With its focus on technology, low-stakes storyline, and relatively graphic PG-13 violence, Bloodshot
is a very different superhero flick.
But there's one area in which director Dave Wilson was clearly inspired by Bloodshot's
higher-profile peers: the Easter eggs.
In Bloodshot, the namesake hero comes by his name rather simply.
The top-secret program that created him is simply called...
Project Bloodshot.
Hey, it fits.
Not only has Ray Garrison's blood been replaced by an army of nanites, giving him superpowers,
but he really likes to shoot people.
That's also simple, but it works.
In the comics, however, the organization that gives Ray his powers goes by a different name.
While one reboot calls the clandestine organization Project Lazarus, it's usually known as Project
Rising Spirit.
In the first volume of Bloodshot, Project Rising Spirit was a secret group based in
Japan.
In more recent interpretations, it's a contracting group that often works with the U.S. military
and has ties to the Sect, a secret society so big that includes almost every other secret
society on Earth.
Well, you know how, in the movie, the company behind Bloodshot is called RST?
That's short for Rising Spirit Tech.
Sure, Bloodshot the movie made a few adjustments to the setup - the company is now run by Guy
Pearce's Emil Harting, for example, and it does a lot more work with prosthetics than
it used to - but this is still the Rising Spirit fans know and love.
Early in Bloodshot, before he realizes that everything he knows is a lie, Ray Garrison
is dead set on taking down Martin Axe, the man who he thinks killed his wife.
"He can't get in, can he?"
"No chance."
"Oh man."
If you heard that name and thought it sounded like something straight out of a '90s comic
book, well, you were right: Martin Axe (or, often, just "Ax") has been around since 1992,
making him even older than Bloodshot himself.
In the comics, Ax isn't a sadistic terrorist or a former RST employee.
He's actually more of a computer nerd.
Originally, Ax was a psiot - an evolved human with psychic powers - who could communicate
with machines.
On his debut, Ax was a straight-up villain who was obsessed with getting his hands on
all the groundbreaking tech he could find, including Bloodshot's nanites, which he briefly
stole.
Later versions of the character have come down a little more on the side of a well-meaning
rebel.
He's out to stop high-level corruption, not steal machines, and often helps out the Renegades,
a group of rebel psiots who fight against the Harbinger Foundation.
He also often goes by "@x," because this is still a Valiant Comics property we're talking
about here.
'90s-style silliness is just part of the deal.
In Bloodshot the movie, Bloodshot looks like Vin Diesel.
Handsome, bald, ripped.
You know the look.
Diesel is striking, but he's still a normal guy.
In the comics, however, Bloodshot is anything but.
Not only does he have hair, but his skin is white, his eyes are red, and more often than
not he doesn't wear a shirt, showing off the giant red circle on his chest.
Canonically, the mark is kind of like a big scar.
As seen in the comic Rai #0, Rising Spirit pumped the nanites into Bloodshot's body using
a giant device stuffed with needles.
The circle is basically the mark that the machine leaves behind.
An identical device is used in the film, too, but it doesn't leave a mark, probably because
it would look a little silly in live action.
Bloodshot pays tribute to the hero's iconic look in a few different ways, though.
The way that Diesel's chest starts to glow red as the nanites in his body heat up is
the most obvious, but it's not the only one.
Even more subtly, whenever there's a scene with Ray on RST's operating table, it opens
with a shot from above.
If you pay attention, you'll notice a circular medical device on Diesel's chest, right where
that red circle should've been.
Believe it or not, but "man without memories who is repeatedly manipulated into killing
the people framed for killing his wife" is not an original concept.
Twenty years before Bloodshot applied that idea to a superhero story, a young director
named Christopher Nolan turned out a taut crime thriller called Memento that dealt with
the exact same subject.
"Stay focused.
Find a pen.
Gotta write this down."
"Gotta write it down."
The Bloodshot parallels are obvious, and they're not accidental.
Director Dave Wilson admitted that Memento was a major influence on Bloodshot in an interview
with The Beat, but you don't have to do much research to figure that out.
Just look at Bloodshot's cast list: Guy Pearce, who starred as Leonard in Memento, is Bloodshot's
main villain.
Not that the movies are connected or anything, but there's no way that's just a coincidence.
In terms of tone and aesthetics, Bloodshot feels a whole lot like Total Recall, Terminator,
and RoboCop, but it only calls out one '80s hit directly: the beloved Eddie Murphy vehicle
Coming to America.
In the 1988 comedy, Murphy plays Akeem, crown prince of the fictional country of Zamunda,
who travels to New York City to find a bride who loves him for himself, not his royal title.
In order to pull off the ruse, Akeem and his friend Semmi pose as poor students and take
working class jobs.
Naturally, hilarity ensues.
"I have recently been placed in charge of garbage.
Do you have any that requires disposal?"
Anyway, that's what Bloodshot's sidekick Wilfred Wigans is referring to when he sarcastically
calls himself the "crown prince of Zamunda."
Oh, and by the way: while Wilfred mentions that he has a very comic book-sounding name,
which implies that Wilfred is some kind of reference himself, he's actually an original
character who was created just for the film.
Sorry, Easter egg hunters.
You're going to have to look a little harder.
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