Is every Quentin Tarantino movie connected?
Even the most casual fan of the works of everyone’s favourite movie geek, Quentin Tarantino, is probably aware that there are elements of his movies that connect. Long before Marvel made audiences worldwide think that all movies have characters that cross over and should be referred to as “universes” instead of stories, Tarantino had been forging his very own “Tarantinoverse” from the early 1990s. However, what some fans might not know is that the connections run increidbly deep in Tarantino movies. In fact, they’re all connected.
The first Easter Eggs that most people notice in Tarantino movies are the fictional brands that repeat. For example, Red Apple cigarettes are smoked by characters in Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Django Unchained, while Big Kahuna Burger makes appearances in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. The fast-food chain also pops up in Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, which Tarantino wrote and starred in.
Connections between characters in Tarantino’s films were harder to spot, but eagle-eyed viewers soon began to pick up on them. The most obvious one is the shared surname of Michael Madsen’s ‘Mr Blonde’ Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs and John Travolta’s hitman Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino has confirmed that these ne’er do wells are related. Harder to pick up on is the connection between Christopher Walken’s Captain Koons in Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained’s Wild West outlaw ‘Crazy’ Craig Koons, but Tarantino has also confirmed Craig is Captain Koons’ ancestor.
Eventually, fans began to wonder if there were connections embedded in all nine of Tarantino’s films – and in 2017, he delighted everyone by confirming that they most certainly were. “There’s the realer than real universe, alright,” he told News.com.au, “and all the characters inhabit that one. But then there’s this movie universe. And so From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill, they all take place in this special movie universe.”
In essence, Tarantino’s movie universe actually has two universes. The “realer than real” one is inhabited by the characters in Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight. But when the characters from those films – that exist in an era-appropriate timeframe, of course – go to the cinema, they watch Natural Born Killers, From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill and Death Proof. Pretty cool, huh?
Which character has been in the most Quentin Tarantino movies?
Interestingly, while Tarantino has fastidiously built an interconnected universe in all his films over more than three decades, he’s not fond of having characters show up in multiple films. Instead, he prefers to layer in the kind of aforementioned connections that appeal to die-hard fans rather than having, for example, Samuel L Jackson’s Jules Winfield turn up at the end of Kill Bill like Nick Fury in the post-credits scene of Iron Man. Although to be honest, that is hilarious to imagine.
This means that only a handful of characters have been in more than one Tarantino movie, and they are the likes of The Bride (Uma Thurman), Bill (David Carradine), Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah), and Budd (Michael Madsen) from Kill Bill volumes one and two. Technically, though, considering Tarantino counts the two instalments of Kill Bill as one movie, they’ve really only appeared once.
However, there is one actor who has played the same character in two different Tarantino offerings – but it would take a real aficionado to name him. Veteran character actor Michael Parks played Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in Kill Bill Volume One and then reprised the character in Death Proof, Tarantino’s half of the Grindhouse project. Intriguingly, though, he also played McGraw in Planet Terror, Rodriguez’s half of the ill-fated cinematic gamble, which therefore must have also taken place in the Tarantino “movie within a movie” universe.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.