We recently reached our first 100 years of cinema, and no one would dare say that cinema is not art. Yet, this movie was made back when cinema was, at most, a curiosity. A vulgar past time for the uncultured masses, at worst. I recently read a contemporary review of Dante's Inferno (1911, I believe), where the reviewer, a writer and culture woman, spelled this as clearly as this can be said (I translate from my memory): "We thought cinema was trash, but this was wonderful". With that attitude, it's no wonder early cinema was not carefully conserved. This movie was almost lost, and this would have been a great pity. This is a dreamy, wonderful hallucination. The story is told, and it's not seriously told. This movie does not take itself seriously, but it's meant to be funny, ironic, with a hint of some serious critique maybe (doesn't this space adventure remind you of colonialism a little bit?). The scientists are a funny lot, found of throwing science papers to each other's faces and surrounded with pretty assistants with naked legs (the relatively sexy attire of those assistants would have been a no-no until the 1970s in Italian TV). The Selenites are comic enemies. This movie has to be watched. It's entertaining and visually nice after 115 years. It sure is one of the first tries to use cinema in a new way to tell a story, and I believe later cinema (the already mentioned Dante movie included). It's a luck this was preserved and can be enjoyed today.

This twelve minute short from famed magician/film-maker George Melies is, quite simply, a spellbinding experience. Due to the lack of dialogue, the film tells its story via a series of pictures. What the film concentrates on most are the special effects, and this film wowed audiences through the apparently magical occurrences appearing on screen. Indeed, these effects are still impressive today, even if its easy to see how they're done. The most memorable image comes when the space ship crashes into the moon's eye - causing it to wince and frown in anger. There are also some excellent moments where our explorers are attacked by jumping goblin creatures which disappear in a puff of smoke when struck.It's all very surreal, especially when we see goddesses sitting on planets and grinning faces appearing in the stars. The plot follows a logical progression from beginning to end, and the sets used are expensively staged and have real depth. Okay, so the film is a bit creaky and jumpy but face it, its nearly a century old and being able to watch it today is simply fantastic. My great-grandparents would have been alive while they were making this. For any fan of the history of cinema, fantastical or not, A TRIP TO THE MOON is a landmark piece not to be missed.

I can't say that I really enjoy this film because I think that it belongs to a different generation and it is so different from the films I used to watch. In my opinion this movie is quite slow and has not any action, so it becomes quite boring for our standards. On the other hand we have to consider that this film was registered 110 years ago and it changed drastically the history of the cinematography and the way that the film were produced after the 1902. I know the huge progresses that this film meant for the history and that it was produced with just a few technological devices really worse than the cameras that we own nowadays, thus I really appreciate this registration. This are the reasons because of this film is still shown to the film classes around the world. Moreover I think that this film represents in a very detailed way the zeitgeist of this age and this is the cause because of the audience really appreciated it when it debuted. In my opinion the "spirit of the time" was the try to arrive always more far away with the huge technological discoveries that the beginning of the 1900 brought with it. This is the first science-fiction film and it represents this desire of discover that everybody had in that age. For all this reasons, this movie is certainly a timeless film!

Actually its my first time to study the film history, its so wonderful that the development of the film, technology. at that time I can hardly believe that people can do the film in that high quality, This film tells an interesting story that people imaged to through the bullet fly o the moon, and have an wonderful trip in the moon, include the imagination of the alien they are so cute! They both fight together and when the alien explosion the alien become a mass of smoke that was so funny! I like this film, not only the funny plot, but also the innovative spirit, Its amazing that people can image the trip to moon, Simultaneously this also reflects the people of the unknown at the time of the spirit of exploration.