h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I love the movie. It appeals to my sense of humor, although no one else I know in RL feels that way.

And it's on TV in the UK over Christmas as I was overjoyed to discover recently

It is a brilliant film, sadly negelected a lot of the time because it flopped so badly. Personally I love the whole overblown fantasy thing it does. Even some of the little touches like the ship "sailing" through the sand on the Moon and fragments of classical statues half-buried in the foreground and background. Brilliant.

I don't claim to understand the whole thing. I have a feeling that there were literary references in the film that I would understand better if I were better read. Still, I really appreciated the baron's bloody-minded stuborness.

The Baron was an excellent character. Eccentric and stubborn, as you say.

I didn't catch many literary references, but the Baron's adventures were, I think, either based on various fanciful stories or on those the "real" (I can't remember whether there really was a Baron Munchausen who told stories or if he was a literary character like Don Quixhote) Baron told.

Some of the stuff was fairly contemporary (to the time the film was made, if not it's setting), such as the Nuclear Missile that Oliver Reed's character has.

I just had the sense that there was a lot of stuff in the history of the story that was a parody of literature. It may be that it was just a well crafted story.

The thing I like most in fantasy and science fiction is the sense that you're only popping in for a minute and looking at a real world with a history. Much like The Lord of the Rings where there's clearly thorough back story. I just had that sense from the movie.

I'm under the impression that there is some sort of historical basis for the baron. Then again, I don't seriously believe in literature, I don't read or study it, so I may be wrong.