As an evolutionary grafting of french-crime movie ethos and LA studio politics masquerading as film noir, Pulp Fiction uses its date consciousness carefully. Sequences move from era locality as if teleportation was a rule. Each set/location has a carefully themed exposition that relates to an era, some locales are clearly present-day, others drift into hybrid eras, driving sequences appear photo-realistic during the day and cheap noir with fake rear-projection at night. The monochromatic diner (skylit staple LA 50's decaying architecture but treated as present day) that opens the film is counterpointed in the garish colorfulness of Jack Rabbit Slims (darkened theme soundstage exploding in color). 50's style fight training room scenes merge fluidly with actual 1960's timestamping (the Captain Koons Gold Watch scene that precedes it). The taxi driving scene afterwards uses intentionally monochromatic faked driving backgrounds. It's a vortex of time shifting. The film even DJ's previous films and characters through obvious references. The scenery comes to a head in Jack Rabbit Slim's, the most self conscious of the settings, and as a counterpoint to the 2001 Odyssey Bay Ridge disco of Saturday Night Fever, it dives into movie myth head-on (it's even a sideways-merge with Travolta's Grease), with a subdued Vincent Vega (aka Tony Manero) who is reticent to dance (the opposite of his original character in Fever) is now taught a lesson in regeneration by Mrs. Mia Wallace who proves her ability to love by craving to be rewarded for her skills, achieving the prize and accepting it, something Tony Manero did not. Mia does the opposite of Tony, she demands to dance as Vincent tries to beg off. In fact Tony's refusal of the prize they (Tony and Stephanie) share in Saturday Night Fever is proof of his earlier nihilism, he rejects the love they created on the dance floor in Saturday Night Fever and is shown the proper act of acceptance by Mia. A trippy time mirror, it's as if Tarantino has always wanted to tell Tony Manero that he should never have given away his prize. Even this still gives away the role-reversal, she looks and gestures like Tony Manero his previous best actor role (both characters of Travolta were nominated for Academy Awards): But the unsaid of Pulp Fiction is the completion of the first conversation between Vincent and Jules, the foot massage story (told around the 'campfire') that nearly gets Tony 'Rocky Horror' killed is the fiction that initiates the film and secretly ends it. If we believe love (Mia Wallace/Uma Thurman) then she has only shaken Tony 'Rocky Horror's' hand (mirrored in their goodbye gesture after their dancing date) and that this fiction is the glue that holds the film's paths together. Tony 'Rocky Horror' is even a code name. It slyly connects Tony Manero to Rocky Horror Picture Show, film and character from 1977. The key to the myth's use: One of the crucial changes in logic the film never addresses is the Butch story. Pre Zed, Butch (Bruce Willis) was a wanted man across the planet ("if he's in China I want a dude in a bowl of rice to pop a cap in him" labels Marcellus), but post Zed and post killing Vincent, Butch has merely lost his LA priveleges. That's the plot hole the fiction must fill, and as explanations go, the campfire must explain the death of Vincent and the easing off killing of Butch as some form of retribution for Mia, since Marcellus can never reveal his rationale for letting Butch go AND letting the death of Vincent go unavenged. The campfire begins its next cycle explaining the death of Vincent Vega as another failed suitor for the boss's wife. His glory, the resurrection of Mia (he literally is the only man to both touch her heart and bring her back to life) is a secret that only the audience knows about. Her path as love continues on in Kill Bill. 