Trip to the Moon, A (1902)

Georges Méliès Films
Director: Georges Méliès

Early French director Georges Méliès was known for his fanciful films, but none had the lasting impact that Le Voyage dans la lune would have in the annuls of motion picture history.

The story was based loosely off of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, depicting a group of scientists and scholars that take a fanciful trip to the moon (via a large cannon) where they come to encounter strange beings that attack them, but our heroes find it rather easy to defeat them (by simply hitting them on the head, causing the beings to explode), escape their clutches, and return home safely.

Méliès brought fantasy to the screen like it had never been done before. He brought to life a world where wise old men wore long, white beards with long robes and debated over issues of science. Here the strange and mysterious visions of the moon's surface was depicted as a wonderland ran by insect-like aliens that were killed rather easily (reminds me of Signs). He brought visuals to the impossible that made audiences at the turn of the century watch in wonder.

The techniques were ones that revolutionized filmmaking and special effects. Think of it as the Star Wars of its time. Méliès understood how to manipulate the camera and the audience to bring his first science fiction thriller to life. He knew he could shock the audience by stopping the camera, removing the actor and replacing him with smoke, and restart the recording process making the viewers think that a creature disintegrated in front of their very eyes. Also he would create an image that would be remembered for all time, with the shot of moon with a face as the bullet capsule lands. This image has been reprinted many times over, but this, the original sci-fi movie, is where it came from.

The film was meant for its time, and would make the modern audience laugh at its crudeness, as would almost all movies of this period, but it is important to mention for its significance as a precursor to modern special effects.

Méliès would see his vision become a huge success, just not for the man himself. Sadly Thomas Edison, the villain of motion pictures, would steal a print of this masterpiece and reprint it many times over and screen it for his own profit. International copyright laws did not exist at that time, so Méliès would not see a dime of American money for the film he put so much of himself into. He would eventually go bankrupt and many of his hundreds of films made in his life would go missing, or melted down for World War I, but A Trip to the Moon, along with the picture of the moon with a bullet in his eye, will live on as Georges Méliès' lasting impression in the world of filmmaking.