'The Journey to the Moon' [lə vwajaʒ dɑ̃ la lyn])[a] is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed, and produced by Georges Méliès.

[g] Landing safely on the Moon, the astronomers get out of the capsule (without the need of space suits or breathing apparatus) and watch the Earth rise in the distance.

The final sequence (missing from some prints of the film) depicts a celebratory parade in honour of the travellers' return, including a display of the captive Selenite and the unveiling of a commemorative statue bearing the motto "Labor omnia vincit".

[21] In addition to these literary sources, various film scholars have suggested that Méliès was heavily influenced by other works, especially Jacques Offenbach's opera-féerie Le voyage dans la lune (an unauthorised parody of Verne's novels) and the A Trip to the Moon attraction at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

[24] As the science writer Ron Miller notes, A Trip to the Moon was one of the most complex films that Méliès had made, and employed "every trick he had learned or invented".

[30] The camera operators were Théophile Michault and Lucien Tainguy, who worked on a daily basis with Méliès as salaried employees for the Star Film Company.

They were paid one Louis d'or per day, a considerably higher salary than that offered by competitors, and had a full free meal at noon with Méliès.

[32] According to Méliès's recollections, much of the unusual cost of A Trip to the Moon was due to the mechanically operated scenery and the Selenite costumes in particular, which were made for the film using cardboard and canvas.

[35] A mask-making specialist, probably from the major Parisian mask- and box-making firm of the Maison Hallé, used these moulds to produce cardboard versions for the actors to wear.

Méliès carefully spliced the resulting shots together to create apparently magical effects, such as the transformation of the astronomers' telescopes into stools[38] or the disappearance of the exploding Selenites in puffs of smoke.

From approximately 1897 to 1912, these prints (for films such as The Kingdom of the Fairies, The Impossible Voyage, The Barber of Seville, and A Trip to the Moon) were hand-colored by Élisabeth and Berthe Thuillier's coloring lab in Paris.

[49] More recent composers who have recorded scores for A Trip to the Moon include Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel of Air (for the 2011 restoration; see the Hand-colored version section below),[52] Frederick Hodges,[52] Robert Israel,[52] Eric Le Guen,[53] Lawrence Lehérissey (a great-great-grandson of Méliès),[54] Jeff Mills,[52] Donald Sosin,[55] and Victor Young (for an abridged print featured as a prologue to the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days).

[64] This kind of nonlinear storytelling—in which time and space are treated as repeatable and flexible rather than linear and causal—is highly unconventional by the standards of Griffith and his followers, before the development of continuity editing.

For example, some recent academicians, while not necessarily denying Méliès's influence on film, have argued that his works are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century stage tradition of the féerie.

[72] Other genre designations are possible; Méliès advertised the film as a pièce à grand spectacle,[12] a term referring to a type of spectacular Parisian stage extravaganza popularised by Jules Verne and Adolphe d'Ennery in the second half of the 19th century.

He argues that Méliès, who had previously worked as an anti-Boulangist political cartoonist, mocks imperialistic domination in the film by presenting his colonial conquerors as bumbling pedants who mercilessly attack the alien lifeforms they meet and return with a mistreated captive amid fanfares of self-congratulation.

"[4] Méliès, who had begun A Trip to the Moon in May 1902, finished the film in August of that year and began selling prints to French distributors in the same month.

The film was shown after Saturday and Thursday matinee performances by Méliès's colleague and fellow magician, Jules-Eugène Legris, who appeared as the leader of the parade in the two final scenes.

[19] Many circumstances surrounding the film—including its unusual budget, length, and production time, as well as its similarities to the 1901 New York attraction—indicate that Méliès was especially keen to release the film in the United States.

[83] The introduction to the English-language edition of the Star Film Company catalogue announced: "In opening a factory and office in New York we are prepared and determined energetically to pursue all counterfeiters and pirates.

[83] According to Méliès's memoirs, his initial attempts to sell A Trip to the Moon to French fairground exhibitors met with failure because of the film's unusually high price.

[50] A Trip to the Moon was met with especially large enthusiasm in the United States, where (to Méliès's chagrin) its piracy by Lubin, Selig, Edison and others gave it wide distribution.

[86] Late in life, Méliès remarked that A Trip to the Moon was "surely not one of my best," but acknowledged that it was widely considered his masterpiece and that "it left an indelible trace because it was the first of its kind.

[86] Thanks to the efforts of film history devotées, especially René Clair, Jean George Auriol, and Paul Gilson, Méliès and his work were rediscovered in the late 1920s.

[93] No hand-colored prints of A Trip to the Moon were known to have survived, until 1993, when one was given to the Filmoteca de Catalunya by an anonymous donor as part of a collection of two hundred silent films.

[94] It is unknown whether this version, a hand-colored print struck from a second-generation negative, was colored by Elisabeth Thuillier's lab, but the perforations used imply that the copy was made before 1906.

Bromberg and Lange offered to trade a recently rediscovered film by Segundo de Chomón for the hand-colored print, and Gimenez accepted.

"[72] It was profoundly influential on later filmmakers, bringing creativity to the cinematic medium and offering fantasy for pure entertainment, a rare goal in film at the time.

[104] The film also spurred on the development of cinematic science fiction and fantasy by demonstrating that scientific themes worked on the screen and that reality could be transformed by the camera.

[72][105] In a 1940 interview, Edwin S. Porter said that it was by seeing A Trip to the Moon and other Méliès films that he "came to the conclusion that a picture telling a story might draw the customers back to the theatres, and set to work in this direction.