1 - A trip to the moon (1902)

Okay, so as this is the first movie in the book, this will also be the first reviewed.

Title: A trip to the moon.
Instructor: George Meliés
Year: 1902
Runtime (My version): 11:48 (although some youtube versions are longer, and feature additional ending scenes. These versions are 12+ mins long. Finally the book states that this is approx. 14 mins long.)

Seen: Christmas 2008

How i got this: I believe this is an abandoned movie. Meaning that noone has the copyrights for it. I got my copy using a torrent. This is also accessible on youtube.

Plot Outline: A group of scientists goes to the moon using a cannon. They meet hostile aliens, battle it out with them, and return to the earth as heroes.

First impression: This movie looks extremely cool, especially for its time.
But on second thought: This is still 1902, and the movie-media has a long way to go in many, many ways.

General comments: This movie must have blown peoples minds back in the day. This is the official first Sci-fi flick, and I honestly don't believe that anything even remotely close to this had been done before this was released. The word epic might just be applied to some of the scenes in this movie. This movie really is innovation at its finest. Especially i find the scenes where the cannon is molded very beautiful and ingenuous.

With that being said it still shines through that this movie is quite the dinosaur. The movie is narrated all the way through, no lines here, and there is only one camera-angle on every scene. This movie manages to get people to the moon, meet aliens, and back to earth in less than 15 minutes, but I still got kinda bored in the opening scenes! This does not mean that A Trip To The Moon is a bad movie, but it indicates that there was still much experience in movie-making to be had at the time.

As to the plot there really isn't that much to say, as the main quality here really is the special effects. The story is a bit childish in my opinion, and you really don't get to care about the characters at all.

Music: This is just the basic tam-ta-tam piano, nothing here to raise the tiny hairs in the neck.

Pictures: This is as i said awesome for its time, and what makes this movie a classic.

Essentially this is: A thin story covered in the most amazing special-effects seen at the time.

Why you should see this: This is movie history, and it is short, so you won't end up feeling this was a waste of life.
Why you shouldn't see this: Special effects, story, acting, everything is done better today, so if you want to spend the evening getting your mind blown, this is getting kinda tame.

Honorable mention: The girls on line-up at the launch, man would they look tame in a nudie-mag today.

Final rating: 55/100% - the story is too flimsy for me.