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Using Data To Determine if 'Die Hard' is a Christmas Movie (stephenfollows.com)
Stephen Follows, a writer and producer who also researches data and statistics on the film industry, writes: Today we're going to use data to answer the question "Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?" Along the way, we're going to test Die Hard's Christmas bona fides against all movies in US cinemas for the past thirty years, using a variety of methods. I have put details of my sources and methodology at the end of the article. The short story is that unless I say otherwise, the data for 'all movies' relates to all movies shown in US cinemas between 1988 (ie the year of our Lord John McClane) and 2017.
Part 1 - Creative: Let's start by assessing the artistic work of Die Hard (as opposed to the commercial product or cultural icon). We'll do this by measuring the Christmas references in the script, on-screen and in the soundtrack. By going back to the film's script we are able to see what the screenwriters saw as part of their vision. The word "Christmas" appears 18 times in the script, which is more than the words "explode" (4), "die" (5), "hard" (11), "shoot" (12), "kill" (13) and "blood" (13), although far fewer times than "gun" (73), "terrorist" (51) and "suddenly" (45). [...] There are a total of 21 distinct Christmassy elements in the movie, ranging from Santa hats and Christmas Trees to festive treats and a pivotal piece of "Christmas Greetings" tape.
[...] Audible references: Let's turn to a cultural measure of Christmasification for which we can get large-scale data: songs. I gathered song listings for three-quarters of all movies released over the past thirty years and identified the songs culturally associated with Christmas. Of these films, 95.5% did not feature any Christmas songs at all. Shame. The prevalence of Christmas songs in modern movies varies considerably but in most years it ends up that between 3% and 7% of movies have at least one such ditty. This means that having even one Christmas song makes a film unusually Christmassy compared to most other releases. Die Hard features Christmas in Hollis, Winter Wonderland, a whistled section of Jingle Bells and a rousing rendition of Let It Snow over the end credits. This means that audibly, Die Hard is more Christmasy than 99.2% of all movies released over the past thirty years. Follows makes several more points in his argument. You can read them here.
Part 1 - Creative: Let's start by assessing the artistic work of Die Hard (as opposed to the commercial product or cultural icon). We'll do this by measuring the Christmas references in the script, on-screen and in the soundtrack. By going back to the film's script we are able to see what the screenwriters saw as part of their vision. The word "Christmas" appears 18 times in the script, which is more than the words "explode" (4), "die" (5), "hard" (11), "shoot" (12), "kill" (13) and "blood" (13), although far fewer times than "gun" (73), "terrorist" (51) and "suddenly" (45). [...] There are a total of 21 distinct Christmassy elements in the movie, ranging from Santa hats and Christmas Trees to festive treats and a pivotal piece of "Christmas Greetings" tape.
[...] Audible references: Let's turn to a cultural measure of Christmasification for which we can get large-scale data: songs. I gathered song listings for three-quarters of all movies released over the past thirty years and identified the songs culturally associated with Christmas. Of these films, 95.5% did not feature any Christmas songs at all. Shame. The prevalence of Christmas songs in modern movies varies considerably but in most years it ends up that between 3% and 7% of movies have at least one such ditty. This means that having even one Christmas song makes a film unusually Christmassy compared to most other releases. Die Hard features Christmas in Hollis, Winter Wonderland, a whistled section of Jingle Bells and a rousing rendition of Let It Snow over the end credits. This means that audibly, Die Hard is more Christmasy than 99.2% of all movies released over the past thirty years. Follows makes several more points in his argument. You can read them here.
It ain't Christmas until Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Tower
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Those that believe that Die Hard is a Christmas movie and those who are wrong.
"Miracle on 34th Street", arguably one of the greatest Christmas films ever made, was released in June of 1947.
As for "Die Hard", it has several elements that make it a Christmas classic:
(1) It's all about a man who is determined to stop a villain who wants to spoil Christmas for a lot of other people.
(2) The focus is all about family; McClane will do anything to save them.
(3) The film provides a rejection of short-sighted greed and corruption through the execution of Harry Ellis.
(4) McClane plays the role of Santa Claus, dealing out punishment to everyone who is naughty, and saying, "Ho! Ho! Ho!"
So while many may regard the question of "Die Hard" being a Christmas movie as strictly tongue-in-cheek, the fact remains that it is a meme that keeps popping up every holiday season, and by that reason alone, it is very definitely a Christmas movie.