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Credit: Technicolour
NASA's Apollo astronauts may have first put boot prints on the moon in 1969, but moviegoers made the roundtrip long before that — in fact, way back in 1902.
Thanks to innovative French filmmaker, Georges Méliès, a pioneer of early cinema and special effects, audiences were transported across the intervening void to the moon. His 14-minute silent film, "A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage Dans La Lune)," was arguably the "2001: Space Odyssey" of its time.
The film portrays members of the Astronomers' Club, dispatched on an expedition to the moon. Their mode of propulsion — a huge cannon — borrowed from French novelist Jules Verne's space adventure "From the Earth to the Moon," which was published in 1865.
The film shows the intrepid travelers arriving on the moon safe and sound, only to encounter the Selenites. They escape the clutches of the Selenite king and hustle back to Earth in their bullet-shaped vehicle.
Landing in the ocean, the explorers are fished out by a sailor. All this is followed by cheers, decorations and a victorious parade for the six conquerors of the cosmos.
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