Captain Marvel Featured a Reservoir Dogs Reference

As fans who saw Captain Marvel in theaters can tell you, the Marvel Cinematic Universe film had a lot of clever Easter Eggs and references to other films, including Quentin Tarantino‘s 1994 crime drama, Pulp Fiction. However, it turns out that one of film’s scenes that fans immediately associated with Pulp Fiction — and specifically Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the film — was a nod to a different Tarantino film, Reservoir Dogs, instead.

The moment in question happens in Captain Marvel when Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) shows up at Maria Rambeau’s house, just casually drinking a soda from a red and white striped fast food cup very similar to the cup Jackson’s Jules drank from in Pulp Fiction (the cup in that film was purple rather than red.) However, thanks to the directors’ commentary that’s part of the Captain Marvel digital release, the real inspiration for the shot has been revealed. It turns out that the shot is a reference not to Jules, but to Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) in Reservoir Dogs. In the Reservoir Dogs scene, Mr. Blonde is scene drinking a soda — also in a red and white striped cup — with a sort of chill, nonchalant posture and pose. It’s a similar pose to what Talos has in the Captain Marvel scene.

Right director, wrong movie, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of actual Pulp Fiction nods in Captain Marvel. At one point in the film, Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) go for a ride with Fury in the driver’s seat, both clad in suits, mirroring Jules’ cruise with Vincent Vega (John Travolta). Yet another homage comes when a Happy Days lunchbox is opened to reveal the blue glow of the extraterrestrial Tesseract, a play on the golden glow of the Pulp Fiction briefcase, the contents of which are never revealed.

No matter which specific movie the Tarantino nods come from, though, they’re all go a long away to help with the ’90s setting of Captain Marvel, something Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige previously said was a fun setting to try.

“The answer is, you’ll see in the storytelling of the movie.” Feige explained. “But it allows us to play in an area that we have never played in before and tapping into a ’90s action genre was fun for us and being able to see an earlier part of the MCU before Nick Fury knew anything about aliens or anything about super-powered people and also tapping into the Kree-Skrull War, which in the comics was a huge part of the comic mythology, seemed like a fun thing to try and a fun way to give Carol Danvers her own standalone origin story.”

Captain Marvel is now available digitally ahead of a home media release on June 11th. Avengers: Endgame is now showing while Spider-Man: Far From Home swings into action July 2nd.

[ H/T: SYFY ]