A chameleon goes on one amazing journey—including meeting the Spirit of the West, in Rango (2011, USA).

Rango is an Academy Award winning animation about a chameleon, called Rango, looking for water in the sweltering Mojave Desert. There’s hardly any water, though.

Before he gets there, he’s swept into passing vehicles on the desert road as he tries to get across to the other side.

In the middle of the road, a Mexican-styled armadillo wishes him well in finding what he’s looking for: water.

When Rango makes the other side, his journey turns quite frankly crossed-eyed and quirky, adventure filled. By the end of it, I thought this chameleon has gone through one amazing journey to get from A to B.

Without going into all the details of the middle of his journey—where Rango becomes a sheriff of a miniature desert township populated with Wild West creatures—I’ll tell you about something else. Rango meets the Spirit of West who looks like the Man with No Name.

The Man with No Name

As you may know, the Man with No Name is a mythological character created for Clint Eastwood Westerns. Eastwood played him, a mysterious loner, who comes into town, does his job, and leaves.

Rango is half-way through fulfilling his own Man with No Name trajectory—he has come into town, is doing his job, but hasn’t quite got to completing the job.

That’s when he heeds the advice of the Spirit of the West or is that Eastwood’s Man with No Name?

The Spirit of the West turned up in the Mojave Desert and Rango shares his heart with him.

He shares how he should have the courage to face the issues in the town and help them, but he feels he’s not up to it.

The Spirit of the West advises Rango to tell his story.

That’s when Rango’s amazing journey—which started out just looking for water (which is hard to find in this film)—finally takes a turn to the climatic.

As insecure as he is, but what gives him the motivation to finish is telling his story.

For Rango, that’s what it takes, to get the job done.

It was one amazing journey—the kind that boggles the mind and amuses.

And it is a story centered in why one should make the finish line.

It’s all right coming in, or entering, but how does one finish, or exit as the theater calls it? Sometimes, that is the question.