Question: What exactly does the title of this film mean? Is there even an answer to that?
Chosen answer: It is a reference to a class of fast-paced, sensationalistic, and frequently exploitive stories published in cheap magazines from the 1920's through the 1950's. They were called 'pulp' because of the cheap quality of the paper they were printed on, as opposed to the 'slicks' which were more like full-color magazines of today.
Question: In the scene with Butch and Esmeralda in the taxi (right after he kills the other boxer), does anybody know why Quentin Tarantino made the view out of the rear windscreen look so fake?
Chosen answer: Tarantino is big on tribute to older films and filming techniques, hence the projection-style background.
Question: Are there any actual restaurants like Jack Rabbit Slim's out there, where booths are done up like cars? I know the restaurant they filmed in was torn down afterwards and I can't find anything online, so any help would be appreciated.
Chosen answer: Disney World has one.
Question: I know that in the movie you never get to know, and I've read almost every theory, but has anyone answered, once and for all, officially, what's in the briefcase?
Answer: No one will ever know. Quentin Tarantino has even said so in interviews. It's supposed to be a classic 'McGuffin' - a term spawned by Hitchcock to describe an object on which the plot hinges without being important to the outside viewers.
Answer: It's an orange light bulb.
Answer: I always assumed it was just an enormous amount of stolen cash, although the film never tells us for sure.
Question: Is there any particular reason Butch looks at Vincent with such hatred when they meet at Marcellus', or is it just because Vince was being rude?
Answer: It is because he is being rude. Butch has never met Vincent before, but Vincent was rude to him anyway. This is also setting up the tension between them for later in the film. Perhaps if Vincent had not been so rude to Butch at the bar, Butch might not have blown him away when he finds him at his apartment later on.
An inner theory is that Vince previously knew about the situation with Marcellus and kind of who he was and that's why he called him a palooka (a fighter who takes a dive) and a punchy. That's why he was so rude and there was so much hostility.
Question: In the credits at the start of this movie it says "a band apart" it also says it in almost every QT film, what does it mean?
Chosen answer: A Band Apart is Quentin Tarantino's production company.
Question: In the final scene, Jules calls Pumpkin "Ringo", but nobody ever said his name. How did Jules know that his name was "Ringo"? Actually, nobody says his name in the entire film, including Amanda Plummer's character, Hunnybunny/"Yolanda" or Pumpkin/"Ringo". Then Jules miraculously refers to him as "Ringo" when Pumpkin counts to three.
Chosen answer: Jules just gave him the nickname "Ringo" on the spot because he is English like Ringo Starr from The Beatles. In America, "Ringo" is somewhat of a common nickname Americans give British/English guys since The Beatles are the most famous thing to come out of Britain. It's not his real name. We never learn what his real name is. Why "Ringo"? Because John, George and Paul are regular names that you wouldn't necessarily associate with The Beatles if said individually on their own whereas "Ringo" immediately makes you think "British guy and the drummer of 'The Beatles'."
Answer: In 1964, Lorne Greene (of "Bonanza" fame) had a hit record "Ringo" about a gunslinger in the Old West. This could also be why Jules called the gunman "Ringo"
Question: When we first see Marcellus he has a plaster on his neck. Anyone know why?
Chosen answer: Some would say that it's a plot device to show that Wallace sold his soul to the devil (the devil removes the soul through the neck) and the contents of the briefcase is his soul. The real answer is that Ving Rames had a small cut on the back of his neck that was caused by shaving his head. Quentin liked the look of the plaster and they left it on.
Question: When Mia and Vincent first sit down at Jack Rabbit Slim's, they are shown to the table by a dwarf. After the dwarf seats them he walks off around the corner yelling something. What is he saying?
Chosen answer: He yells "Call for Philip Morris!" That was a slogan used by Philip Morris cigarettes throughout much of the early- and mid-1900s.
Answer: Https://youtu.be/19F3Zu56LCE See the ad.
Question: The movie is obviously shown out of sync. Can anyone let me know, if the movie was shot in sync what would be the very first scene and what would be the very last scene?
Answer: The very first scene that occurs chronologically in the movie is the scene with Christopher Walken giving young Butch the gold watch. The next scene, the first one that occurs in "present day," would be the second scene in the film, with Jules and Vincent going to kill the students. The last scene would therefore be the last scene of "The Gold Watch," where Butch and Fabienne zoom off into the distance on Zed's chopper. This is because Butch kills Vincent Vega in "The Gold Watch," yet Vincent appears in both other stories.
Question: In the scene where Vincent is buying heroin from Lance, Lance says "This ain't Amsterdam, Vince. This is a seller's market. Coke is fuckin' dead as disco. Heroin's comin' back in a big fuckin' way. It's this whole seventies retro. Bell bottoms, heroin, they're as hot as hell." Why does it sound like Lance is trying to talk Vincent into buying heroin instead of coke when Vincent is supposed to be a heroin addict? (00:28:10)
Answer: He's not trying to talk Vincent into buying cocaine, Lance is explaining to him why the heroin is so much more expensive than what he'd grown used to paying for it while he was in Amsterdam.
Yeah I guess Vince used to buy cocaine from Lance. But he got addicted to Heroin while he was in Amsterdam.
Question: Why does it say "A Band Apart" in the credits at the start of almost every Quentin Tarantino movie? and why is there a picture of 4 guys wearing black suits, like the characters in Reservoir Dogs?
Chosen answer: A Band Apart is Tarantino's production company. It uses the Reservoir Dogs characters as a logo because it was Tarantino's debut movie.
Answer: A Band Apart could also be a reference or tribute to Jean-Luc Godard's film Bande à part.
Question: About "the gimp" in Maynard's store. Who/what was it exactly? And why was he sleeping inside a box?
Chosen answer: We're never told and it's never explained who he is. Zed and the other guy in the pawn shop make him sleep in the box. He's their sex prisoner.
Question: Vincent mentioned that he was in Amsterdam for over 3 years, does anybody know why he spent such a long time there? And was he friends with Jules before he went to Amsterdam?
Chosen answer: I inferred from the conversations that he'd committed some major crime and had to flee the country and go into hiding until the heat died down.
Question: In the movie 'Pulp Fiction' do they repeat the title anywhere in the movie?
Answer: They do not.
Question: Why didn't Zed (the rapist and apparent security guard) grab the handgun and shoot Marsellus Wallace after the latter shot Zed? The gun was still lying on the crate. Had he picked up the gun, he would have been able to either shoot Marsellus or get shot and killed by Marsellus. Either way he'd escape being tortured by Marsellus' crew.
Answer: After he was shot, he was kinda in a lot of pain and on the floor bleeding, not so surprising he didn't go for the gun anymore. He couldn't have reached it anymore anyway, certainly not with 2 people closer to it ready to kill him.
Question: Vincent and Mia are shown smoking cigarettes inside Jackrabbit Slim's, but California has long been known to have some of the most restrictive anti-smoking laws in the US. While I'm aware that neither Vincent nor Mia was exactly law abiding, was smoking in restaurants in California still allowed at the time this film was made?
Chosen answer: California passed a ban on restaurant smoking in 1994, as part of labor policies meant to protect the health of employees (such as bartenders, waitresses and bellhops) from the risks of secondhand smoke. However, "Pulp Fiction" was produced in 1993 and was released in 1994. The actual law did not take effect until 1995.
Question: Why did John Travolta have his gun drawn while talking to the guy in the car who he accidentally shoots?
Answer: He is careless with it, and doesn't think about if it might accidentally fire. There are safety protocols when dealing with guns for a reason. Gangsters just chose to ignore them.
Chosen answer: It's a reference to his hairstyle; A Flock Of Seagulls was a new wave band from the early 1980s who were as well known for their frontman's unusual hairstyle as their sound. You can learn more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Flock_of_Seagulls.
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