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Using Data To Determine if 'Die Hard' is a Christmas Movie (stephenfollows.com) 87

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
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.
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Using Data To Determine if 'Die Hard' is a Christmas Movie More

Using Data To Determine if 'Die Hard' is a Christmas Movie

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  • Just as Christmas as A Christmas Story (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24, 2018 @08:25PM (#57855380)

    A Christmas Story is just a kid's selfish quest to own a gun, whereas John McClane unselfishly uses guns to save his family.

    Well there is that one scene where Ralphie uses a gun to save his family, but that was just a dream sequence.

  • Yippie-ki-yay mofo (Score:5, Funny)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Monday December 24, 2018 @08:29PM (#57855394) Homepage Journal

    It ain't Christmas until Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Tower

  • It is. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24, 2018 @08:38PM (#57855416)

    People seem to think a Christmas film must be directly about Christmas itself (Christianity, Santa Claus) but that rules out loads of films like home alone and love actually. Die hard does cover themes like family reconciliation, greed, duty (very Christian themes) and a metaphorical reference to Santaâ(TM)s sack of desirable gifts i.e. bag of C4.

  • Die Hard is a great Christmas movie (Score:3, Informative)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Monday December 24, 2018 @08:43PM (#57855426) Homepage

    My favorite, in fact.

    Now I have a machine gun.

    Ho
    Ho
    Ho

  • Yes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chewbacon ( 797801 ) on Monday December 24, 2018 @08:47PM (#57855436)

    Die Hard and Gremlins are Christmas movies. Stop with the nonsensical argument.

    • Die Hard and Gremlins are Christmas movies.

      And going back to the classics... so is The Thin Man.

    • If anything Die Hard follows a Western formula. A town under siege by bad gunslingers, a single good gunslinger saving the day, even some cowboy references in the dialog.

  • Does content dictate category? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by holophrastic ( 221104 ) on Monday December 24, 2018 @08:56PM (#57855456)

    Simply put, does having christmas content, make a movie a christmas movie?

    Having a seat does not make a bicycle a chair.

    Sitting on a rock, similarly, does not make that rock into a chair.

    There must be more. Something of design intent. That intent may be in-advance (such as carving a rock into a chair), or subsequently, such as denoting a rock to be a chair.

    However, the fact remains; without intent, a rock is never ever ever a chair.

    I thusly claim that Die Hard is only a christmas movie, if it was intended to be a christmas movie, or if later it has become deemed a christmas movie by some form of intent (and obviously, here, we mean more than just one viewer's opinion).

    Data sucks. You can read anything into it. We already have astrology. We have numerology. We have angels and demons and miracles and curses. Logic can be used to explain anything, that's its power. Logic is not reason. Data is not logic.

    • "Sitting on a rock, similarly, does not make that rock into a chair."

      If only everything in life was so simple. The freedom you get when you neglect so much must be intoxicating for a while.

      it is a christmas movie, the end. proof over.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Simply put, does having christmas content, make a movie a christmas movie?

      You don't have to get so philosophical about it because for the most part this is a tautology, if it has comedic elements it's a comedy and if doesn't it's not. It could be a romantic comedy if it has romance elements too, but it's still a comedy. Ordinarily that would mean that Christmas content does actually imply a Christmas movie. It's more that some themes bludgeon others, for example is a horror movie with a Christmas theme actually a "Christmas movie" as most people define it? For a more obvious exam

      • I think you've gone too far into fuzzy-logic territory, where, in my opinion, logic becomes meaningless.

        Given a sad drama, with a single comedic joke to break the tension, is that a comedy movie because it has a comedy moment? I think you're saying it's a 3% comedy, 97% sad drama.

        I don't accept categories being diluted like that. I think categories must be a threshold effect. Whether those thresholds are relative to each-other, or relative to the whole is another conversation, but at some level, 97% need

    • Here’s the thing: “Christmas” is a setting, not a genre. A rock is always a rock, regardless of intent (though it may not be a seat). A Christmas film is always a Christmas film, regardless of intent (though it may not be a comedy).

      There are Christmas horror movies (e.g. Gremlins, Krampus), Christmas kids’ films (e.g. Jingle All the Way, The Santa Clause), Christmas dramas (e.g. It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street), Christmas romantic films, Christmas musicals (e.g. W

      • Dude (or dudette?) you are the most brilliant person I know. There are only two persons in my life who think this way -- one of them is myself, although I did not do so in this case.

        So it comes down to your words "established Christmas setting". I love it. And I've now re-wired my brain in accordance. It was definitely Christmastime in Die Hard.

        Alas, now I must challenge your wisdom, in order to bound it. So help me out here.

        What of a hypothetical movie/story, taking place in a summer August, about a t

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Design requires intent, but creativity often takes a life of its own. For instance, It's a wonderful life is a Christmas movie because it fill the network television time royalty free. There may be no intent, but most people see this movie as the definition of christmas.

      That said, there may be design in this creative effort. Like the child born on this day, McClane sacrificed himself to save the people. He went though a series of trials, just like the child when he was an adult, and never flinched or

    • Does having a spaceship or an alien in the plot make a film Science Fiction?

      The superficial and ignorant answer is "yes". Whereas those who are prepared to look deeper often recognise that these are merely props to the more basic story - not crucial elements of it.

    • So by your argument, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, as it had become a Christmas movie by the intent of multiple viewers -- huge deaths of viewers who watch it every Christmas, and only at Christmas.
      Thank you for clearing that up.

      • I'm really hoping that you meant "swaths" not "deaths" of viewers!

        I think that my argument requires someone (of some kind of authority) to intentionally declare it as a christmas movie, but yes I would say that it has certainly crossed that marker.

        Although I far prefer another's argument, in this thread, that "christmas" is a setting, not a genre, and that most certainly Die Hard is set during christmas, without any doubt. It is an action movie set during christmastime.

    • Sitting on a rock, similarly, does not make that rock into a chair.

      A chair is something with a very specific shape. Sitting on a rock however does make it a seat.

  • Is the greatest Christmas movie ever!

    You just need to :s/thanksgiving/christmas/g before watching...

  • If I summarize the plot as:

    It takes place on Christmas Eve with a guy that has gone to LA to spend Christmas with his estranged wife and their kids. Unfortunately, things get in the way that makes a happy Christmas for the family problematic.

    Great movie by the way - much better than the book (if the book had been followed then Frank Sinatra would have been a better John McClane than Bruce Willis).

    Merry Christmas everybody!

  • The author laments the lack of Christmas songs in Christmas movies.

    The producers probably don't want to pay the exorbitant fees necessary to license those songs from the copyright holders, that's if they can get permission to use them at all..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      The author must be a fuckwit that doesn't understand how intolerable shitty themed songs are when heard constantly for several weeks.

      Nothing like throwing christmas songs into a film to get me to stop watching.

  • It's my favorite movie, but I wouldn't call it a Christmas movie, just an action movie that takes place at Christmas. Unless it pisses off millennials then I'll call it a Christmas movie while eating pineapple pizza.
  • I prefer "Christmasfaction."

  • Yes, it's an action movie during Christmas season. Argh. SO YES!

  • When i think of Christmas movies, the first thing i think of is coked up hookers swan diving off the penthouse balcony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • There are two kinds of people in the world - (Score:5, Funny)

    by anvilmark ( 259376 ) on Tuesday December 25, 2018 @12:40AM (#57855962)

    Those that believe that Die Hard is a Christmas movie and those who are wrong.

  • Yes and no (Score:3)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Tuesday December 25, 2018 @01:17AM (#57856042) Journal

    If Die Hard come out in November or December, I would say that it was intended as a Christmas film. If I remember correctly, it came out in June, however. It was definitely summertime.

    I think Die Hard is a non-Christmas movie that happens to use Christmas as a setting, and has since evolved into being viewed as a Christmas movie.

    Which is fine... I have always seen Die Hard as a Christmas movie, and I remember when I first saw it in theaters when it came out, I was puzzled about why they didn't release it closer to Christmas.

    • Re:Yes and no (Score:4, Funny)

      by timholman ( 71886 ) on Tuesday December 25, 2018 @09:24AM (#57857020)

      If Die Hard come out in November or December, I would say that it was intended as a Christmas film. If I remember correctly, it came out in June, however. It was definitely summertime.

      "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.

    • If I remember correctly, it came out in June, however. It was definitely summertime.

      That's just in time for the Christmas in July season.

  • Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve, therefore is a "Christmas Eve" movie...
    This makes it very definitely a Christmas movie, but one to watch on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day.
    IMHO IANAL etc...

  • Ho ho ho, now I have a machine gun (Score:3)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Tuesday December 25, 2018 @10:18AM (#57857168) Journal
    It doesn't get more Christmas than that

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