Removing the heist scene from the heist plot was an ingenious twist, but the true nature of the story stems out from that device. It's almost an anti-heist movie. We get the typical scenes of rounding the up the gang and going over the plan, but none of those moments really follow the formula.

In Ocean's 11, the planning scenes are primarily used to engage the viewer based on the complex and dangerous logistics of the robbery. Character dynamics are thrown in for comic relief since all the actors are in the scene together, but in Reservoir Dogs, the character work is all there really is. The specifics of the jewelry store plan are good to know so you can make sense of the plot later, but the real thing you take from those scenes is the way the guys react and relate to each other, which sets up all the loyalty/distrust and conflicting father/son dynamics once they finally meet up in the warehouse. Actual heist movies are strong on character but centered around plot. Reservoir Dogs is all about character.

I loved not seeing the actual carnage in the jewelry store. The action that takes place during the escape is just enough to make the subsequent action scenes hit so much harder. I'm not sure the horrors in the warehouse would go over so well if we'd seen just how crazy Mr Blonde was in the store.

The movie that teaches you that the real heist is the friends we made along the way

Well, I'm sure he was working around the limitation that it was his first movie and it was going to have almost no budget.

According to IMDB trivia, they didn't even have a wardrobe budget. All scenes before they wear black suits, the actors were asked to bring their own clothes. And the black suits were provided for free.

That was actually Michael Madsen's own car.

They kinda had to do some gorilla filmmaking. Buscemi's scene where he takes the car was done when there were no cars at that intersection. And I believe I had heard that Buscemi and the cops chasing after him on that sidewalk, they simply ran around real people that were on that sidewalk.

Seeing as though he was going to film it originally without any professional actors, Tarantino already had to make the script be as budget-friendly as possible. Once the script got in the hands of Harvey Keitel, he helped raise a little money and brought in actual actors.

I remember finally watching the movie on DVD about 20 years ago, that the audio in the movie appeared to be of higher quality than the visual aspect of the film. Seems like they wisely spent what small budget they had on that.

I'm always fascinated with movies that you can tell the premise and setting of the movie is based entirely on the fact that its low budget and they're trying to shoot in as few locations as possible. I remember watching a trailer recently for a movie in which everything takes place in a warehouse because its a photo shoot. And the photographer, assistants, make-up artists, and models are all having conversations with one another in the same area. The more I forgot that the movie is filmed in one area, the more impressive it is.

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i guess you can see the heist in City on Fire, but i haven't watched the movie in years so i forgot if it's there or not

Still, Tarantino's best film.

The movie bridged the gap from being about sadism to actually being sadistic.

I remember reading an interview with Edward Bunker who played Mr Blue. He was a real life
convicted criminal. When asked about the movie he said he didn't think Quentin had ever met a criminal in his life. The scene in the diner he said wouldn't of happened. Heist crews would never be seen in public together before a robbery. You'd stand out a mile. And you wouldn't argue over a tip. The staff would remember you. Especially in America were it's customary

Just a hypothetical, but I remember the film when it was first released on the vhs. A few years later the infamous Hollywood shootout occurred, a couple years after that, the movie Heat w/DeNiro, Pacino and Kilmer was released. Not sure how much the first two influenced the last. But, I think if Tarantino had had the budget, Reservoir Dogs probably would’ve been longer than Heat in run time if the heist had been filmed. And in agreement with another commenter, focusing a decent portion of budget towards the audio quality, and creating the character of K-Billy with Steven Wright as the DJ was a great choice. It gives the movie greater depth, loosely ties the scenes together and (prior to the internet) every city had it’s DJs that everyone that lived there were familiar with, making the film more believable.