Lethal Weapon is a movie that lives and breathes still despite the actors having aged so much and the fact that it’s now spawned a TV show that, to some fans, is kind of a blasphemous creation. Some people like it, others avoid it, that doesn’t mean it’s garbage just that there are loyal fans that happen to like the original a lot better. After all this invited us into the world of Riggs and Murtaugh, who couldn’t be more opposite and yet became best friends after risking their lives for one another multiple times. The original movie almost saw them die a few times and yet they got back up and kept going forward.
See? Roger wasn’t too old for this stuff.
10. The original jumping scene was a lot more complicated than you think.
The actress did the jump on her own since she’d been trained to do so and the scenery and the car she jumped onto were one giant airbag that had been cunningly painted to look like a real-life backdrop.
9. Gibson was offered the role of Hamlet based on his suicide attempt scene.
The only problem with that was that Hamlet flopped big time and this movie was one of Gibson’s best.
8. Busey was hired because they needed a villain to match Gibson’s heroic character.
In other words they needed to match someone that looked crazy with someone that acted crazy. It worked too.
7. There was a real bullet in the gun that Mel Gibson held to his head.
He was going for realism and I think if enough people had realized this they would have had a serious issue with it.
6. Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson both turned down respective roles in different movies.
Bruce Willis turned down the role of Riggs while Gibson turned down the role of John McClane in Die Hard.
5. The one-two-three gag kind of started in this movie.
Riggs and Murtaugh don’t start the gag in this movie but the small group of officers singing Christmas carols do the bit.
4. The fight between Riggs and Joshua was supposed to be longer.
It was cut down due to time constraints which is why the timing seems a bit off and the pace of the fight is kind of odd.
3. Technical advisers from the LAPD worked closely with the cast and crew to assure authenticity.
While there are likely a lot of moments in the film that would never happen on duty they were still there to make sure that procedures were followed.
2. There are a few Three Stooges references in the film.
My favorite happens to be in the tree lot when he goes all Curly on the three drug dealers. He’s done this in the other movies as well.
1. This is the only Lethal Weapon without Joe Pesci.
Leo Getz came in during the second film and hung on throughout the fourth installment. Whether people liked him or not wasn’t really the question.
There is only one Lethal Weapon, and the show might be popular but it’s not the same.
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