Voyage dans la Lune

General Information:

Year Released: 1902 Country: France Director: Georges Méliès IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0000417 Literary Source: Jules Verne, De la Terre à la Lune

The space travelling rocket lands in the eye of the man in the moon.

The 14-minute long Voyage dans la Lune is one of the first films that can be labelled science fiction. Inspired by the writings of Jules Verne, it is more of a special effects / technology showcase than an exact telling of his story on screen, as Melies had his start as a magician and professional trickster. Film was merely another medium for him to demonstrate his technical prowess.

The Promise of Science: Alien Life

Encounters can be traced back to the first science fiction film - Voyage dans la Lune. The creatures found in this film live inside a moon crater and are hostile towards the human visitors. The visitors are captured, but manage to escape upon discovering that the aliens disintegrate when struck. The appearance of these creatures is highly fantastic, as is everything else in this film.

The Promise of Science: Space Travel

In Voyage dans la Lune, a group of adventurers build a great space gun and are shot to the moon in a hard-cased shell that strongly resembles a rocket. Science in this film is not taken very seriously; like many early films, Voyage dans la Lune is fanciful rather than serious. The adventurers encounter the strange inhabitants of the moon and eventually fall back to Earth unharmed. The space travelling rocket lands in the eye of the man in the moon.

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