Genre Guesstimation – A Trip to the Moon (1902)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s Genre was chosen by Steven of Past, Present, Future in TV and Film and he chose Black and White movies as the Genre for August.

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of B&W movies…

Number of Times Seen – 1 (30 Aug 2015)

Brief Synopsis – A group of scientists propose a journey to the moon where they meet up with strange creatures.

My Take on it – This is actually a movie that I have been interested in seeing for 17 years or so ever since I saw the amazing HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998) and the final episode focused on the making of this movie.

When I saw Hugo (2011), I was once again reminded of this movie, but still never got around to searching for it.

When I saw that Reut’s entry for this month’s Genre Grandeur was about this movie, and I read that it can be found on YouTube, I immediately went there and watched it.

There are actually two different versions of this movie on-line; one is the original B&W version and the other is a hand colored version that also seems very innovative for its time.

This is considered the first science fiction film and feels so advanced from what we know of the movies of the early part of the 20th Century,

I feel that having seen the aforementioned movies related to this movie, I had an even better understanding as to what Director George Melies attempted and succeeded in doing.

It is very unfortunate that most of the hundreds of films he made are lost forever.

This one will probably always remain his most famous and one of the most influential and innovative movies ever made.

Bottom Line – Excellent movie for it’s time. Very innovative and advanced for the kind of movies made at the beginning of the 20th century.  Having seen the episode of From the Earth to the Moon (1998) related to this and Hugo (2011), I understood this even better.  It’s too bad most of Melies movies are gone, but this remains his most famous. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – One of the earliest known science fiction films. A segment near the end was animated, making this one of the first animated films, too. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Most definitely. This is such a wonder to watch both for the time it was made and even later on.

Rating – Oscar Worthy

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z