the audience applauded

Must See Movie...

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This was great fun. For one thing, Melies creates an amazing moon. It has all sorts of expression. It also has a kind of nasty grin that shows it's up to no good. The story involves the Astronomer figuring out a way to go to the moon, but while he is doing that, the moon comes to him. It devours his property. It spits out people and junk and terrorizes the old man. It is very clever and longer than previous efforts. What a gift this man made to cinema.

Fantastic short film from pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès. A great companion piece to his later classic, A Trip to the Moon (1902). That name was also given to this one when released in the US. The original (and more fitting) name is The Astronomer's Dream. The story to this is an astronomer who looks like Merlin is visited by a woman and a demon and has dreams about the moon. The special effects and sets are really cool, especially when you consider this film's age. Méliès was ahead of his time in many ways. Definitely worth a look for anyone into film history or silent shorts or anyone with a few minutes to spare. I can't imagine anyone seeing this and regretting it. Well, a-holes maybe.

This is another very early (19th century still!!) and simply MAGNIFICENT example of Georges Melies' magic: a queer 'science fiction' story (certainly one of the first EVER) about a scientist (played by Melies himself) who is hooked on his researches about the moon - which seems to take its revenge: first it comes alive on the drawing board, and when he looks at it through its telescope, it comes REALLY close to him, literally only 'a meter away', as the title says; and starts eating up everything in reach...Here we have the great pleasure to enjoy more of the magician's cinematographic tricks he knew so perfectly well: people and things vanishing and reappearing, the drawn settings seemingly coming alive... THOSE are the 'little' shorts (with a running time of only about 3 minutes then) which led to today's movies with their special computer effects and almost unbelievable scenes - something that EVERY film fan should see in order to get to know the ORIGINS OF TODAY'S CINEMA!

Of course I'm talking about his uncommonly long short film "Trip to the Moon". The animated moon looks exactly the same here and the astronomer reminds the viewer as well of the ones building the rocket to set foot on the moon. The video quality is rather low early on, even for 1898, but quickly gets better. It's packed with fantasy references, occasionally even almost a horror film and it's surely lots of action happening for its only three minutes running time.The moon swallowing and spitting all kinds of things and children is quite a horror fantasy. I'd have panicked and run out as soon as I could if I'd run into that. Or maybe not with those stunning women the moon transforms into near the end. Certainly an interesting watch, maybe together with "Le voyage dans la lune" from 4 years later and it offers even some approaches it does not in that one like the constant switching of shapes and sizes while the 1902 film was really more of a scientific sci-fi movie.