Die Hard: Festive or not?

[bgmnts]

Okay so its officially advent and its time for the age old debate again, is Die Hard a Christmas film or not?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/4729e8ae-ca0b-4d4a-a43a-36e29cc33296

According to the poll, 62% believe it is NOT a Christmas film.

I personally think they are wrong and should die, die hard. It is in fact my favourite Christmas film of all time, along with Muppet Christmas Carol. Does anyone here watch Die Hard outside of the festive period?

I want your hot takes!

[Dr Rock]

Does John McLane not scuttle down chimneys delivering presents, in a way?

[Mister Six]

It's a Christmas film. Nothing that happens in it could possibly occur at any other point in the year (only a Christmas Eve party would allow for a bunch of civilians to be bumming around in an unfinished office tower, with low security, on a night when most of the police are off duty, and cause McClane to fly from New York to LA ... Although who has their office Christmas party on Christmas Eve?).

[Jim Bob]

The movie is set at Christmas, during a Christmas party under siege, has the protagonist dressing one of the dead terrorists in a Santa hat and scrawling the words 'ho ho ho' on his jumper and it literally ends with the song 'Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!'.  It's a Christmas movie.  Just because it's violent doesn't change that.  A Christmas movie isn't limited by genre.  Gremlins, It's a Wonderful Life, Krampus, Miracle on 34th Street and indeed Die Hard; they're all Christmas movies.

[magval]

I love you lot but I have a strong feeling that the Die Hard Xmas Film debate is SFC.

Only just yesterday I was giving off to my wife about how the work ones had brought it up, but they'd brought it up out of what felt like a sense of obligation, and had no real opinion or insight to offer about it. It's just another meme to be seen talking about, now.

I know yousins will have more to say about it, but there's a face-value version of this debate out there that definitely annoys me.

[BlodwynPig]

Gremlins is not a christmas movie

[Thursday]

It is a Christmas movie, but not as much as Eyes Wide Shut.

[Jim Bob]

Gremlins is not a christmas movie

Yes it is!  Why should the fact the it's a horror-comedy exclude it from being classified as a Christmas movie?  The gremlins themselves aren't festive but everything else that surrounds them is.

What I will agree to is that the likes of Gremlins and Die Hard are not traditional, sickly sweet Christmas movies and can easily be enjoyed outside of the festive season but so can National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and I doubt many people should deny that film it's status as a Christmas Movie.

[BlodwynPig]

Its a wonderful life is no way a christmas movie

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I'm sure I read somewhere that it was set at Christmas because the producers wanted to copy Lethal Weapon and had the script rewritten. If that's the case, it probably wasn't that integral to the story. Then again, it works symbolically with the subplot of John reestablishing his family.

In conclusion: Sort of.

[Jim Bob]

Miracle on 34th Street is in no way a Christmas movie.

[BeardFaceMan]

Is there a difference between a Christmas movie and a move set at Christmas? It doesnt matter, Die Hard qualifies for both. The heart of the story is a guy flying across the country to try and recocile with his wife and kids at Christmas. Christmas may not be integral to the story, but it matters, it helps the sickly sweet, romantic, guy-gets-the-girl ending, makes it more sentimental. The action is built around that, it would be pretty meaningless if that sweetness wasn't there in the story. He's trying to save his wife, for God's sake! From terrorists! Fuck, yes, it's a Christmas film.

[BlodwynPig]

Its certainly a film

[idunnosomename]

i do not care

[Dr Rock]

The original title was 'The Christmas Eve Heist'

[JesusAndYourBush]

Is "Die Hard 2" a Christmas movie?  That is also set at Christmas and ends with "Let It Snow." 

[BlodwynPig]

Is christmas a christmas or achristmas?

[Jim Bob]

Is "Die Hard 2" a Christmas movie?  That is also set at Christmas and ends with "Let It Snow."

It's an inferior Christmas movie.  Much like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure.

[imitationleather]

The original title was 'Christmas: The Movie'.

But it is not a Christmas movie.

[Blumf]

Is "Die Hard 2" a Christmas movie?  That is also set at Christmas and ends with "Let It Snow."

That's more of a secular 'holiday season' movie, part of Hollywood's war on Christmas.

[thecuriousorange]

Someone at my work tried to say that Mean Girls isn't a Christmas movie.

[Ham Bap]

Santa Claus the Movie is a film about an urban terrorist breaking into billions of homes across the centuries aided by Dudley Moore.

[Mister Six]

The original title was 'The Christmas Eve Heist'

Yeah, the studio had bought a German screenplay called Die Heiligabend Heißt (which in German means "Christmas Eve"), about a working-class dad trying to reconnect with his wife after getting a cross-country train on Christmas Eve. Sort of a Teutonic Trains, Planes and Automobiles. Yes, Germans CAN do comedy!

Some studo exec saw the title and thought it was a Christmas crime caper, and when he found out it wasn't, he demanded rewrites to accommodate that.

Meanwhile the studio already had a film in production based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which had been made into a film with Frank Sinatra in the 1960s. Contractually they had to offer it to Sinatra, who was in his 70s at the time, and with that in mind, a decision was made to incorporate it into "The Christmas Eve Heist" (which was only a working title) due to its lighter, festive tone.

The German robbers were flipped into into being the villains rather than the anti-heroes (eventually they would be made into a multi-ethnic gang with only Alan Rickman's character and the two Aryan brothers keeping their Teutonic backgrounds). In the novel, the book's protagonist is Joseph Leland, not John McClane, who was already retired from the police force and trying to visit his daughter.

The original German script's protagonist had become what we would later know as villain Hans Gruber, so his original story - about trying to get to his wife - was given to Leland, but his estranged wife was made into his estranged daughter to fit the existing "Nothing Lasts Forever" screenplay.

Of course, Sinatra turned it down and young(ish) buck Bruce Willis was cast in the role, and as the script was shopped around younger actors (including Arnold Schwarzenegger!) It was revamped with a harder edge, the villains made more malicious - but ironically McClane (nee Leland) was once more visiting his wife, restoring one of the last tendrils of the original German story! Much of the off-kilter humour and tone also comes from both the original Die Heiligabend Heißt screenplay and the intermediate Christmas Eve Heist version.

As a final nod to one of the film's origins, the writers called it Die Hard - prefiguring The Simpsons' later "The Bart, The" joke.

[Dr Rock]

Yeah, the studio had bought a German screenplay called Die Heiligabend Heißt (which in German means "Christmas Eve"), about a working-class dad trying to reconnect with his wife after getting a cross-country train on Christmas Eve. Sort of a Teutonic Trains, Planes and Automobiles. Yes, Germans CAN do comedy!

Some studo exec saw the title and thought it was a Christmas crime caper, and when he found out it wasn't, he demanded rewrites to accommodate that.

Meanwhile the studio already had a film in production based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which had been made into a film with Frank Sinatra in the 1960s. Contractually they had to offer it to Sinatra, who was in his 70s at the time, and with that in mind, a decision was made to incorporate it into "The Christmas Eve Heist" (which was only a working title) due to its lighter, festive tone.

The German robbers were flipped into into being the villains rather than the anti-heroes (eventually they would be made into a multi-ethnic gang with only Alan Rickman's character and the two Aryan brothers keeping their Teutonic backgrounds). In the novel, the book's protagonist is Joseph Leland, not John McClane, who was already retired from the police force and trying to visit his daughter.

The original German script's protagonist had become what we would later know as villain Hans Gruber, so his original story - about trying to get to his wife - was given to Leland, but his estranged wife was made into his estranged daughter to fit the existing "Nothing Lasts Forever" screenplay.

Of course, Sinatra turned it down and young(ish) buck Bruce Willis was cast in the role, and the script was revamped with a harder edge, the villains made more malicious - but ironically McClane (nee Leland) was once more visiting his wife, restoring one of the last tendrils of the original German story! Much of the off-kilter humour and tone also comes from both the original Die Heiligabend Heißt screenplay and the intermediate Christmas Eve Heist version.

As a final nod to one of the film's origins, the writers called it Die Hard - prefiguring The Simpsons' later "The Bart, The" joke.

Oh. I was just making that up.

[Mister Six]

I can't believe you would just make something up like that.

[H-O-W-L]

<details>

Also, it's only implicit in the final film as opposed to explicit in the original draft and novel, but... In the original draft the Nakatomi Corporation is explicitly evil and involved in arms deals, the drug trade, theft, and building in conflict zones. There's hints at this in the final film, as I say (Takagi refusing to give up the code and demanding to be shot, the vault being full of strange valuables including paintings that look very strange for a Japanese multinational) but the biggest deal-sealer is the actual target of the heist itself: $640m in non-negotiable bearer bonds just sat in what is apparently just an investment or building firm in 1987? That's a red fucking flag right there, and Takagi even hints that their bridge or whatever they're building in Indonesia has been disputed/complained about as amoral or whatever when Hans admires the model -- which Hans laughs off because he's not actually a terrorist.

Whatever the Nakatomi Corporation are into it's probably all sorts of questionable.

[Johnny Textface]

Does is feel strange watching it at other times of the year? No. Not a Christmas movie.

[BlodwynPig]

I once watched Hallmark christmas movie The Christmas Girl on a beach in Nepal in July at 9:30am

[Dr Rock]

                                                                                                          CASE CLOSED 

[Gulftastic]

Who doesn't have a tear in their eye when Office Powell realises he can shoot people again? It's an Xmas miracle.