User reviews

"Le voyage dans la lune" (1902, Georges Méliès) is loosely based on a story by Jules Verne. It also contains a little Greek mythology in that the inhabitants of the moon (Selenieten) are named after Selene, the Goddess of the moon.

The poster with the moon having a rocket ship in his eye is iconographic. The film itself is mainly of historical importance, but this historical importance is big.

Georges Méliès was one of the founding fathers of early cinema. He pioneered in special effects and made a start with film editing. His roots were in vaudeville theater. This can be seen in "Le voyage dans la lune" when the launching of the rocket ship is festively accompanied by a couple of cheerleader like girls.

Thanks to the initiatives of his countrymen the Pathé brothers film did outgrow the vaudeville format and got a theater of his own, called a cinema. Méliès fell into oblivion and got financial problems. Only due to a rediscovery in 1929 he could spend his last years carefree.

A group of astronomers travel to the moon by getting shot out of a large cannon. They head into the interiors and encounter strange moon-men among giant mushrooms. The version I saw is black and white with a modern narration. The narration is off-putting and out-of-place. I would have loved to see the hand painted colors. Nevertheless, this is a classic. It is imaginative. It is beautiful. It has a nice narrative flow like watching a children's book come to life. The effects are fun. This is a cinematic icon.

Directed by pioneering magic man George Melies, A Trip to the Moon (1902), is a technical achievement by being the first. It shows us what was going through turn of the century minds as it applies to space travel and what the Moon looks like. What can you say about a film that started a whole genre and pretty much launched all film-making processes found today? Without Georges Melies' "trick" films, we may not have the advances in film-making that we have today. His excellent knowledge of framing and set design, influenced many after him. Not only is it a very old representation of film as it applies to film history, but it also is a great representation of history itself and what men in the early 20th century envisioned in our future.

The most interesting part about this film is the fact that 12 years after the release of this film, Melies was chased out of his motion picture studio in France by the military during WWI and by 1938 was a penniless magazine stand clerk. Added with the uncanny accurate look into the future, such as the splashdown in the ocean of the capsule and the ships coming to rescue it, the film has a magic to it even for 1902 and yet the man who created it was as human as the rest of us. The film has many abstract ideas throughout, which really makes the viewer question about what Melies was thinking. What is the significance of the astrological symbols on a lot of the magician-like clothing? Why something as primitive as a giant gun for a launcher and a giant bullet for their vehicle is among such wonderful futuristic landscapes?

8.9 (A- MyGrade) = 9 IMDB

A group of scientists build a rocket and fly to the Moon.

Wonderfully imaginative and innovative. Directed by Georges Melies, a pioneer in the art and technology of film-making. Shot in 1902, when cinema was in its infancy, the movie shows cinema's theatrical roots, as well as the resourcefulness and ingenuity a pioneer like Melies possessed, and needed to possess.

Clever set design, "special effects" and editing. Good plot with a great innocence and imagination to it all.

It also gave us the iconic moon-with-a-rocket-in-its-face image.

Such a landmark film in cinema history that it features heavily in Martin Scorsese's homage to cinema - 'Hugo' (2011).

"A Trip to the Moon" is justly the most popular early film. I've seen thousands of early short movies and have commented on some of the most interesting cases, but this one is more amusing and imaginative than the rest (although a rather sinister reflection of colonialism may be read into the explorers treatment of the Moon's natives). It's better than Georges Méliès's other surviving pictures because it has a more developed story--without the tableau vivant style becoming as boring as it usually does. Wacky humor and trick shots help, but that's in the rest of his oeuvre, too. Influenced by the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, as well as Adolphe Dennery's adaptation of those pieces, the story is about a gang of astronomers, who, launched from a cannon onto the Moon, encounter explosive aliens (or "Selenites", as Méliès called them).

Méliès used the stop-motion (or substitution-splice) effect and arising smoke for explosive characters in many of his films--same with superimpositions, animated miniatures and placing a fish tank in front of the camera. Additionally, his set designs were the best of the day. I easily forget it's all done within a cramped studio. He often used moving props, too, but this is one of the few that I've seen where the prop is pulled towards the camera--creating the famous rocket kissing the moon's eye gag. The following shot is a temporal replay of that action from a different perspective. It works here, but Edwin S. Porter would make the mistake of adopting the technique for "Life of an American Fireman", which was reedited later, leading many to believe it was a landmark in narrative editing. The "30 tableaux", as Méliès called it, is linked by dissolves--a common transition at the time, which he introduced.

Méliès made it known that his goal was to push cinema towards resembling theatre. The benefit was longer films with more developed stories. Given this, it's ironic that he was one of the first filmmakers to achieve effects specific to motion pictures (i.e. incapable of being produced in theatre or other art forms)... i.e. the trick shots.

Numerous early shorts are blatant imitations of Méliès's work, but they usually weren't as funny or creative. Many studios even duped his films and sold them as their own, which led to Méliès patenting his work in the U.S. and joining the Motion Pictures Patents Company (MPPC). "A Trip to the Moon" represents the height of his career. His work would soon diminish under the hectic schedule of the Nickelodeon age and the monopolization by the MPPC and Pathé, and he would end up burning his own negatives. Watch Jacques Meny's documentary "La Magie Méliès" (1997) for a good telling of his life and films.

(Note: This is one of four films that I've commented on because they're landmarks of early narrative development in film history. The others are "As Seen Through a Telescope", "The Great Train Robbery" and "Rescued by Rover".)

In twenty years, Georges Méliès has designed and made approximately 600 short films, before prematurely disappearing because of a precarious financial situation aggravated by a widowhood in 1913 and the First World War in 1914. His originals were mainly destroyed between 1914 and 1925, either to recover the silver in themselves or to transform them into heels of military shoes for the "poilus", i.e. French World War I infantrymen. Thus, those available today, on YouTube for instance, are mostly hand-colored copies.

A century later, Georges Méliès is unanimously considered as a prolific and awesome pioneer. In France, he built the first film studio. He dedicated his life to silent film and illusions. This film is a masterpiece of illusions and poetry, thanks to many technical innovations, well before Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019). It is part of the French heritage, as Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost (Walter R. Booth, 1901) in UK, or The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) in USA.

A group of astronomers hold a meeting where they discuss how to travel to the Moon. The head astronomer proposes that they build something like a huge gun or cannon and fire themselves at the lunar face. After some argument, this is agreed upon, and we see the construction of the cannon and its bullet-like capsule. Once on the moon, the astronomers discover the strange civilization of the Selenites.

A Trip to the Moon (aka Le Voyage dans la lune, Voyage to the Moon, and even A Trip to Mars, curiously enough) is usually considered the first token sci-fi film. "Token" is important there, as this surely isn't the first film we could call sci-fi--even Trip to the Moon director/writer/producer/star/production designer/etc. George Méliès' own The Astronomer's Dream, or The Man on the Moon (Le Rêve d'un astronome, 1898) predates this by four years. But this is the first widely known and accepted sci-fi film, with a significant length, and it has the important distinction of a pithy, well-told story, which Méliès based on Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon), first published in 1865, and parts of H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon, first published in 1901. The fact that it was intended as something of a parody is often overlooked, and recontextualizes its sci-fi progenitor status quite a bit, but in a positive way. Like horror, sci-fi frequently walks a fine line between camp and seriousness, so it is appropriate for the token seminal film to have parodic elements.

Far more important than A Trip to the Moon's relation to sci-fi, however, is its significance as a film, without genre qualification. Unlike most of the other early film pioneers, Méliès had a background in show business. He was a skilled magician/illusionist who took over a famed Paris venue, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Méliès embraced the theatricality of film, always searching for ways to make the new medium approximate the ideals (well, or at least the ideals of the fantasy and spectacle side) of the theater. Thus, he made rapid advances in production design, literary content, special effects and further developed an early form of editing, providing a bridge between the early shorts, which were purely mise-en-scène, to a more modern form of montage.

A Trip to the Moon's scenes, with their elaborate production design, complete with backdrops painted by Méliès, are still constructed in a way similar to Thomas Edison's The Barbershop (1894), or the Lumière Brothers' Baignade en mer (1895)--that is, with complex, layered, contrapuntal motion playing out before a static camera, which represents the audience's point of view as they watch the action unfold on a "stage". The difference is that whereas Edison and Lumière tended to shoot for a feigned naturalism (in some cases--but far fewer than the conventional wisdom has it--actually capturing a "natural" event), Méliès tries to see how far he can push the fantastical. The result is a film that is as much an example of surrealism as anything else. If you have a taste for those genres--as well as for sci-fi, the absurd, and so on--as I do, and you are acclimated to silent films, you are sure to love A Trip to the Moon.

The sets are amazing. The painted backdrops merge seamlessly with the constructed portions and props, creating locations with great "depth", in worlds that seem to surreal exist and have a long history. There are a number of ingenious techniques used to further the illusions, such as the smoke pouring out of the Parisian factories (probably a satirical depiction of some of the negative results of the Industrial Revolution) as the astronomers, who are initially amusingly dressed like wizards/alchemists in long flowing robes and large pointed hats, mount the building to begin their journey. Although some of the special effects and illusions are fairly transparent--such as the descending portions of scenery to enhance the effect of the "Earthrise", most are surprisingly sophisticated. Visually, Méliès is as impressive as even many modern instantiations of special effects, matte paintings and such. He certainly trumps much low-budget science fiction--even through the 1960s and 1970s--in this department, plus the surrealistic touches give him an edge that I would like to see more in modern films.

Just as important, the story is very entertaining. The pacing and narrative construction sustains your interest and manages to make a short that is less than 15-minutes long seem as substantial as a 90-minute feature. Although I've seen versions in the past without it, I now have a version with the intended voice-over narration included (in Kino's "The Movies Begin" box set). This greatly enhances the film, especially as it is frequently but dryly funny.

Much has been said, and maybe not just by Freudians, of the sexual subtexts of A Trip to the Moon. For example, the astronomers are assisted by Parisian showgirls, or "manservants", in sexy clothing (they now seem somewhat prescient of the costumed and uniformly choreographed showgirls to come in Hollywood musicals). They build a large gun to shoot themselves to the Moon, and they land with a "spurt" in the Moon's eye. Whether or not any of that was intended (although Freudians, at least, would say it doesn't matter if it was intended), there are more than enough comical and satirical takes on astronomers, space travel/the nature of space, and the "reality" of the Moon and its surprising inhabitants to keep anyone entertained. This is truly one of the earliest masterpieces of cinema.

As one of the first films of the science fiction genre, "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" (or "A Trip to the Moon") is revered as the greatest achievement of stage magician and film pioneer Georges Méliès and one of the most important movies ever done. Written and directed by Méliès himself, "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" is a wonderful visual fantasy that shows Méliès' imagination at its wildest form, and how with limited resources and lots of creativity he managed to make a film like nothing the world had ever seen before.

"A Trip to the Moon" is loosely based on the books "From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne, and "The First Men in the Moon" by H. G. Wells, as it deals with the adventures of a group of astronomers in their first travel to the moon and the wonders and dangers of their Odyssey. After arriving to the Moon in their bullet-shaped spaceship (it was launched by a giant cannon), they discover the Selenites, the people from the Moon; and as their presence is unwelcome, the group of astronomers will have to fight for their survival.

With a runtime of barely 14 minutes, "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" is an awe-inspiring ride of fantasy, adventure and magic that more than 100 years after its release, still captures the imagination with its wonderfully crafted visuals and its charming comedy. The plot is very well-written, as the story flows nicely and although of a very simple nature, it's very well-developed and really entertaining showing that Méliès was a gifted storyteller.

However, the most amazing feature of "A Trip to the Moon" is without a doubt its amazing visuals. With a mix of stage tricks, camera tricks, and several types of animation, Méliès crafts a surreal fantastic vision of the Moon with the care of a painter and great artistic sensibility. It's almost as if a painting came to life. The now iconic image of the Man in the Moon being hit in the eye by the spaceship is only one of the many amazing scenes that the genius of Méliès crafted with great imagination.

Director D.W. Griffith said about Méliès, "I owe him everything" and Charles Chaplin called him "the alchemist of light" and both men were absolutely right in their remarks. Georges Méliès' work is a must-see for every film buff and I dare to say, for everyone in general as in its simplicity, it conveys humanity's most powerful trait: Imagination. "Le Voyage Dans la Lune", Méliès's most famous film, is without a doubt an immortal classic and one of the greatest films ever done. 10/10

It feels unfair to review this film by todays standards because at the time this would have been some pretty ground-breaking stuff, the sets all look like paintings, the special effects are astounding and even today the film still stand up on it's artistic and creative merits, however, the pacing is quite slow for some scenes and too fast for others and the costumes don't stand up to the brilliance of the sets and props, two pretty minor grievances in what is otherwise possibly one of the greatest films of it's time. At only 15 minutes this is well worth a watch.

A Trip To The Moon is the earliest real short film that is very important for whole film industry and filmmaking that can be thankful for this film cause it invented many things and interduced such staff to us.You cant judge this film just based on a quality of making but to a impact that it made back in 1902 but even more for the future of all movie that will love and admire them and we have to realise that if this film wasnt made neither would they would me made.Score was here great and composed in a brilliant way.Special effects are still somewhat great and they look very impressive for that age.A trip to the moon is one of most peaces of films ever made

This movie is just a historical curiosity to be appreciated rather than enjoyed. I did not find it entertaining at all. The special effects were revolutionary for its time, but that's it.

A big problem with this movie has more to do with the restorations: Since it lacks intertitles, it is nearly incomprehensible unless we read about the plot elsewhere. This is because this movie, like others at the time, was meant to have live narration explaining the story. Modern restorations don't include narration, which would better represent what it was like to watch the movie then. As an example of this, without narration, the first 3 minutes of the film are just a bunch of older men in wizard robes making exaggerated hand gestures. You have no idea what's happening, and three minutes of this becomes tedious quickly.

If you are interested in the history of cinema, obviously give it a go, but otherwise, skip it. If you want to get started in silent cinema, look elsewhere. This movie can be put off if you believe it represents silent cinema.

The face of cinema has been changed drastically, and the expectations from the viewers have also been changed. Nowadays we have a bunch of options before choosing a movie, from realistic dinosaurs to computer generated images and from mind throttling actions to terrifying stunts, we have them all but in this era of technology nobody can ignore the true genius of George Melies, as I had seen 'A Trip to The Moon' I was amazed that what he had done in 1902 with all his limitations. The 14 min of this short movie captivates you and the vision of Jules Verne was precisely conveyed. The editing, photography, and special effects created by Melies are immaculate. And the way he showed the landing of a rocket on the moon was very much humorous as the rocket landed on the eye of personified moon and how the native of moon threatened the astronomers to leave. These types of movies are the edifice of today's fantasy movies .In the end it's the best work by Melies and worth a watch

A Trip To The Moon / Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) : Brief Review -

Earliest Sci-Fi Phenomena in Cinema World. The first groundbreaking visual masterpiece of 20th Century. Sci-fi was explored in long length feature film during mid 20s but French cinema's magic man Georges Méliès was doing it even before 19th century ended. When i heard that this man was the only one at that time who created visual phenomenons like magical moments, disappearance tricks on screen, unseen worlds and fascinating atmosphere etc i became very anxious to see his work. Thanks to AFIs list of 1001 movies where A Trip To The Moon is the First film sorted in ascending year wise mode otherwise i would have never came across this miraculous product. While reviewing the film made in 1902 i don't need to talk about storyline, screenplay, acting and rest of filmmaking aspects and i am feeling very good about it. No need to use brain for the tactical understanding because just seeing just the Film made in 1902 is so freaking awesome feeling in itself, you know what i mean. The film is about a group of astronomers go on an expedition to the Moon. The visual statics of are so fascinating, first the cannon-capsule they travel in then the moon surface and the scenary around there. Then there are stunning graphics, iconic images like stars, angles, snowing around and what not. And above all the disappearance of "Aliens" was just unbelievable, i mean i couldn't believe my eyes that these visuals were achieved in 1902 and in such a gigantic manners, neat and clean like ice. The sublime storytelling is marvelous and not just fine for the time but highly influential for the future films made in the entire century. I am STUNNED, SHOCKED and BLESSED to have seen this astounding short and I request you to see it. This is where the concept of larger than life cinema was born.

RATING - 9/10*

By - #samthebestest

Trip to the Moon, A (1902)

**** (out of 4)

aka Le Voyage dans la Lune

George Melies' landmark film tells the story of a group of men who want to explore the moon so they build a rocket and fly there only to discover some moon monsters. There's no question that this is one of the greatest landmarks in the history of cinema and the amusing story just shows the wonderful mind of the director. This really is a fairy tale about what the moon would be like and this moon creation is something we've seen in the director's previous films but this time out we get to explore the fairy tale. I think the greatest thing about this movie is its visual look, which really blows ones mind when you consider how well it holds up today. The look of the moon is brilliantly done as is the underground creatures that attack towards the end. There's also the landmark scene of the ship flying into the face of the moon and there's no question this is one of the greatest scenes in film history even if it was made over a hundred years ago.

The one that started it all. Here is the the glorious French film based on the science fiction works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Watching this is like dreaming.

Watching this 1902 French extravaganza for the first time is like dipping your brain into the distant past. It's almost physically painful to try to imagine a world where this delightful little theatrical romp didn't previously exist and its circulation almost certainly created the art of narrative film as we know it. The trick photography, especially with the smoky smashing of the moon creatures, is as fresh as daisy and the intricate set design is stunning. Rarely are culturally significant artefacts this fun to actually consume.

Incredibly advanced for 1902, and still entertaining today. The film is much more than that iconic image of the spacecraft hitting the man in the moon right in the eye, and has a whimsical charm to it throughout its short run time. I chuckled over the chorus girls too - I guess Georges Méliès was pioneering in the area of adding a little cheesecake to movies as well.

A Trip to the Moon turned on by accident, an unusual picture of the old film hooked (but that moment did not know that the color film of the film did not appear immediately). Short for 15 minutes. It looks weird, a real farce. And then you look at the year of release and wonder how it was possible almost 120 years ago to remove this).

Fascinating to watch (mostly), though at times I could barely make out what was happening. Still, it is worth watching for its historical value, and bizzare images. Not to mention its nearly comical scenes, such as having a group of attractive women load the rocket into a cannon, which then shoots the scientists to the moon. I doubt I would have liked it as much as I did, if it had been twenty minutes long, and not merely thirteen.