Fly Me to the Moon

by Dennis Betito Jr.
2013-14724

"A Trip to the Moon"  is a black and white science fiction silent film. They created it using the stop trick technique, and the scenes were hand-colored, but the film was advanced at its time of creation. It's actually the first known science fiction film, showing a group of astronomers creating a spaceship the shape of a bullet. When the group lands on the moon, unusual things happen.

After exiting the capsule, they meet a Selenite, an insectoid alien named after Selene, the Greek Goddess of the Moon, and the astronomers kill him easily. More Selenites appear and they have a harder time killing them, so they make an escape, but a Selenite grabs on, and when they land in an ocean on Earth, they are rescued. They display the captive Selenite alongside the commemorative statue, with the inscription Labor omnia vincit, Latin for work conquers all.

Georges Méliès, writer, producer, and director of the film, was inspired by Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Around the Moon". I think science fiction has gone a long way from this film, but it's amazing to know that that kind of imagination and creativity was translated into film with relatively, very limited technology.