Its even more mind blowing if you read the book. There are a lot more stupid things he does like becoming a wrestler, and an astronaut who goes on a mission in space with a baboon that he can speak with telepathically. They crash land on an uncharted island full of cannibals and they will only let him escape with their lives he he beats them at a game of chess. For whatever reason he has unlimited tries and after several years finally wins a game of chess, so they send him and his baboon on a raft and they eventually get found.

Obviously these things very fortunately didn’t make it into the movie, but it’s super weird to me that someone read all of that and was inspired to make it into a movie anyway. Somehow it was actually a very good movie too.