Everyone has their go-to Christmas movies when the holidays come around. Whether it’s Jimmy Stewart discovering the joy of life or Bruce Willis blasting away terrorists, the season offers a variety of cinematic options to get into the Christmas spirit.
Those of us at Industrial Media thought it would be fitting to create a 12 Days of Christmas-inspired and eloquently titled 12 Movies of Christmas (With a Manufacturing Angle).
Some of these may not be considered “Christmas” movies in the traditional sense, but we couldn’t afford to be too critical. However, whether it directly moves the plot or is present for a fleeting moment, the manufacturing is there.
12. Fatman - Mel Gibson plays Santa Claus, or rather Chris Cringle, and his factory is subsidized by the government because it serves as a $3 trillion yearly economic stimulus. However, numbers are down due to increased coal distribution and Cringle is forced to become a government contractor, using his highly efficient staff of elves to build control panels for a new warplane
11. Edward Scissorhands - An old inventor makes Edward Scissorhands, a humanoid that is nearly complete with the exception of his hands. Because they’re scissors.
10. The Santa Clause - Tim Allen’s character is a toy salesman before assuming the Santa duties. When he kills Santa, that’s going to cause some significant supply chain issues.
9. How The Grinch Stole Christmas - First off, it’s Jim Carrey’s version because that one is objectively the best. Before the Grinch causes major supply chain disruptions by stealing all the presents, he turns his lair into a warehouse and creates an incredible piece of machinery in the form of a sleigh.
8. Office Christmas Party - The office is a part of Zenotek- Chicago. Zenotech (with a -ch instead of a -k) is a real cloud computing company in Bristol, UK. Jennifer Aniston’s character, an interim CEO, realizes the company didn’t meet its quarterly quota and wants to lay off 40% of its employees. So other characters want to throw a wild Christmas party to impress a client and keep their jobs.
7. Iron Man 3 - For some inexplicable reason, this movie takes place during Christmas. Aside from Robert Downey, Jr. manufacturing a fleet of Iron Men, the villain’s motive for being evil is established when Iron Man rejects the proposition to join his company, Advanced Idea Mechanics, which invented a regenerative treatment that allows recovery from severe injuries.
6. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation - Chevy Chase works in the prepared food industry and, according to the Vacation franchise’s Wiki page, is an expert in the field of additives and preservatives. He goes on a profanity-filled rampage when his boss doesn’t give him the yearly Christmas bonus.
5. Klaus - The main character runs into Klaus, who lives isolated and has a house full of handmade toys. They start running a Santa Claus-esque toy delivering service to children in the town.
4. The Polar Express - When the children reach the North Pole, they stumble into an elf command center and a gift sorting office facility. They basically get a firsthand look at the factory’s operations at its busiest time of the year.
3. Elf - Will Ferrell, a human raised by elves at the North Pole, works on an assembly line making toys. He doesn’t measure up in terms of speed by elf standards, but it comes in handy when he works for a department store in New York and redecorates the store in one night. His biological father also works for a children’s books publishing company.
2. The Man Who Invented Christmas - About the writing of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ anger towards his father is due to the fact that, as a kid, Dickens worked in a blacking factory because his father couldn’t pay his debts.
1. Batman Returns - Another superhero movie where the plot just happens to unfold during Christmas. Christopher Walken’s character is a millionaire philanthropist who wants to build a power plant in Gotham that he says will assist with energy. But Michelle Pfeiffer’s character discovers the power plant will drain Gotham’s energy allowing Christopher Walken to assume control.
Feel free to incorporate these flicks into your annual viewings and from all of us at Industrial Media, be merry and happy holidays.
