A Trip to the Moon



A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 black-and-white French science fiction film based around (surprise!) six Frenchmen going to the moon. It is based loosely on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.

The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release, and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès.

Notable for being one of the Ur Examples of science fiction film and associated tropes, and for its innovative animation and special effects, including the well-known image of the spaceship landing in the moon's eye.

Plays a key role in the Brian Selznick children's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret and its Martin Scorsese-directed film adaptation Hugo.

Can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.


 * Frenchmen Can Breathe in Space
 * Deface of the Moon
 * Deleted Scene: The original film ended with a celebratory parade for the astronauts. This portion of the movie was lost for many decades before being discovered in 2002.
 * Eye Scream: The iconic scene of the ship landing in the eye of the Man in the Moon.
 * Fan Service: All the girls in hot pants standing by at the launch.
 * Human Aliens/Rubber Forehead Aliens: The Selenites are just humans with rubber spikes on their heads. Possibly the Ur Example.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: Not only do they slam a rocket into the moon's eye, they kill a bunch of aliens with umbrellas!
 * Interplanetary Voyage
 * The Man in the Moon: Hi there!
 * Pop Star Composer: Sort of; Air made the soundtrack for restored color version, nearly 110 years later
 * Robe and Wizard Hat: How the astronomers are dressed.
 * Science Marches On: A spaceship launched in that manner would quickly kill all its crew due to excessive G-forces. That's why real manned spaceflight was done with staged rockets. Justified, of course, in that the Verne story was written decades before the development of modern rockets. Maybe further justified by the fact that the film is obviously fantasy.
 * Stop Trick: Trope maker
 * Weaksauce Weakness: The Selenites will vaporize if you hit them hard with an umbrella. Which makes the astronomers' aggressive behaviour towards them seem all the worse.
 * Weird Moon: Aliens and giant mushrooms, hm?
 * Zeerust: Considering it's over a century old...