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Tarantino intentionally mirrors Inglourious Basterds. That movie also ends with a fictionalized Hollywood-style revenge against Nazis involving fire. Here, Tarantino essentially creates another movie-within-the-movie where cinema’s violence spills into the real world.
There’s an important irony: Rick spends the entire film terrified that his career is becoming irrelevant. Yet the ridiculous WWII movie he once made becomes the source of the weapon that saves his life.
Tarantino later said the Manson incident would have boosted Rick’s career. In Tarantino’s imagined continuation of Rick’s life, the story that he killed the attackers with the flamethrower—and that it was the same weapon from The 14 Fists of McCluskey—gets considerable publicity. His old movie becomes more popular, and Rick starts getting more work again.
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