Georges Melies’s A Trip To The Moon (1902) Movie Review

Directed: Georges Melies

Cast: Georges Méliès, Victor André and Bleuette Bernon

Released: 4th october, 1902

Genre: Adventure, Sci Fi

After watching Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, i was in search of Father of Fantasises Georges Melies Directed “A Trip To The Moon” (Aka. Le Voyage Dans La Lune) (1902) finally got its restored print link must thank the Lobster Films for Restoring the print for the Future. Melies’s A Trip To The Moon is about a group of Astronomers/Scientists travelling to the moon on shuttle shot by a big Cannon. While on the moon they take rest and see the surprising Mushroom subterranean enviornment on the moon. While searching on the moon they faceuped alien species, how the humans survive the attack and return back to earth forms the rest of the story line. Being the first of Sci Fi and Action genre film. The way Melies shot the whole film in wide and long shots to provide the view as if sitting we are sitting in theatres. A Trip to the Moon is shot years before the directors started experimenting on close up shots. Melies misses some logics, but its understandable for its time period. Though Melies uses the same magical techniques what he used in his earlier flicks, But this time he uses them to narrate a story. The magical effects, Impressive sets and decent sci fi story makes A trip to the moon a Avatar of early 1900’s.

Survi Review: NA

Facts about this flick:

* Movie was shot with 16 frames per second which was standard frame that time.

* A Trip To The Moon entirely hand-colored movie.

* No official credits are included, Georges Méliès left a record in a 1930 letter with cast and crew credits. Ballet girls from the Fthe Theatre du Chatelet portrayed the stars while the Selenites were portrayed by acrobats from the Folies-Bergere.

* Georges Méliès intended to release it in America and thereby make lots of money. Unfortunately, Thomas A. Edison‘s (Invented Electric Bulb) film technicians had already secretly made copies of the film, which was showed across the USA within weeks. Melies never made any money from the film’s American showings, and went broke several years later (while Edison made a fortune on the film.)

* This A Trip To The Moon was the remake of Melies’s earlier film with the same title, released in 1898.

* The ending sequence of the parade and statue was considered lost until 2002, when a well preserved complete print was discovered at a barn in France.

* A Trip to the Moon was sold in both black-and-white and hand-colored versions. A hand-colored print, the only one known to survive, was rediscovered in 1993 by the Filmoteca de Catalunya. It was in a state of almost total decomposition, but a frame-by-frame restoration was launched in 1999 and completed in 2010.

A Trip to The Moon (Full Video):