On the commentary track, Fleck said, “Some people think that’s from ‘Pulp Fiction,’ and it does look like Sam Jackson sipping a milkshake in ‘Pulp Fiction.’ But the actual reference for us was ‘Reservoir Dogs.'” Boden pointed out that it was also a film directed by Quentin Tarantino.
In 1992’s “Reservoir Dogs,” several jewel thieves meet in an abandoned warehouse after a heist gone awry. Michael Madsen plays a coolly violent character nicknamed Mr. Blonde, and when he arrives at the warehouse to reconnoiter with his fellow heisters, he is seen casually drinking out of the same red-and-white-striped cup that Talos uses in “Captain Marvel.” It’s worth noting that “Captain Marvel” is set in 1995, so that kind of cup would have been in common use at the time in both movies.
That kind of cup was also in widespread use during the events of “Pulp Fiction” as well. Dialogue from both “Pulp” and “Dogs” makes explicit that the cup comes from a local (fictional) burger joint called Big Kahuna Burger, a restaurant that’s referenced throughout the films of Tarantino and of his filmmaking friend Robert Rodriguez (and, curiously, David Mirkin’s 1997 comedy “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion”). The Big Kahuna cup in “Pulp” is actually purple. One might posit that Talos swung by a Big Kahuna Burger during his shape-shifting shenanigans.
The Big Kahuna cup, if one wants to be so bold, could be used as a canonical means to rope Tarantino’s movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given the director’s stated opinions about the MCU, this may be considered a grand, dark irony.