The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

"Everyone - who had a talent for it - lived happily ever after."

My analysis of the plot:
Many people describe the plot of the Adventures of Baron Munchausen as a mindscrew since at the opening of the movie the unnamed town is being besieged by the Turk, but at the end when the baron demands that the gates be opened. The enemy is no longer there, in fact due to the decrepit state of the enemy's encampment they appear to have been gone for some time. This has lead some people to speculate that the city official, Horatio Jackson, was fabricating the attacks to maintain control and obedience from the town's people. If you watch carefully for the cues you will see that the most honorable Terry Gilliam is giving us a lesson in the importance of tales of heroes and bravery, magic, and fantasy in our overly cynical and rational age. In the opening the time period is given as: 
 THE LATE 18TH CENTURY .... THE AGE OF REASON ........... WEDNESDAY
A story of a man who rides cannon balls, flies to the moon, and defies death because he knows who death is and doesn't like him; set in the Age of Reason is definitely a Gilliam joke. You will see reason, common logic, and reality attacked a lot in this film by the Baron and defied by the crazy events that happen around him. But in the opening the movie is set in a world where cold logic and mediocrity is more important than tales of bravery and heroism. The adventures of the Baron are just silly stories acted out by a bunch of bad actors in front of a jeering crowd and we see a brave soldier who destroys six enemy cannons and rescues ten prisoners, executed for being too heroic and extraordinarily brave.
The Baron arrives and announces that only he can end the war because he started it and tells Horatio Jackson, who personifies the coldly rational beaurocrat, that he is happy not to have any grasp of Horatio's version of reality what so ever. The Baron is the Ace, he changes the reality around himself to be what ever he wants, and the other characters don't realize it but they are just pparticipants in his story, that is why only he can end the war. I think this is a great contrast to the play where he is portrayed as just a silly character. I can imagine Mr. Gilliam loving the idea of provoking a legendary figure to appear by acting out his life in a play, to the audiance of the play this is what seems to happen. And being such a Bad Ass Grandpa for whom death, time, age, and reality have no hold he retroactively defeats the Turks attacking the city. I love how in Terry Gilliam movies stories become reality and if anything The Adventures of  Baron Munchausen is and exploration of this theme.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13594887090A78260100&page=1#1

http://www.tubeplus.me/movie/522079/The_Adventures_of_Baron_Munchausen/