It's Die Hard Out There for a Pimp

Concerning the verb die harding:

So they are coming out with a new Die Hard movie. It’s called A Good Day to Die Hard. Like all Die Hard sequels, this film follows the Second Law of Die Hardiness, which states that every subsequent Die Hard film will use a more illogical “die hard” pun in its title than its predecessors.

Don’t believe me? Here are the names in order:

1. Die Hard
2. Die Hard 2: Die Harder
3. Die Hard with a Vengeance
4. Live Free or Die Hard
5. A Good Day to Die Hard

If at first you fail to die. . .

Am I the only person who has noticed that these titles were written as puns by someone who doesn't know what a pun is? I call shenanigans. First of all, a die hard is someone who holds firm to their beliefs. So this could work for Die Hard with a Vengeance, if not for the fact that the main character is kind of an anti-die-hard who doesn't really give a poop about anything. It can also be used as an adjective to mean the same thing, as in “Joe is a die-hard fan of Die Hard. It’s his favorite Christmas movie.” Not only is that a better pun that makes sense in context, it is also way funnier.

The other more archaic sounding, original usage is sort of weird imperative construct, i.e., a weird way of saying "don’t die easily, gents." This makes a little more sense as the protagonist, John McClane is hard at dying.

Live Free or Die Hard makes the least sense. It infuriates me actually. What a crazy false dichotomy to make: live free or be hard to kill. Those are clearly not mutually exclusive. So are we to believe that John McClane lived free instead of dying hard? Maybe it should be live free by dying hard? That doesn't sound right, but it makes more sense.

Somebody please explain to me if in context of these films to die hard means to die but with difficulty, or to be hard to kill? I feel like my confusion stems from an inconsistency, as if they just stuck the word hard into phrases that contained the word die just to sound witty and cool.

What’s the next idiotic title gonna be? I came up with a few ideas:

 

• It’s Die Hard out there for a Pimp
• Live and Let Die Hard
• Never Say Die Hard
• It’s a Die Hard Knock Life
• Die Hard Boiled Eggs
• Die Hardest
• Die Hard in the Wool

The movie poster for the next film Die Hard Platinum (in pre-production).

By the way, the First Law of Die Hardiness states that each subsequent Die Hard film will alternate between ridiculous nonsense and supreme awesomeness. So even with a title like A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth installment can’t fail.