Die Hard this Christmas

This past week my wife and I watched Die Hard while we worked on Christmas stuff. As a nerd and action movie fan, Die Hard is a must watch during Christmas. The more I thought about it though, I knew it took place on Christmas Eve, but beyond that I didn’t remember it having too much Christmas theme to it. So this time as I watched it I paid more attention to check for Christmas themes all throughout the movie. I was actually quite impressed with just how much Christmas they managed to shove into an action movie without it being an A-typical Christmas movie.

To give you some examples:

Almost every time that someone is humming or singing to themselves during the movie, it is a direct Christmas song or a song usually played at Christmas time.

A lot of the background orchestral music really sounds like Christmas carols that were just slowed way down to fit the mood.

There are Christmas decorations every where you look, in Nakotomi plaza, in the conveinance store, at the airport, on the bill boards, and so on.

Everywhere you look in this movie, Christmas themes abound. Plus the fact that like all other Christmas type movies, there are very specific themes that go through the whole thing.

You have the hero of the flick, John McClain, someone who is trying to make the best of the holiday but every time they turn around there is yet another thing getting in their way.

The hero’s love interest in the movie, Johns estranged wife Holly, someone who is at odds with the hero but deep down still loves them and has faith in them during the darkest moments.

The villain is the Grinch of the story, Hans Gruber, using the holiday for personal gain and having a very scrooge attitude towards everything.

There’s the holiday conscious in the film, Sgt. Al Powell, who is the “voice in his head” via the CB radio who keeps the hero going in the right direction.

All the other cops and FBI agents are the usual towns people who take Christmas and the hero for granted and are constantly making things harder for the hero.

This movie fits the tropes for most all the Christmas movies I have ever seen. For me this ranks as tied with two other movies for best Christmas films of all time. The other two are Ron Howards the Grinch who stole Christmas, and National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and hope you have a happy new year. I for one am enjoying Christmas this year, but then again, that could be the Bloodwine talking………..