Shout Out / Rango

• 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 his sidekick.
• 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. Rango even spells it out!
• 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 with a German accent 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.
• The big action setpiece featuring Balthazar's clan is a mishmash of Deliverance, Apocalypse Now, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Star Wars, and most likely more. Especially to The Road Warrior, in that in both films, the cargo vehicle the heroes are driving and the bandits are carrying turns out to be empty.
• 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 references Noah Cross from Chinatown (he even says "the future, Mr. Rango! The future!") and the fate of Fluffy Joe is eerily similar to that of Hollis Mulwray's; 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.
• 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 can 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 the same as Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, complete with censor sound.
  Toad: YOU SON OF A [SCREECH]!
• The toad sounds A LOT like Ren Hoek. It IS a Nickelodeon movie.
• "Stand aside: I take large steps!"
• Rango calls Priscilla "little sister", recalling True Grit.
• "And cats and dogs are getting together and creating all sorts of unnatural mutant aberrations!" Sounds like another Nickolodeon production.
• 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 says "Make your move" at one point. And in both movies, Bill Nighy threatens to steal Johnny Depp's soul.
• When Spoons yells "CAW! CAW!" as the "signal", it calls to mind Galaxy Quest.
• 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 of Councillor Troi.
• The mole family erupting out of the ground arms-first is a nod to The Return of the Living Dead.
• The marks drawn in the sky with a flaming stick that Rango uses to describe his "quest" include a TIE fighter and the KISS logo.
• When Rango goes to the Bank of Dirt after the townspeople learn that the bank has nearly no water left, it resembles a similar, famous scene from It's a Wonderful Life.
• During the Sunset Shot, Rango gives a speech in the style of Winston Churchill.
• While tossing out cliched life advice to a youngster, Rango includes "burn everything but Shakespeare", a line from the play The Skin of Our Teeth.
• The mariachi owls singing about how Rango will be injured in various ways, including the loss of his "cojones", are reminiscent of Sir Robin's minstrels in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• The end credits are rendered in precisely the style of The Wild Wild West.
• The town's physician is a rabbit named "Doc".
• During the scene where Rango and the armadillo follow the walking cacti across the desert to find out where the water went, one of them collapses, referencing the "Rite of Spring" segment from Fantasia. They're also reminiscent of another, more menacing species of "walking trees".
• The scene where Rango walks into the saloon, orders some water, and is told by the bartender "Cactus juice, that's what we got," is almost frame-for-frame out of the part in Back to the Future Part III when Marty walks into a saloon in 1885 and asks for ice water.
• One of the recruits in Rango's posse has an arrow in his left eye, and he's a rooster.
• Influences cited by director Gore Verbinski were El Topo, Howl's Moving Castle, Alex Cox's Repo Man and Straight to Hell, and ¡Three Amigos!.

---