Rango/Shout Out

"Toad: YOU SON OF A *SCREECH*!"
 * 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!"
 * 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!"
 * 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
 * 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
 * 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.
 * You could also hear a very familiar riff from Elmer Bernstein's The Magnificent Seven.
 * 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.


 * Also, the toad sounds A LOT like Ren Hoek. It WAS a Nickelodeon movie.
 * "Stand aside: I take large steps!"
 * Rango calls Priscilla "little sister", recalling True Grit.
 * With the hat, lance, and pennant, Roadkill the Armadillo evokes Don Quixote.
 * When Rango has his first showdown outside of the saloon, the squeaking of the windmill sounds exactly like the one at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West.
 * During the credit slideshow, the Mariachi Owl with the electric guitar smashes it then burns the pieces while worshiping them.
 * Rattlesnake Jake appears to have the eyes of Sauron.
 * At one point in the film, Rattlesnake Jake, voiced by Bill Nighy, says "Make your move". There's another movie with Johnny Depp where he plays the villain and also says "Make your move" at one point.
 * Not to mention that in both movies, Bill Nighy threatens to steal Johnny Depp's soul.
 * When Spoons yells "CAW! CAW!" as the "signal", it calls to mind a certain parody of another genre.
 * When Priscilla points out the previous sheriff's tombstone, there's a grave in the background that reads "He's Dead, Jim". Also Waffles says "I am sensing hostility!" (while being attacked by the moles) which is likely a spoof on Councillor Troi.
 * Rango = Django (title character of the 1966 Spaghetti Western). Is also similar to Ringo, another Spaghetti Western character from 1966 played by actor Giuliano Gemma.
 * The Mole Family erupting the ground arm-first is from The Return of the Living Dead.
 * The marks drawn in the sky with a flaming stick that tell about Rango's "quest" include a TIE fighter.
 * When Rango goes to the Bank of Dirt after the townspeople learn that the bank has nearly no water left, it resembles the famous scene from It's a Wonderful Life.
 * The song which plays during Rango's highway crossing isn't on the soundtrack. It's "Finale" from the 2007 war drama The Kingdom.
 * Since the director knows about aye-ayes I'm going to count this as a Genius Bonus: in one scene Rango (prior to actually becoming Rango) imitates a gun-slinging, bowlegged beetle. In real life there's a large beetle that lives in the desert that's so poisonous and aggressive that one species of lizard imitates it as a juvenile -- the only known case of a vertebrate imitating an invertebrate -- by copying its markings and tall, bowlegged stance (at 1:30).
 * During the Sunset Shot, he gives a speech in the style of Winston Churchill.