Splashdown
Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon as well as H. G. Wells First Men in the Moon served as inspiration for George Méliès famous 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, in French: Le Voyage dans la Lune.
[Video - format 3GP - 356Kb] Le_voyage_dans_la_lune_A_trip_to_the_moon__Georges_Mlis_1902_1b.mov
Méliès, in a rare interview, attributes the idea for his film to his fellow countryman Verne. Ironically, Thomas C. Renzi, in his book Jules Verne on Film, states «Melies imaginative concoction owes less to Verne than to H.G. Wells and his own inventiveness.»
[Video - format 3GP - 1052Kb] Le_voyage_dans_la_lune_A_trip_to_the_moon__Georges_Mlis_1902_2.mov
The Selenites study 1932 from A Trip to the Moon 1902.
Before the turn of the 20th Century, Melies had already produced a prototype short moon fantasy called La lune a un metre. It was based on Les Farces du la lune ou... .
He went on to pioneer narrative cinema and invented the 'fade-in,' the 'fade-out,' the 'overlap' and 'stop-motion.'
[Video - format 3GP - 529Kb] Le_voyage_dans_la_lune_A_trip_to_the_moon__Georges_Mlis_1902_3.mov
VOYAGE A TRAVERS L'IMPOSSIBLE (1904/Star Films) 1410 feet (2 reels). BW. Silent. France. Aka: AN IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE; WHIRLING THE WORLDS. Credits: Georges Méliès. Cast: Georges Melies. Professor Mabouloff, (Melies), president of the Institute of Incoherent Geography, maintains he can reach the sun by means of his invention, the Automabouloff. Failing at first, the steam-propelled locomotive then takes off from the summit of the Jungfrau arriving on the Sun while being protected from the heat by a refrigerator unit kept at 3000 degrees. Eventually the crew return to earth in a submarine contraption. The crowds cheer as the Professor and his team return to the Institute. An early space adventure.