A Trip to the Moon

_A Trip to the Moon_ (1902), initially titled in French as _Le Voyage dans la Lune_, is director Georges Méliès' most famous film out of the more than 500 films he made. He stars as Professor Barbenfouillis, who, along with several other astronomers, boards a bullet-shaped spacecraft fired from a long cannon onto the moon's surface. Once there, the astronauts explore the moon, sleep under the open stars, and after a snowstorm, they flee into a cavern where they discover moon inhabitants (called Selenites after the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene). After being attacked, the astronauts return to their spaceship and fall from the moon back to the Earth, where they are welcomed as heroes. There are multiple versions of this film, both in black & white and hand-colored versions. The 2010 "restored" version of this film is colorized, and it features a modern-day score by the French musical group, Air (with members Nicolas Godin, Nicolas Godin, Jean-Benoît Dunckel, Jean-Benoît Dunckel). This version is a surreal, psychedelic acid trip (which has a long-lost parade scene at the end of the film). The black & white versions, with traditional string scores (and often narration), are easier to watch. This film gets 3.5 stars mostly because it was the earliest science fiction film and the earliest film containing animation which I have seen.