[nseggs]

I always thought part of what made Tarantino films so fun is that he’s basically doing the film equivalent of what the audio world calls sampling a lot of the time. Not just doing it but really nailing it. Watch Lady Snowblood and then Kill Bill or Django Unchained back to back. Some shots are basically identical but the context is very different. As in music, (and many other areas I’m sure) a knowledge of the base material really adds to the enjoyment of newer work.

[brimble]

Tarantino's whole thing goes back to Star Wars, which cribbed heavily from films from ~4 genres—sci-fi serials, samurai films, war (mainly WWII) films, and westerns. Its great innovation and enduring legacy in film isn't just its groundbreaking special effects, but the assembly of a film almost entirely from pastiche.

[EDIT] Incidentally, when later Star Wars media gets this fundamental aspect of Star Wars and leans into it, is when it's at its best IMO. You could practically play "spot the rip-off" with The Mandalorian, it borrowed so heavily from other film and TV—and, though perhaps overrated, it's certainly one of the best Star Wars things since the original trilogy. The Last Jedi stood out to me among the Disney-era films for doing a lot more cribbing from sources of the kind that Star Wars used, rather than cribbing just from... Star Wars itself (though it also did that, heavily re-mixing Empire, especially).

[aidenn0]

Rogue One got this as well; it had a strong The Dirty Dozen feel, but also borrowed from several other genres liberally.