... lunar opthamologists must be so expensive! So why should you watch this film? Lumiere was one of the first of the filmmakers to try and entertain audiences with fantastic tales versus Edison's shots of reality. I also think Edison actually tried to steal this film from Lumiere, but I could be wrong about that.
Lumiere does everything in long shots, there are no close ups. Individual performers and performances are not the point. It is the fantasy in its entirety that is the point. There are girls dressed as ushers that help the scientists, all decked out in long wigs and robes like judges as a head scientist draws their trip on the board. Their rocket ship is shot out of a cannon directly into the man in the moon's eye. The surface of the moon looks like it is overgrown with tree roots, and the scientists simply lie down and go to sleep until passing stars spot them and start a snow storm. They seek shelter in a cave where they realize that if they plant their umbrellas in the ground that they grow like mushrooms. Then they are captured by the natives who look like people dressed in skeleton Halloween costumes with spears. The scientists strike the natives on the head and realize that causes them to disintegrate. They use this to escape, get back to their rocket, and with one scientist hanging on the front of the rocket to get it to tip over the edge of the moon, they and their rocket fall back to earth, into the sea actually, with one of the moon natives hanging on to the back of the rocket. The rocket is towed back to land where there is a grand parade with the lone native shown off as an exhibition and prisoner.
I'm telling you the entire story because there is not THAT much story, and the fun is in looking around at Lumiere's interesting and intricate sets. The laws of gravity were known, but past that I don't know how much science knew about space travel in theory, and how much Lumiere just ignored for the fun of it all. It's funny some things they accidentally got right. The capsule landed in the sea, just like American space capsules did. The hitting of the moon people over the head and them disintegrating seems like a forerunner of the zombie movies of later in the twentieth century. And Lumiere got that people liked to look at pretty girls, thus he has his film full of them, scantily clad for the time period, even when they don't seem to have much purpose. But then Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser was doing that on TV - having pretty girls escort CEOs to their chair like they could not find their way from one side of the stage to the other - until about 1990!
Lumiere does everything in long shots, there are no close ups. Individual performers and performances are not the point. It is the fantasy in its entirety that is the point. There are girls dressed as ushers that help the scientists, all decked out in long wigs and robes like judges as a head scientist draws their trip on the board. Their rocket ship is shot out of a cannon directly into the man in the moon's eye. The surface of the moon looks like it is overgrown with tree roots, and the scientists simply lie down and go to sleep until passing stars spot them and start a snow storm. They seek shelter in a cave where they realize that if they plant their umbrellas in the ground that they grow like mushrooms. Then they are captured by the natives who look like people dressed in skeleton Halloween costumes with spears. The scientists strike the natives on the head and realize that causes them to disintegrate. They use this to escape, get back to their rocket, and with one scientist hanging on the front of the rocket to get it to tip over the edge of the moon, they and their rocket fall back to earth, into the sea actually, with one of the moon natives hanging on to the back of the rocket. The rocket is towed back to land where there is a grand parade with the lone native shown off as an exhibition and prisoner.
I'm telling you the entire story because there is not THAT much story, and the fun is in looking around at Lumiere's interesting and intricate sets. The laws of gravity were known, but past that I don't know how much science knew about space travel in theory, and how much Lumiere just ignored for the fun of it all. It's funny some things they accidentally got right. The capsule landed in the sea, just like American space capsules did. The hitting of the moon people over the head and them disintegrating seems like a forerunner of the zombie movies of later in the twentieth century. And Lumiere got that people liked to look at pretty girls, thus he has his film full of them, scantily clad for the time period, even when they don't seem to have much purpose. But then Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser was doing that on TV - having pretty girls escort CEOs to their chair like they could not find their way from one side of the stage to the other - until about 1990!