Rango
Short description
Rango is an animated western comedy about a pet chameleon who has spent his life in a terrarium, staging imagined adventures for himself. After he is separated from his owners and ends up in the desert, he reaches Dirt, a parched frontier town whose inhabitants live under the thumb of a menacing mayor and a rattlesnake named Jake. Mistaken for a hardened drifter, Rango is made sheriff, and he has to keep up the performance long enough to find out why the town's water keeps disappearing.
The film was directed by Gore Verbinski, working from a screenplay by John Logan, and it followed the three Pirates of the Caribbean films in Verbinski's filmography. Johnny Depp voices Rango, with Isla Fisher as Beans, Ned Beatty as the Mayor, Bill Nighy as Rattlesnake Jake, Abigail Breslin as Priscilla and Alfred Molina as Roadkill. It was produced by Paramount, Nickelodeon Movies, GK Films and Blind Wink on a budget of 135 million dollars, and it took 246 million dollars worldwide.
On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 7.3 out of 10 from around 317,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.9 out of 10 from more than 7,000 votes, indicating a widely seen film that audiences generally rate favourably.
What's left behind the scenes
- The dream in which Rango sees a toy fish floating through the desert is a reference to "Arizona Dream" (1993), which also starred Johnny Depp.
- This is the first animated film from the special effects studio – ILM (Industrial Light & Magic).
- In the cartoon, one of the main mysteries is the mysterious draining of a large amount of precious water into the desert. This is a direct reference to Roman Polanski’s 'Chinatown' (1974).
- In one scene, Rango collides with the windshield of a car whose passengers strongly resemble the characters from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998), starring Johnny Depp. It's also noteworthy that the cartoon takes place in the Mojave Desert, where Las Vegas is located.
- The situation with the forced sale of the heroine Bobby's land is a reference to the film 'Once Upon a Time in the West' (1968).
- Many moments in the film, such as Rango's stories about his exploits and the duel scenes, allude to Sam Raimi's 'The Quick and the Dead' (1995).
- The insects with armored shells that carry Rango and his hat are a reference to 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' (2007), starring Johnny Depp.
- In the moment where Rango meets the Spirit of the West with gold-eyed guards on an alabaster carriage, he says to him: 'Weren't you also a man with no name?'. This is a direct reference to Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, where Clint Eastwood played the man with no name. Notably, the Spirit of the West also resembles Eastwood.
- The scene with the discovery of the drowned banker and his examination, as well as the special glasses, is clearly a reference to 'Sleepy Hollow' (1999), starring Johnny Depp.
- The remaining limb of the one-armed doll is shown on the left side of the torso and then on the right.
- The voice recording did not take place in a studio, where each voice actor works in isolation from the others, but directly on the filming set, where all the voice actors were present simultaneously. This helped them maintain their rhythm and left room for improvisation.
- To help the voice actors better immerse themselves in their roles, they were provided with costumes from the era of the Wild West frontier.
- Live-action actors were filmed on camera, after which the footage was handed over to the animators. Motion capture technology was used only in the dance scene.
- Initially, Jake (the rattlesnake, voiced by Bill Nighy) was intended to be an albino.
- At one point, a scene was planned for the plot in which a character voiced by Ned Beatty drowns a character voiced by Steven Root.
- Jake the rattlesnake was modeled after the actor Lee Van Cleef (1925-1989).
- The mayor, voiced by Ned Beatty, resembles John Huston's character in Roman Polanski's thriller Chinatown (1974) – the similarity lies in the timbre of the voice and the habit of wearing suspenders.
- In one of the scenes during a poker game, a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights appear. These were the cards held by Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot in a South Dakota saloon in 1876. Since then, this combination has been known as the 'dead man's hand'.
- 'Spirit of the West' is modeled after Clint Eastwood. He has five awards similar to the American Academy's gold 'Oscar'. Eastwood has won an Oscar five times (including one Irving Thalberg Memorial Award).
- At the beginning of the film, the main character ends up on the windshield of a red car in the desert. All the details of this scene (the driver, the car, the passenger, and the location) are borrowed from Terry Gilliam's comedy-drama 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' (1998), in which the lead role was played by Johnny Depp (who provides the voice for Rango here).
- The DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film include an additional scene. After Rattlesnake Jake drags the Mayor into the desert, the town where the events take place changes due to rising groundwater. It transforms into a seaside resort. The main character learns about problems in a neighboring town and decides to go there.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
