Tarantino’s use of villains and why his movies no longer take place in present day

He either has gray characters like Pulp Fiction, or historic monsters like Hitler in Inglorious Basters. What they both have in common, is that he doesn’t need to spend time on making them empathetic for the audience. You either don’t need to straight up against any one character (or rooting)… or he just requires you to hate them for the story to happen. Either ways, little time spent on learning anyone’s motivations.

He’s famous for having zero tolerance for phones on a set and he also seems pretty far away from social media and such — any tech that he doesn’t need for filmmaking. So it’s no surprise none of his movies have taken place in its present day since Kill Bill vol 2 in 2004. What else was born in 2004? Facebook. It seems that in order for the dialogue to run smoothly, there cannot be any interruption from the ‘outside world’. Phone in a film was fine, as some of the most memorable lines has been relayed over a phone. Such as Jules’ “Shit negro, that’s all you had to say!” in Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately it’s close to impossible to have typed dialogue be memorable. Therefore, since 2009 Inglorious Basters, movies he’s directed have taken place in the past. There’s a slim chance of him directing Star Trek as his 10th and final movie, so I guess it’s advantageous that it was created in the 60s. Thus ‘hail them’ means to call instead of type or message.

That being said, the obvious constraint in the beginning was the budget. So he made his 90s characters use phones, always managing to make it memorable. I do wonder, though, if he were to start his career today… how would Tarantino incorporate social media?