A Trip to the Moon: A Trip to Reality in 1900s

A Trip to the Moon: A Trip to Reality in 1900s

   Amazing is an understatement for a film like Trip to the Moon by Jules Vernes! It was ravishly executed with effects that are non-existent to the human mind. The pioneer director Méliès had proven once again that his tricks and illusions play an important role in film-making. Magical tactics such as aliens that are disappearing, a rocket on the moon’s eye (as shown in the picture on the left), and a dozen wizards moving into a perceivingly small rocket ship, were what they used to fully entertain a movie theater packed with hundreds of people.

Kudos to the veteran writer Jules Vernes for creating the storyline of this masterpiece, for the book was quite distinct in its content. Thus, the young director Georges Méliès executed the content in a successful and innovative way. By using music to exhibit the nature of the whimsical film, it highlighted major parts of its content. The musical score added to the effect of humor and craziness it wants to depict as shown in some scenes where the wizards literally slept on the moon, and when they battled the Selenites. However, there were some occasions when the music was not in sync with the scenes, nevertheless it was still a magnificent work of art.

If I were to be a famous movie critic or an ordinary lady in the 1900s, the aforementioned paragraphs would have been my opinion of this piece. Without the knowledge of modern technology and science, I would have marvelled at the works of the then famous Georges Méliès, for it was, in that era, a breakthrough in the world of movie theaters. Now that I think about it, I realized that without these simple-looking films of black and white or technicolor, we would have not experienced the deeper, logical, and technical aspects of technology in this era. Without their primary hard work of innovation, especially that of Méliès, we would have never achieved the modern films with special effects and CGI.