Blogmas 2023 Day 22: I Finally Watched Die Hard. Is it a Christmas Movie?
Is it one for you?
Another classic film I’ve finally gotten to watch, 1988’s Die Hard. Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman. It is two hours of action, but to many it brings up the question “What is a Christmas Movie?”
When we think of Christmas movies, it often brings to mind films that bring up the lore of Santa and character of the winter and later spin-off characters such as the Meiser Brothers or even more recent films like the Will Farrell’s Elf (2003), which is now twenty years old.
Die Hard, on the other hand, is grounded in the late 80’s LA, about a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Showa era in Japan.
Is it a film that puts you in the Christmas Spirit? to me no. I think the film is too action driven to do that. Does it make more sense to put on in November and December? If you aren’t obsessed with Christmas, the humor of the season and being set on Christmas Eve while not shrieking “Carol of the Bells” or “All I Want For Christmas is You” does scream that it might drive me mad if I don’t put it on in the final two months of the year and maybe the first bit of January.
To me November 1 is too early for Christmas, but I would be okay with watching this on November 1 just because the mood has invaded November and hey, if you live in the US and hosting Thanksgiving-a tree does make for a very inviting atmosphere and feels like the lighting of the cauldron at the Olympics to the season.
If you do not host or rotate hosting duties, it really depends on how the day falls. Thanksgiving felt early this year, so maybe wait. If it’s later, maybe just about everyone should have it up for Thanksgiving or Giving Tuesday if this is something they do-after all Christmas is a Christian holiday that has just been heavily secularized for financial gains.
If are not from the US, I can’t tell you went to or not to put it up-but I think Europe is more conservative about this anyway.
Anyways back to the movie. Hans’ (Alan Rickman) death does remind me a bit of Dumbledore’s death at the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)-funny since Alan Rickman (as Snape) gets to be on the other side of the situation before his own death in the final film.
I also didn’t expect to have the omniscient moments in the film, you get to see more perspectives and not just the exchanges within the building and from John (Bruce Willis) to the outside world, which outlines every stage of the crisis from first getting the chance to reaching to the outside world to the crisis ending with a last minute threat being taken out by the initially cop to respond-who had feared to use his weapon again after accidentally hurting a boy as a rookie.
This still shows the film has its emotional moments, but not in the same way as something that is pure fantasy like a Christmas movie, or even akin to fantasy violence like in Japan’s Tokusatsu (including Power Rangers) and some Anime genres (even if Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are technically not anime).
To sum it up, Die Hard (1988) fails to be a Christmas Movie in terms of meeting the same emotional goals that Elf has contended with, but is still emotional in other ways and has its own fun with celebrating the season that to me might limit to something more seasonal for me but might not for others. Raw emotional alone makes it and 8/10 for me, which to me should knock both Fisherman’s Friends films to a 6.5 simply because they make me laugh and have fun, yet are a step or two above a Hallmark movie.
This is the last one I actually had to write for Blogmas 2023 and seem to just let that go over the course of this in my writing, but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these as much as I’ve written them. I’ll leave this one with a poll for you to tell me weather you think it is a Christmas Movie or not and are free to fight me in the comments.