Tarantino's Film Universe

There is a premise out there among film theorists and bloggers that the movies Quinten Tarantino has been a part of make up a cinematic universe not wholly unlike what Marvel has done with its comic book superheroes, just not near as intricate.  This theory has even been confirmed by Tarantino himself concerning a few of his movies and deep introspection has been fleshed out among the World Wide Web that a hasty Google search will provide many results for your perusal if interested.  What I would like to look at today is not how his alternate universe has movies within movies and whether characters that make up the Tarantino universe can cross over to the different planes of existence.  Instead I will be connecting the Easter eggs of his films.

 

What brought about this post was when my friend Danny and I were discussing Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.  He has seen neither of these movies and I am working to find a date that works for us to have a movie club night with Evan to watch both.  While talking about the greatness of both films, Danny asked whether they were connected and he had to watch Reservoir Dogs prior to Pulp Fiction since it was released first.  My answer to him was yes and no.

 

The reason for the ambiguity is because the films do not require a specific order of viewing to be understood but they are thinly related, and I do mean thinly.  The specificity of this connection is that two of the characters in each film are brothers.  Tarantino has stated in interviews that Vic and Vincent Vega are siblings and there is even the hope out there among Tarantino fans that eventually a movie will be made that teams the two up.

 

 

The most recent Easter egg discovered that unifies the Tarantino universe is from Django Unchained.  A character never seen onscreen by the name of Crazy Craig Koons, found on a Wanted Poster, is related to Captain Koons, played by Christopher Walken, in Pulp Fiction.

 

 

Another connection in this film universe includes Mr. White speaking with a woman named Alabama in Reservoir Dogs, who is a main character in the Tarantino written True Romance.  An additional ancestral connection is Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz in Inglourious Basterds and Lee Donowitz from True Romance.  The failed television pilot Uma Thurman’s character discusses in Pulp Fiction bears a strong resemblance to the assassins in the Kill Bill films.  The same sheriff character can be found in From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill, and Death Proof.

 

 

An unconfirmed relationship between Django Unchained and Kill Bill is that the Bride is buried in the grave of Dr. Schultz’s ex-wife.

 

 

Recurring elements of the Tarantino universe include Red Apple cigarettes, Big Kahuna burgers, and Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant.

 

Like the Slusho in J.J. Abrams movies or a bright yellow ball with a star on it in the Pixar universe, these kinds of things don't enhance the movies or forward the plots in any way.  They are simply little nods of the cinematic head to fans that pay close enough attention to spot the Easter eggs Tarantino is dropping throughout.

James Bond Gadgets That Jumped The Shark

When a film franchise endures for more than 50 years and 23 films, there are going to be some high points and low points throughout.  The James Bond series has such moments, and a consensus among many fans is that Die Another Day, as a whole, is a low point for the series.  To be fair, a lot of people see the first third of the film as a great starting point.  It isn’t until Bond goes off to Cuba and beyond that the thing goes off the rails.

 

However, the masses are in harmony when it comes to criticism of one specific aspect of the film: 007’s vehicle.  Aston Martin unveiled their newest model, the V12 Vanquish, in the 2002 film, but due to one particular option added to Bond’s vehicle, Q Branch had renamed it the Vanish.  This was due to the fact that they had included a cloaking feature that rendered the car invisible to the human eye.

 

 

Both when the movie was initially released and up to now, the two biggest grievances about the film are the overuse of CGI and the invisible car.  I personally am completely on board with the former complaint, but as far as having an invisible car, I don’t quite see how you can demonize that particular gadget over others that have seemed just as far-fetched that came before it.

 

For those who are not as big of a fan of the James Bond series as I am, let me shed a little light on the argument I’m about to defend.  The 007 film series has always relied on gadgets to help our hero in the field.  Some movies tone down the amount of gadgets, such as For Your Eyes Only and Casino Royale, while others ramp up the technology, like Goldfinger or Octopussy.  Die Another Day is one of the movies that relied heavily on gadgets for the latter half of the film, and the vanishing car is what draws the most ire from the fan base.

 

I would like to start off and state that I am not defending the absurdity of the technical flaws with trying to spy on people in an invisible car.  Transporting the occupants to and from locations behind enemy lines in the concealed vehicle is about the only great use for such a medium of technology.  Otherwise, people would be able to hear the purr of the engine as it cruised around a military base or would walk into it when parked inside the heart of the villain’s lair.  Obviously there are better ways of spying on people than spending hundreds of millions (maybe even billions) of dollars on creating invisible cars, but I’m sure there are some great uses for cloaking devices for the future of our military.  If anything, it would be nice to be on the same playing field as the Romulans once we start exploring space like in Star Trek.

 

What I am here to defend today is the idea that Bond getting an invisible car didn’t take things too far from spy adventure to science fiction, because that is just not the case.  Were the gadgets getting out of hand and a more realistic direction need to be taken?  Yes.  But for the fandom to turn on the Bond filmmaking team because of this single gadget, that seems a bit excessive to me.  Especially since in the decade that has passed since the release of Die Another Day it has been revealed that scientists around the world are working on perfecting such a device on clothing material and vehicles.  At this point in life these things obviously aren’t perfected and don’t look as sleek as it did in the film, but the concept is available to us and given time it could be achieved.

 

I’ve come up with five other gadgets from the James Bond movies that are much more ridiculous or less attainable due to the limitations of science.

 

The first such item is Oddjob’s bowler from Goldfinger.  The hat looked rather normal, but when he took it off and launched it like a Frisbee, the audience learned of its deadly capability.  The derby’s rim was made of a thin metal that could slice stone or snap a person’s neck.  Just think about that last sentence.  It can cut away stone or break bones.  Doesn’t it seem that it should be able to do one or the other, but by being strong and thin enough to cut stone, wouldn’t it then be a decapitating device instead of merely a bone-breaking one?  In a movie where the most absurd gadget should be a car’s ejector seat, Oddjob takes top billing (billing, like the bill of a hat; get it) with his deadly derby.

 

The next gadget up for scrutiny is the mini-breather from Thunderball.  This tool, used to get much needed extra time when underwater diving, seems extremely feasible.  In fact, following the release of the movie in 1965 the military contacted the Bond producing team asking how they could get their hands on the device.  Alas, no such apparatus exists and it was all created using Hollywood editing.  The closest you will get to a mini-breather is a can of spare air in the case of emergency that can be on your person when deep sea diving.  Since no such device has ever, or likely will ever, be in existence, I’m not sure why this one doesn’t get more retractors.

 

In my humble opinion, The Man with the Golden Gun is the worst of the series.  There is little to enjoy throughout and the suspense level gets ratcheted up to about Hervé Villechaize’s height (that is just under four, in case you were wondering).  The standout moment of ludicrousness for this movie is when villain, and the film’s namesake, Scaramanga attaches a set of wings to his transportation, turning it into a flying car.  To me, the idea that attached wings can simply be clipped to a sports car and all of a sudden we are living with Doc and Marty McFly in Hill Valley, circa 2015, is nonsensical.

 

Scaramanga’s flying car was just another blunder among many mistakes found throughout a bad movie, but the Lotus submarine from the following film was something altogether because The Spy Who Loved Me is actually considered to be one of the better entries from the franchise.  In the context of the movie, Bond drives his Lotus Esprit S1 off a pier and as the vehicle is sinking to the bottom of the sea it converts at the touch of a button to a submarine.  Compared to having a car that can become invisible, I see no difference, except that within a decade the theory that an invisible car is actually obtainable, whereas it has been nearly 40 years and we are no closer to converting automobiles to submarines.

 

 

Laser guns.  How does that sound for realism in a Bond movie?  In Moonraker, sending the British spy into space wasn’t enough.  Things had to be tricked up even more with a laser gun battle between space marines and an army of henchmen.  It looks like a grand game of laser tag between floating astronauts.  It is essentially a reworking of the underwater battle from Thunderball, replacing swimmers with spacemen and harpoon guns with laser rifles.  Progress is being made to create applicable laser rifles, or ray guns, but it certainly took a while for science to catch up with the fiction found in Moonraker.

Jaws Notes To Chew On

Jaws is a defining moment in cinema as its release was the originator of summer blockbusters.

 

 

The film was shot mostly on location in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

 

The mechanical shark proved difficult to work with many malfunctions at the start of production, resulting in the picture going over budget and past schedule.  This also brought about the decision by director Steven Spielberg to simply imply the monster’s presence for most of the film.

 

The producers of the film read the novel on which the film is based in a single night and independently decided to buy the rights to the story.

 

John Sturges was considered for the director’s chair and Dick Richards (who?) was earmarked for the job prior to Spielberg’s hire.  Spielberg had next to zero experience as a major Hollywood director, having just completed his first feature film, The Sugarland Express, which hadn’t even been released prior to him being named director, and having a TV movie released two years prior.

 

Before starting principal photography, Spielberg began doubting the picture and wanted out of his contracting, hoping to avoid being typecast.  His hope was to move to the 20th Century Pictures film Lucky Lady.  What, never heard of it?  It was released in 1975, directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli and Burt Reynolds.  The producers refused to let him walk.

 

One of the cuts from page to screen was the adulterous affair between the sheriff’s wife and the visiting oceanographer.  Spielberg feared it would take away from the camaraderie on the boat in the last act.

 

Spielberg sent Carl Gottlieb, a comedy writer at the time working on the TV sitcom The Odd Couple, a script asking for some input on making the film more light.  Gottlieb sent back three pages of notes and ultimately was hired on as the actor who portrayed the editor of the town’s newspaper.  Gottlieb ultimately became the primary screenwriter, despite originally being hired on to do a polish job.

 

The film had several writers contribute throughout the process and many scenes were written the evening before while the principal cast and crew were at dinner together.

 

The credit of Robert Shaw’s monologue about his survival of the USS Indianapolis disaster is in much dispute, with credit going to Shaw himself, who was a playwright, writer John Milius, who contributed dialogue polishes, and playwright Howard Sackler.

 

Three full-size pneumatically powered sharks were created for production, which the crew named Bruce after Speilberg’s lawyer.  It took 14 crewmembers to operate the shark.  A shark in Finding Nemo has the same name.  Another Jaws reference in Finding Nemo is when Dory and Marlin release a missile from its pod into Bruce’s mouth, just like the finale of Jaws.

 

Charlton Heston was interested in the role of Chief Martin Brody, which ultimately went to Roy Scheider.

 

Speilberg’s friend George Lucas suggested the role of Matt Hooper to go to Richard Dreyfuss, who initially declined.  However, a few days later he came back to Speilberg and accepted after being disappointed with a part he had recently completed and was soon to be released, fearing he would not be hired again.  Ironically, he received rave reviews for his performance.

 

The scene where Hooper discovers Ben Gardner’s body required a reshoot, which resulted in Spielberg paying $3,000 of his own money as Universal didn’t want to pay it.  The scene was shot in film editor Verna Field’s pool and milk was poured into the water to recreate the murky setting that was found in Martha’s Vineyard.

The Boomstick's Return To Texas

A lot is being made of a local reporter's piece on whether Nelson Cruz should be booed upon his return to Texas tonight. Cruz was with the Texas Rangers for eight seasons and was a central part of the recent successful run the metroplex has been a part of in regard to postseason baseball. Yet, because of a 50-game suspension last season due to a link with PEDs that was a crucial part of why the local ball club missed the playoffs, fandom is divided on whether Cruz will be booed or cheered.

Many remember the past glories Cruz gave us with his "boomstick," even leading to a carnival-style hotdog of the same name that got the same amount of smiles as Cruz's homers.  But the other group of fans only want to remember the missed fly ball in game six of the 2011 World Series (which does still pain my sports heart to think about) and the suspension last year.  For me, the criteria of whether you are booed or not upon your return is how your exit is handled.

 

Mark Texeira had no desire to be here and didn't disguise the fact.  Josh Hamilton and C.J. Wilson both went to teams in our division and made comments that had Rangers fans shaking their heads in bewilderment and anger.  They all deserved to be booed.  Ian Kinsler also said some things that irked the fanbase here, but in reality the only comment that should have given us pause was the desire to see us go 0-162.  While all ballplayers should want other teams in the league to go winless for the season, you don't want to hear that from an ex-player who you rooted for day in and day out about your team.

 

That leads us to Nelson Cruz.  His exit was pretty clean and he kind of already received his punishment by receiving six million less than what he was offered for staying in Texas.  I personally would not boo Cruz if I were to attend tonight's game or any of the games for this series, but I guess I can see the argument for doing so.