Rango/Shout-Out

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Shout-Outs in Rango include:

  • The teaser poster calls to mind the poster for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And the driver of one of the cars Rango hits towards the beginning is none other than the Good Doctor himself. Complete with sidekick.
  • "You see that? I knew it!"[context?]
  • Rango's situation is a nod to the Brothers Grimm tale of the Brave Little Tailor, including the "killing seven with one blow" detail.
  • "That hawk... is dead!" No, he's not! He's just sleeping!
  • The sheriff's outfit Rango wears for most of the film looks like what Gary Cooper wears in High Noon.
  • The Spirit of the West is the Man with No Name.
  • An obscure (and somewhat random) one: in the sheriff's building when Beans, Rango and Wounded Bird are talking, one the wanted posters on the wall offers a reward (in water, of course) for the capture of Disco Lovejoy.
  • One member of Bad Bill's gang is a hunchbacked rabbit named Kinski.
  • Rango hides from Metalbeak in an outhouse before the hawk demolishes it.
  • The scene with the hawk's feet protruding from the gravel, followed by the doctor declaring it dead, is reminiscent of the death of the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.
  • Anyone else think of Raising Arizona when Rango was running from the hawk? Even the music got into the act. Not to mention when the... moles? rats? Whatever they are (Word of God calls them the "Inbred Rodents") first emerge to look for the bank.
  • The big action set piece featuring Balthazar's clan is a mishmash of Deliverance, Apocalypse Now, The Road Warrior, Star Wars, and most likely more.
  • Word of God states that Rango in general is meant to be a reference to Don Knotts in The Shakiest Gun in the West, while the "only one bullet" references Knotts' most famous character, Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife; the mayor's characterisation and Evil Plan heavily reference John Huston in Chinatown (he even says "the future, Mr. Rango! The future!"); Rattlesnake Jake is an allusion to Lee Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; and the hawk that attacks Rango towards the beginning is a reference to Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou, featuring the same metal piece on his nose. Whew.
  • Was anyone else thinking of A Bugs Life when the mole family briefly trick Rattlesnake Jake into thinking there's a hawk?
  • Hans Zimmer's music evokes Ennio Morricone's work with Sergio Leone...complete with reusing a Morriconian-like track from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
  • The toad Rango runs into trying to disguise himself as a rock gives his last words almost same as Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, complete with censor sound.

Toad: YOU SON OF A *SCREECH*!


Back to Rango