In “”Rango,”” the newest genre-bending adventure from “”Pirates of the Caribbean”” director Gore Verbinski, a pampered pet lizard goes on a Wild West quest to bring water to the ...

But at the end, we want it to feel organic, as if there really is a 6-foot lizard in a desert town, and I'm there with a camera on my shoulder to capture what happens.

Center to right, foreground: Rango (Johnny Depp) and Beans (Isla Fisher) are pictured in a scene from the film "Rango." Paramount Pictures Bynews@inforum.com March 03, 2011 at 11:00 PM Share ...

Our intrepid lizard stumbles into Dirt, a desert hamlet inhabited by tortoises, owls, crows, moles, other lizards and the like. The town is dry - no water. Some skullduggery is afoot.

He is, at this point, the Lizard with No Name: a little creature unsure of his own identity and prone to blending in wherever he goes. Of course, he's a chameleon. He has an excuse.