I love Quentin Tarantino’s films: personally, I believe that he has not made a bad one yet (‘Death Proof’ is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be). They are simple, enjoyable and a celebration of pop culture and cinema. However, very recently, I discovered they are much more than that: each film is connected by an overlapping multiverse.
Before we begin, I want to make clear that this is not an original theory by me. This idea has been hidden in the depths of the internet for a while now and I have only just become aware of it. This article is pretty much me breaking it down, combining a couple of different readings of Quentin Tarantino’s universe and trying to spread the knowledge of it around the internet. Therefore, a couple of likes at the bottom of this page wouldn’t go amiss.
First of all, it is so much easier to imagine that Quentin Tarantino’s movies are set in a parallel universe of our own. For one, that explains how in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ he was free to violently kill off Hitler for the finale (we’ll come back to that later). All of his movies are connected by this universe, as proven by little connections we make throughout the films. The simplest one I can think of was the fact that Vic Vega from ‘Reservoir Dogs’, better known as Mr. Blonde, has the same surname as Vincent Vega, John Travolta’s character, from Pulp Fiction. Quentin Tarantino has officially confirmed this one, himself: he was going to make a prequel to the two films, starring the pair of them, but this seems unlikely now, as both actors have aged considerably since the release of the two films.
More examples of the fact that the films are connected by a universe: fake brands. Two jump out in particular: Big Kahuna Burger and Red Apple cigarettes. This probably started as Tarantino making up some brands, rather than going through the paperwork for having a McDonalds showing up in the background of ‘Jackie Brown’ (does Tarantino look like the kind of guy who does paperwork?). However, these two brands evolved into something that pops up in each movie. Kahuna Burger is best remembered from Samuel L. Jackson’s monologue at the start of ‘Pulp Fiction’, but if you look closely, it appears several times in some of Tarantino’s other films. Mr. Blonde is eating a Big Kahuna burger, when he first gets to the warehouse in ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and also, in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’, George Clooney brings his brother, Tarantino himself, a meal from Big Kahuna Burger. As for the Red Apple cigarettes, a lot of the characters smoke them and in Kill Bill, there is a shot of a Red Apple billboard in the background.
Ah yes, Kill Bill. I did say multiverse, rather than parallel universe. That is because that as well as another universe, some of Tarantino’s films are set in an universe within that universe. To be clearer, the crazier films (Kill Bill and From Dusk Till Dawn), are films from the Tarantino universe. Therefore, in a cinema in the Tarantino Universe, a character (for argument’s sake, Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction), could go and watch Kill Bill. Maybe Bruce Willis in ‘Pulp Fiction’ saw it, which is why his character decided to go for the samurai sword out of all of the weapons on offer.
Maybe this is just Mia Wallace’s mind when she was ODing!!!
Even more mind-blowing: in ‘Pulp Fiction’, Uma Thurman plays Marsellus Wallace’s wife, who is established to be a failed actress. Well, Tarantino has implied that ‘Kill Bill’ being a movie set inside the universe, is a film starring Mia Wallace. So Uma Thurman, in ‘Kill Bill’ is playing Mia Wallace, who is playing Beatrix Kiddo. I understand if you need to read that paragraph a couple of times to understand it: I know I did.
Now, back to the Hitler part. Cracked.com took this theory further by pointing out that Tarantino has technically been showing us a future where we ended World War II by killing Hitler. They also go onto suggest that it explains a lot of the behaviour in the movies: wonder why everyone seems so laidback about killing (it is one of the running jokes in ‘Pulp Fiction’)? Well, in ‘Inglorious Basterds’, Hitler isn’t killed by the army, but a couple of rogue soldiers (mostly Jews with a grudge), that broke into a movie theatre and shot him to pieces. That is why guns are accepted as the norm in the Tarantino universe: it has been proven that they work. Also, the fact that Hitler was killed in a movie theatre could be symbolic in that universe, which explains why almost every character in the Tarantino universe has an intricate knowledge of pop culture: cinema is embedded into their cultural history.
That’s pretty much it. I’ll tie this article up by listing a couple of connections proving the links between the films. Please leave any I may have missed in the comments below:
It’s a ‘very’ old watch!
– The Bride in ‘Kill Bill’ is buried in the grave of someone called ‘Paula Schultes’ – a potential relative of King Schultes from ‘Django Unchained’.
– Crazy Koons, one of the people Django and Schultes are after in ‘Django Unchained’, could be related to Koons, Christopher Walken’s character in ‘Pulp Fiction’.
– In ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’, the story revolves around a briefcase with mystery contents: the same briefcase?
– In ‘Reservoir Dogs’, Cool Guy Eddie says he can get in contact with a nurse, called Bonnie, who can clear out Mr. Orange’s bullet wound. And in ‘Pulp Fiction’, Jimmy’s character (Quentin Tarantino) has a wife called Bonnie, who is a nurse.