Hear me out: "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie because "Why was John McClane at Nakatomi Plaza?"
He was there for a Christmas party.
The rest of the building is all shut down due to Christmas and the holiday season. Holly and her coworkers are only there so late because they’re having their Christmas party, otherwise they would have been safely at home and not available for hostage taking.
He wouldn’t have been able to make his "Ho ho ho, now I have a machine gun" joke if it hadn’t been Christmas time.
And outside of the Christmas apparel of the movie, there is a theme of family and togetherness at the base of it all. Like, at any time, John could have noped out of that whole situation, made his way to the parking garage, and escaped. He had free range of the whole building, inside and out. BUT he could not leave Holly there, because the whole focus of the movie is family.
He went there to reconcile with his ex-wife in the hopes of being able to stay together with his family. And yes, I realize there’s an 80’s sense of masculine self-entitlement there–like, she moved to a whole other city to get away from him!–but "Die Hard" is a product of its time and has to be watched like one. (That they don’t actually get back together-together and he remains single in the later movies is something I appreciate. Because it shows the characters stay true to themselves as people versus being caricatures where the hero always gets the girl. He does not.)
The whole movie is Christmassy. It cannot be denied. It’s just that the theme is more like "Season’s beatings" than "Season’s greetings" that’s all.
~Harper Kingsley
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I feel the same way about Brazil.