Shout Out / Tales from the Borderlands

• If Loader Bot is outfitted with a shield, he says the following: "War. Does not compute. What is it good for?" referencing the famous song by The Temptations.
• When Loader Bot finishes fighting in Episode 1 they say this line. Fatality
• Before the race, Fiona has the option of saying things like "You're the man now, dog!" or "I feel the need, the need for speed!"
• While in the bar as Fiona, a can of Banang can be seen in the background.
• The Stranger's appearance brings to mind the protagonist of Desert Punk.
• Vasquez, from his appearance (especially his beard) to his personality, is a straight-up Expy of Ted Hendricks.
• The flavor text for the Loader Bot's minigun in the loadout menu says, "I told you they'd listen to Reason."
• Even some of the Achievements for clearing chapters in the game have these:
  • Chapter 5 in Episode 1 is 2 Fast 2 Fiona.
  • Chapter 1 in Episode 4 is Ain't Got Time To Bleed.
  • Chapter 4 in Episode 4 is It's Not The Years, It's The Mileage.
  • Chapter 2 in Episode 5 is Unforeseen Consequences.
• The title of Episode 2? Atlas Mugged.
• In the episode 2 trailer, Jack yells "THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE DO!"
• At the end of episode 2, Jack triumphantly yells out "Hail to the King, baby!" while taking over the Atlas defense droids to save the day if you chose to trust his plan over Fiona's.
• If Rhys chooses to go to Hollow Point, when Loader Bot comes in to save the day, he will say "Come with me if you want to leave."
• If you look closely at Dumpy's model, he has "R-2" written on top. Someone's an expy! Relies on his arms for movement? Check. Speaks in cute beeps? Check. Smallest robot encountered in the series? Super check!
• When Rhys takes the wheel of the caravan, much like Fiona before the race, he has the option of saying one of a few movie quotes. One of them is "Hold onto your butts."
• One of the posters in Scooter's garage is for Ludicrous Speedway. Doubles as a Call-Back, since that appeared in the first game.
• When Athena is targeting Fiona for her bounty, she's wearing her hood up, is heavily shadowed, and has glowing red eyes. You'd think she had joined the Dark Side.
• "I'll give you a boost..."
• In the opening credits of Episode 3: Fiona, Sasha, and Rhys make crossed-arm poses similar to the three protagonists of Ferris Bueller's Day Off while viewing the psycho/bandit mask you purchased in episode one on the wall.
• In Episode 3, if Vaughn is paralyzed during the Old Haven escape, Cassius will later have Fiona cure him in much the same way Vincent revives Mia in Pulp Fiction.
• The jungle area of the Atlas terraforming facility is an Expy of another celestial body also named Pandora.
• The whole Gortys chase near the end is another reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with Rhys using Loader Bot like a horse to charge at August's truck, and hanging on to the hood as well.
  • Speaking of Gortys: does anyone remember another robot with similar name?
• Unused Vaughn lines would have had him make a Black Dynamite reference.
• One of the new robot arms you can buy for Rhys is called the Silver Centurion.
• Choosing to 'Make her head spin' causes Vallory's sunglasses to fall down in reference to the Deal with it meme (with a distorted voice in the background saying the phrase).
• The title sequence of Episode 4 has the crew doing a Team Power Walk towards their spaceship in a clear homage to The Right Stuff.
• In Episode 4, one of the messages you can use to honor Scooter is "See you, Space Cowboy". One of the guards Rhys encounters in the next scene sounds like Steve Blum. The other guard asks what the message reads, saying "something about anime?"
• The way Scooter goes to his end is a direct reference to the famous ending◊ of Dr. Strangelove.
• In the post-game "Your Choices" screen for Episode 4, hovering over your choice regarding Joining or Rejecting Hyperion shows the following comment: "Jack's glory is expanding, filling the arteries of Helios. How can you challenge a handsome, immortal machine?"
• One for This is Spın̈al Tap: Scooter orders Fiona to turn the booster rockets up to eleven.
• As Fiona heads into the Hub of Heroism, one employee pulls off a reference to Solid Snake by sneaking up on another employee while crouching and doing a finger gun assassination.
• The finger gun shoot out Rhys partakes in as "Rhys-quez" seem to be inspired by a similar scene from Spaced in which the main characters resolve their differences with a bunch of teenage hoodlums with a game of pantomime warfare.
• In Episode 5, several possible moves during the giant robot fight are the Lightning Legs, Flash Kick, Shoryuken and the Spinning Piledriver, as well as Shield Slash and Charging Star.
• In Episode 5, Jack pleads Rhys to stop killing him as he rips out his eye. He's not the only AI who pleaded for his life as the Hero was pulling the plug on him. ^note HAL-9000
• The whole climax of episode 5, which has multiple pilots using a giant robot to fight a giant monster, finishing it off with a sword, which looks like the Buster Sword.
• "Smile, you sonnuvabitch."
• "Welcome to Pandora."
• When you meet up with August again, he's wielding Lucille. Its appearance also seems to reference another movie featuring a gangster wielding a baseball bat.
• Rhys' present-day outfit gives him a striking resemblance to a corrupted Anakin Skywalker, right down to the changed eye color and robotic right arm.
• Episode 5 has one to Star Wars. Loader Bot and Gortys walk off side by side in a way that makes then look like C-3PO and R2-D2, considering the former's makeover. Fiona notes how cute they look together. Jack also tries to force-choke Rhys.
• The opening shot of August's Blast Out with Finch and Kroger is a direct homage to the ending gunfight of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, complete with rapid cuts to their guns and facial expressions.
• Scanning the Atlas crane in Episode 1 will reveal that it is made by Atlas's Cranes, Trains & Automobiles Division.
• The flavor text for players who choose to have Fiona be the "good cop" in Episode 5 includes "Good? Bad? I'm the girl with the gun."
• When trying to reactivate Gordys, one option is to say that the batteries are probably backwards.