Barbarella was the first science fiction hero from the comics to be adapted into a feature film as opposed to a serial (Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, her male predecessors, had only appeared in serials up to this point).
Barbarella's captured mole machine and her encounter with a robot belonging to a deceased rebel that has sexual relations with her are both omitted from the film, although pretty much everything else is very faithful to the comic.
Barbarella's costume was inspired by designer Paco Rabanne
Dildano's password, "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch", is the name of a real village in Wales, United Kingdom (unsurprisingly, it's the longest place name in the UK).
Future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was one of the session musicians who performed the film's original score.
In the original comic, Barbarella was not a secret agent but an outlaw, and the movie omits some of the adventures she had on Lythion, including an encounter with an earlier villainess called the Gorgon, whose face changed into a duplicate of the face of anyone who looked at her. Her spaceship is not repaired, so for the duration of the first comic album she is trapped on Lythion.
Italian actor Antonio Sabato was originally cast as Dildano, and set photos exist of him playing the famous 'hand sex' scene with Jane Fonda. However his performance was deemed to be too serious and he was replaced, in more comedic tone, by David Hemmings.
Lobby card stills and set photographs survive, showing footage of a seduction scene between Barbarella and the Black Queen on a bed. However this footage has never appeared in any print of the film.
Sixties sex symbol Raquel Welch turned down the title role.
SoGo, the evil city Barbarella travels to, is a reference to Biblical cities Sodom and Gomorrah.
The film's missing scientist character famously inspired the band name of 1980s pop stars Duran Duran.
The names "Stomoxys" and "Glossina", the Great Tyrant's nieces, are actually the names of flies. Stomoxys calcitrans is the stable fly, and glossina is the African (or tsetse) fly.
The original author Jean-Claude Forest based the character of Barbarella on Brigitte Bardot - who ironically was director Roger Vadim's previous wife.
The scenes during the opening credits where Barbarella seems to float around her spaceship were filmed by having Jane Fonda lie on a huge piece of plexiglas with a picture of the spaceship underneath her. It was then filmed from above, creating the illusion that she is in zero gravity. (If you look carefully, you can see the reflection in the glass as she removes her gloves.)
There was no Durand-Durand and no death ray in the original comic; the city was built around a monster that belched gas through a series of ducts, and the Great Tyrant wore an eye patch even in her true identity.
This film is listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.
When Virna Lisi was told to play the part of Barbarella, she terminated her contract with United Artists and returned to Italy.
When Dildano and Barbarella are speaking to Dr. Ping about the mission and Dildano's transmission finish, a soprano sings Caro Nome, Rigoletto's famous aria by Giussepe Verdi.