prime. Might take him out of the Everyman category.

Most people would consider that is the point the “Every man hero”. I like to think it was Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry series.

So I was 13 when Die Hard came out and being that age in the 80s raised on cable and VHS rentals put it square in my wheelhouse. But by summer 88 the idea of the One Man Army action star felt beyond stale.
It was just a tired idea. And while I was a big Moonlighting fan and liked Willis it just didn’t seem like a very original idea. Had little to no interest in seeing it.
But then it became a surprise late summer hit. Yes it came out mid-July but it was the definition of a word of mouth sleeper. It gained steam in august and that’s when it really opened up. In fact what I remember thinking at the time was that I learned that a plot concept doesn’t need to be totally original if all the components are well-made.
The “Everyman” thing only ever half landed for me since even at the time Bruce was a buff action star looking guy, if not a Sly or Arnold. And of course the franchise eventually wasted that goodwill turning him into an indestructible farce. Fortunately you can still enjoy the OG entry and not have to think about where it all went from there

Die Hard was the most influential film in ushering in the every-man action hero, but the Indiana Jones trilogy came first. What separates John McClain from the other every-man action heroes that came before him such as Indiana Jones is that John McClain was involved in the action by coincidence, where Indiana Jones actively perused action by chasing treasures.

John Wick takes a very visible beating.

Netflix has documentaries about old movies and it’s pretty much what they allude to.

Casting Bruce Willis was literally a big risk because he didn’t fit the mold of ridiculous bodybuilding action stars.

Read my post again. Slowly and carefully.

It is awesome. I love it. Perfect blend of funny and serious with some good dark in there too. I was hoping that would be Marvel going forward but sadly....

I think Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China is an earlier example, in it he is a truck driver.

Condor was an interesting series.

John wick isn't more impossible than John McClaine. There are extensive videos about the dozens of times the homie should have died in that movie.

Was he the first non-canonical action hero? By which I mean was he the first action hero who didn't look like the image "action hero" and/or movie star conjured up? I've certainly heard that thesis before.

Show me where John McClain walks through a night club and bodies a dozen well trained body guards without a problem. Or where he does the same in catacombs, or where he straight up chews through entire groups of highly trained assassins with his bare hands/a pistol and maybe a sword or a knife.

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I'll die on this hill, Die Hard is the greatest Action Movie of all time, and it's not even bc of the action. It's because of the bantering, the dialogue, and even the cursing. It's all so perfect, even more so when ad-libbed. Nothing forced. Incredible.

It'll never be beat, either.

Walkie Talkie Die Hard, Motherfucker!!!

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I don't disagree but the movie unfortunately didn't do anywhere near as well as Die Hard did.

I would say yes. John McClane was different than the action heroes of the time. He was buff but he was a normal cop who was good at thinking on his feet and improvising. He took a lot of wounds over the course of the movie, and apparently some audiences thought he would die at the end. I think the scene where he's dragging his bloody feet across the floor really exemplifies this difference. In the following scene, he is hurt and tired and starts thinking that maybe he won't make it out alive. It was a very different tone than contemporary action films.

Hell of a movie, also a hell of a book (although the book is 6 days of the condor).

Always really loved the ending of the movie. Not going to spoil it, go watch it :P

I would have to agree. Their progenitors Stallone and Arnie had action figure physiques. John McClean walked so Bryan Mills (Taken) and John Creasy (Man On Fire) could run.

Fuckin A

Tom Selleck saunters by, chuckling to himself.

No.

Charles Bronson did it in the 70s with Death Wish, and many others. Tough but regular guy.

80's came and Arnold and Stallone brought huge physiques and special training as the prototype action stars.

But we still had Beverly Hills Cop and other comedic action movies with regular guys.

Honestly, everyone makes too much of it and Bruce. It was funny and entertaining. A good heist movie.

Alan Rickman is the main reason it took off and kept flying.

Marv was the victim in those movies.

John McClain basically became John wick by the 4th one

He isn't naturally attractive. If Willis walked into a room and wasn't famous, people wouldn't say he was a handsome man. If burt Reynolds did, people would say that

Lol I love Indiana Jones, but those are fantasy films. Not the same thing

Oooh yes, the glass.

Riggs was ex-Special Forces or something wasn't he? Murtaugh for sure. He was just too old for that shit.

Lol yeah Rambo the killing machine in Vietnam was an everyman

So die hard wasn't about an everyman since he was a cop

Sincerely, I screamed when Eddard Stark lost his head so early in.

Dirty Harry wasn't an everyman

Dirty Harry was a badass cop, not an everyman

I'm not denying that. His character fell into the tropes that I'm decrying. But that's not what is being talked about, and debated here. We are talking about the first movie and only the first movie. I'm comparing Die Hard 1 (one) 1988 to modern action movies where the character is always some current or former special forces or super trained fighter of some sort, chewing through enemies like a bandsaw through paper with minimal injury.

No to OP. Cowboys and cops have been the Everyman action hero since films and television each began.

A fucking pencil!

No.

Bronson was a tough guy from the 60s on with Dirty Dozen

Anyone writing that title knows the answer as yes.

I’m old enough to remember when Die Hard came out in theaters. It was nuts. Bruce Willis was a goofy funny guy from Moonlighting. He wasn’t a massive action star like Arnold or Sly or a martial arts guy like Bruce Lee. He was just a regular dude and people saw the trailers and were like… what? But it kind of prepared us for a few years later when they said Michael Keaton was going to be Batman.

I was going say Bronson as well. He was the Liam Neeson “Taken” dad 40 years before Liam.

Eastwood also played a regular cop in his Dirty Harry series after his Westerns.

John Wayne, I suppose, before that.

Those scalps belong in museum!

Fists wit yer toes

Maybe Redford's character didn't have field training, but he still had Robert Redford's seduction super powers. Most of us mortals wouldn't be able to kidnap a random woman and convince her within 24 hours to assist us in our espionage efforts.

Edit: That movie has one of my favorite all time closing credits. I love the way Redford slinks off into the crowd of Christmas carolers, and the picture freezes on Reford's worried face, the holiday music cuts out, to be replaced by the ominous, very 70s piano notes.

I mean tbh yeah but at least in that movie he was off duty so it still has the same feel of a guy trapped in and adapting to circumstances beyond his control

Have you seen Nobody?

Daredevil's real super power is that he can take an unbelievable ass kicking and keeping fighting.

Do you wanna know how I got these scars?

I have, decent movie. Still not John McClain. The guy in Nobody got fucked up because he held back. When he didn't, he tore through a Russian monster's organization like they were paper targets. Even handled being right up against a claymore fairly well. Was so frightening, people would rather bail without pay on a psychotic mob boss than be on his bad side.

Yep, definitely a cult classic but so good. And I would say Bennett from COMMANDO (1985) fits the character more (out of shape, chubby guy).

Snake Pliskin was already an action hero.

Ya I rewatched Commando the other day and was surprised because I remembered him looking more muscular.

There are lots of examples of the every man action hero (low status action hero) the thing I think that sets Die Hard apart is how much of a wise cracking smart ass he was.

It's hard to say so because he's Harrison Ford there's a certain amount of status he naturally brings. But he does get the shit kicked out of him and is constantly improvising his way out of sticky situations.

He doesn't do either thing without "a problem" -- you have zero reason to believe they are well trained as there isn't any indication of their training. The club body guards are dummies and demonstrate that in the movie. That said I don't think something can be "more impossible" than something else. I'm pretty sure impossible is "binary."

I'd say he definitely helped usher in the modern everyman. McClane was definitely an everyman from Die Hard 1-3....then...yeah Bruce Willis took over.

Absolutely. Netflix has a solid episode of their “behind your favorite movie” anthology or whatever the show is called that focuses on die hard. Willis was like their last choice and casting him was a huge risk. They were so concerned men wouldn’t believe him to be a hero as opposed to a tv rom com star, they removed him from the posters and other promotional materials.

And for anyone throwing out Bronson in death wish or Eastwood in westerns, we need to consider context. Bronson killing a bunch of street thugs at his leisure isn’t the same as Willis taking down a terrorist organization without weapons or shoes. And to your point OP, Eastwood was a certified badass back then. An ‘Everyman’ wouldn’t be an Everyman if every man was just as capable as every other man (I don’t even know if that makes sense). Eastwood wasn’t an Everyman in those flicks, he was generally the baddest dude around. Swap him out for Schwarzenegger and I don’t know that Arnold is more intimidating on a horse with a poncho and a pistol.

In terms of him being a cop, he’s been on the force for just 7 years and is afraid of flying. He’s not a navy seal. I mean carl Winslow is far more seasoned and about to retire, but he’s not shimmying through an air duct.

Fun fact: the first choice for john McClane was frank Sinatra as he played the character in the movie’s “prequel”

Die Hard was Rupert Murdoch's big entry splash after buying 21 st century Fox. His other big shake ups were Married with Children and the The Simpson's, which ushered in the modern TV era.

Well he was a boob the entire movie. And that’s the point. Kurt Russel’s character thinks he’s all that, but he keeps messing up.

Very different.

Nah - there were lots of anti-hero's in the 70's. Vanishing Point comes to mind

"zero reason to believe they are well trained"

Are you honestly putting forth the position, that one can't watch the tactical awareness, combat skills, hand/eye coordination, ability to plan and execute, not to mention pain tolerance and rationally infer that all that took decades of training to achieve? Or are you saying that anyone can do what John Wick does, with absolutely 0 training?

He's far from an everyman and he has super human damage soak

Exactly.

No, Rambo First Blood was. Then Red Dawn, Then Dudikoff in American Ninja. Die Hard was second wave action movie.

I honestly miss that about late 80s and early 90s action flicks. I was pretty characteristic of films of that era to end with the hero completely and utterly battered to within an inch of their life, limping away into the night or getting carried away on a stretcher. Made their victories seemed hard earned.

Part of it for me is his characters actually get beat up in movies.

You have zero reason to believe that rando muscle within a Russia mob family has "elite training."

This is the less important aspect of my argument. John Wick is in some ways more realistic and some ways less realistic than Die Hard however they are both entirely impossible or at the very least incredibly unlikely. Arguing that a movie is "more impossible" is like arguing that a sandwich is "more perfect." It's an on/off switch its either true or untrue. A scale of impossibility is silly.

I like John Wick but the action is highly stylised and over the top. He's basically Batman if he used guns.

You all forgetting They Live? You all forgetting how two regular dudes in an alley can fight for five and a half minutes about sunglasses?

The Bruce Willys

Gene Hackman in Poseidon Adventure. Roy Scheider in Jaws.

In the first one, sorta. He was still a thieving shit. In the second one, no. They were literally trying to kill Kevin, with Marv screaming at Harry to shoot him.

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Thanks for sharing that link. Looks a bit like Homeland meets Jack Ryan. Brendan Fraser in it too!

I always felt like Shooter with mark walhberg was the spiritual remake of this and you just made me realize why I liked Condor more

The Joker with his pencil disappearing magic trick

Id agree Cary Grant in NbN, everyday guy thrown into the middle of some big conspiracy with spies everywhere out to get him.

While Sam Elliott relaxes in the corner with a beer...

I think that's a flawed analysis. Action stars like Arnold and Stallone stood out because they were the exception, not the norm. Almost every other action movie had an everyman star.

I feel like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold paved the way for Bruce

Hard to ignore Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dude was a school teacher trying to sell stuff to museums

No that actually didn’t happen until Jennifer Lawrence came along

Three days of the condor isn’t an action movie.

Well. It was originally a script for Frank Sinatra to star.

I thought the glass was the fake rubber stuff that looks real.

Yes, definitely that was the appeal. An everyman going up bad guys instead of buffed out Arnolds and Stallones. If I recall I think he made big money for it back then because he was coming off the hit tv show Moonlighting but the studio was unsure about having a comedy guy be an action hero. You should check out the really good making of it on the Netflix show "The Movies That Made Us" Die Hard episode and there is also a cool book out about the making of all the films.

Fun fact: the first choice for john McClane was frank Sinatra as he played the character in the movie’s “prequel”

He was the first choice only due to contractual obligation. Sinatra was in The Detective and Die Hard is based on a novel that was the sequel to The Detective. At the time he was offered the role in Die Hard, Sinatra was 70 years old, and, as expected by the studio, he declined the role.

Others who were offer the role included:

Sylvester Stallone, Richard Gere, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Burt Reynolds, Nick Nolte, Mel Gibson, Don Johnson, Richard Dean Anderson, Paul Newman, James Caan, and Al Pacino.

When the role was finally offer to Bruce Willis, he had to decile due to contractual obligations to continue filming Moonlighting. That changed when Cybil Shepard s pregnancy cause Moonlighting to go on an 11 week hiatus. Willis was then able to film Die Hard during that hiatus.

I don't even think you need to kill off superheros, you just need to give them space to lose or get pyrrhic victories. All of Captain America's movies are great at this: Cap always gets a win (at least compared to the alternative playing out) but at a huge cost to himself or a large impact to the greater storyline.

If you know that the good guys are always gonna win with no serious consequences, then it makes you wonder why you should bother watching the same tropes play out over and over. I feel like a lot of the latest Marvel series/movies are suffering from this: not necessarily because the whole no consequences thing is new (because it's a valid criticism for some of the older marvel flicks) but because we're tired of it and we need a reason to watch something new.

Why did he clarify his order by speaking English to a fellow German?

I feel like John Wick goes too far in the other direction: I enjoy watching a guy that gets some injuries but keeps on through determination and sheer will, but past a certain point, the damage should be too much and they should have to take time to get medical care and a considerable amount of time to heal. I think the John Wick sequels would be much better off if a lot more time had passed during them to reflect this.

This isn't to say I don't enjoy the John Wick films, but they really do strain the suspension of disbelief.

I have no idea… Karl seemed to have a WTF you talking about moment there…

Or Hans was just speaking shitty German…?

I was young when I first saw the ending, and it put a seed in my brain. Every time I saw something in the news, and then years later the CIA reluctantly admitted to something, the seed would grow a little more.