30 Years Later, The Best Die Hard Sequel Still Has a Confusing Scene

Die Hard set the template for the modern action film and is still widely regarded as the best of its kind. Not surprisingly, the success of the 1988 actioner kicked off a series of sequels of varying quality. Most film scholars agree, though, that Die Hard With a Vengeance is the best of the follow-up efforts by a long shot; a brave few have even dared to posit that it’s better than the original. Blasphemy aside, the third series installment stands out for many reasons, among them, it serves up a brain teaser that works well as a plot point but still remains the source of confusion for some years on from release.

We’re talking about the sequence where chief antagonist Simon (Jeremy Irons) tasks John McClane (Bruce Willis) and Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), the cab driver unwittingly pulled into the lawman’s orbit, with solving a brain teaser involving water jugs.

The Water Jug Riddle in Die Hard With a Vengeance Is Still Perplexing Three Decades Later

The setup for the iconic puzzle goes like this: McClane and Zeus have two water jugs, one with a three-gallon capacity and one with room to accommodate five gallons. Using those tools and the water from a nearby fountain, the protagonists must figure out how to measure precisely four gallons of water and place it on a scale before time runs out.

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The solution to the riddle makes perfect sense with enough time to process, however, in the heat of the moment, it’s quite possible that the film’s breakneck pace kept you from absorbing the math and fully understanding the finer details. With that in mind, we are providing a detailed breakdown of exactly how to solve that pesky brain teaser.

How to Solve the Water Jug Riddle in Die Hard With a Vengeance

1. Fill the five-gallon jug with water.
2. Use the five-gallon jug to completely fill the three-gallon jug. This will leave two gallons remaining in the five-gallon container.
3. Now, drain the three-gallon jug and refill it with the remaining two gallons in the five-gallon container.
4. Now, fill the five-gallon jug once more and use it to fill the remainder of the three-gallon container to capacity.

Once you complete that sequence, you will have exactly four gallons of water in the five-gallon reservoir. If the math isn’t making sense, don’t fret, the process requires a little time to absorb. You may need to re-read the sequence a few times before it clicks.

The film makes the riddle seem almost intuitive to solve in five minutes so as not to derail the pacing, but the riddle is not all that simple, trust us.

Die Hard With a Vengeance Remains a Stellar Example of a Sequel Done Right

This 1995 follow-up really develops its lead character, catching up with the wisecracking cop who famously took down a cabal of terrorists at Nakatomi Plaza in 1988 at an all-time low. That allows Willis to show a side of McClane we don’t get to see as much of in the first two installments. Not to mention, the film implements buddy comedy tropes via the dynamic between Zeus and McClane that inject some much-needed moments of levity into a setup that is plenty intense.

The film marks the return of director John McTiernan, who famously helmed the first series installment. McTiernan brings the same understanding of how to deliver an effective action sequence to the proceedings, adapting Jonathan Hensleigh’s (Armageddon) screenplay with aplomb.

So, now you have a handy reference guide for the mechanics behind that notorious brain teaser in Die Hard With a Vengeance. Though the characters manage to solve the riddle within the five-minute time limit, the intricacies would take the average person longer than the time allotted to solve.

As for the future of the Die Hard franchise, there’s nothing in the works at present. The series had an impressive run with five successful films and $1.4 billion in box office receipts. Chances are that we haven’t heard the last from the property, but with Willis officially retired, any future installments will likely feature a different actor in the lead.

What do you think of McClane and company’s ability to decode the mechanics of the confounding brain teaser in such a short amount of time? Make sure to let us know by sounding off in the comments section below.