Birth of Sci-Fi?
Some commentators have dubbed Méliès's film A Trip to the Moon the first science fiction movie. Not all critics, however, agree. Tom Gunning, the author of our essay on that film, argues for the contrary view. He states, " 'Science' fiction implies a certain sobriety and serious concern with scientific and technological possibilities. . . . But Méliès cannot take his scientists seriously at all, introducing them first as wizards with pointy hats, figures out of fairy pantomime . . . (70). What do you think? While you may not be able to judge whether this is the first of its kind, you can make a judgment about whether or not it qualifies as science fiction. Compare this film with other science fiction movies you have seen. How is it the same? How is it different? Can we call it a science fiction film, a precursor of such films, or something entirely different?
A Trip to the Moon is not the first science fiction movie of all time. As stated by Tom Gunning, science fiction movies require genuine science to earn a spot in the genre. While there are science fiction movies that disregard certain scientific elements today, none of them even come close to the level of disregard in A Trip to the Moon. Firstly, the scientists in A Trip to the Moon are portrayed not as genuine men of learning, but instead as wizards in strange hats and robes. This could be overlooked, if the method of transportation they used followed any elements of logic. Instead, A Trip to the Moon continues to disregard all sense of reason by using a metal bullet as a space ship, and a cannon as a launching mechanism. While the scientific knowledge of 1895 was no where near the level it is today, there was an understanding that a simple cannon firing a giant metal vessel containing multiple fully grown adults would not be able to escape the gravity of the Earth. Lastly, instead of having a mechanism to relaunch their vessel for the return trip, a scientist simply pushed the vessel off of a cliff on the moon. Not only did the vessel somehow magically make it back to Earth, the scientist that pushed it off the cliff simply hung onto the outside for the return trip. Isaac Newton had long since published his work on gravity, a simple glance at which would have shown the ridiculousness of the vessel returning to Earth. Not to mention the scientist somehow surviving the vacuum of space without any sort of suit to protect himself. A Trip to the Moon completely disregards all sense of logic and reason, which is why it is not the first Science Fiction Movie.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteA Trip to the Moon is more akin to a magic show than a science fiction movie. Throughout the film, Melies seems to value the art of special effects and illusions over the actual story line. Within the conventions of pantomime, Melies draws upon fantastic, elaborate, and often outrageous film techniques to show off his innovative methods of cutting and splicing film. Melies appropriately portrays the scientists as wizards as flashy scenes displaying stars that come to life and burlesque images overshadow any logic or scientific reasoning that is consistent with the science fiction genre. Although Melies does apply some knowledge of physics in including a cannon to launch the bullet-like rocket into space, he overtly disregards all scientific logic upon the space travelers arrival to the moon. The space travelers were exploring an absurd environment containing giant mushrooms when they suddenly encounter an alien. The travelers’ instinctive response is to begin killing the creatures by hitting them with an umbrella. This scene mainly serves to satirize colonialism by painting the aliens as barbarians rather than project concerns surrounding space travel and technological advancement (Geiger, Rutsky). Furthermore, A Trip to the Moon does not build in suspense as the film progresses like most science fiction movies. However, elements of irony and humor contained within the outrageous images dominate the tone of the movie. Ultimately, Melies’s means of captivating his audience starkly contrast from science fiction movies. While entertaining, A Trip to the Moon might be its own cinematic genre that combines elements of fantasy, surrealism, and humor. Apart from the film’s setting in space, a scene often portrayed in science fiction cinema, A Trip to the Moon clearly does not possesses the fundamental characteristics of a science fiction production.
Because of a lack of concrete science, A Trip to the Moon is not a science fiction film, but rather a different genre all together. With intentions to capture an alternative reality, the film acts more fantastical than a science fiction. As the Merriam Webster defines it, science fiction is "fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science...having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component". At face value, A Trip to the Moon does seem to be science fiction due to its more "modern" ideas of exploring the moon. However, when digging deeper, we can see that Méliès's film does not revolve around a scientific factor as its core component, but rather as an after-thought, used more for telling a story than based on reality. Firstly, in the beginning of the silent film, we see the "scientists" portrayed as wizards wearing large pointy hats, rather than a genuine scientist, someone like Newton, working to learning the laws of the universe. Some may say that because the Wizards in the film created a giant bullet to act as a rocket, which is pretty scientifically sound for the technology they had back then, however, cannot be considered science fiction since the scene right after was of a moon with a giant face. All matters of science was disregarded when we see Méliès's portraying the moon as a conscious being, irritated at a giant bullet lodged in its eye. Next, when the "scientists" arrive on the moon, we can see that them act quite contrary to what a scientist should have been. For example, when seeing a new unfamiliar creature, the wizards smashed the daylights out of the alien with an umbrella out of fear. In contrast to what we find in most science fiction films, instead of establishing the laws of the world first then exploring how the characters would react in the new setting, Méliès focused on telling a story first then occasionally added a few laws of science to make it more relatable to the viewer. Focusing on world building and telling a great story, Méliès leaves a majority of science out of his film, as proven when they escape to Earth via jumping off a cliff on the moon. Since the film was more about an alternate reality world with different rules, along with a focus on telling an interesting story at the cost of realistic science, Méliès's film is definitely not science fiction, but rather a fictional tale (maybe the first alien film instead?).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science%20fiction
I think that A Trip to the Moon should be consided a science fiction film. When we discussed it in class, we looked at the film through the lense of what we use to define a film as science fiction in the year 2019, rather than what a science fiction film would have looked like in 1902. There are some aspects that in our viewing we discussed as ridiculous, but would not seem outlandish in 1902. The first ecample of this would be the creatures that lived on the moon. Durning class we discussed the scientific fact that there is no life on the moon, but that is something we only learned relatively recently. The film makers in 1902 would have had no idea that this ewas the case and it was believed possible that there could be life on the moon. Because of this fact, I think it ios unfair to base the deffinition of the first science fiction film with regurads to 2019 science. Another reason I think A Trip to the Moon should be consided the first science fiction film is because it doesnt properly fit any other genre, and it is the first fims like it of its time. When you consideer the other movies that were being made at the time, A Trip to the Moon is the most science fiction like out of all of them. Furthermore, I cannot see any other genre of fim that A Trip to the Moon would fit in, if it wasn't placed in the science fiction category.
ReplyDeleteA Trip to the Moon should be considered a science fiction film. It is a groundbreaking film when regarding what the scientific achievements were at the time. We were still more than fifty years away from actually landing on the moon. It is not fair to state that the movie has little to no "actual science" involved when the whole point of a science-fiction movie is to fill the gaps that we do not understand yet. The science in order to send a man to the moon was far from close which points to the reason why we have people being shot up in cannons without spacesuits and wizards wearing little hats. While the description of the alien species was far from accurate it provides the average watcher in the early 20th century with amusement and excitement about life outside of our planet. As I am reading some of the comments disagreeing with me I feel this is because of the perspective when writing about this movie. Many of the movies we watch today such as Jurassic World and Star Wars have explanations that have no standing in the science community yet we watch them with excitement because it is where we are not yet. We have not discovered how to bring back dinosaurs or travel at the speed of light and shoot laser beams. We have gone to the moon and we should not allow that to become close-minded when the reality is that most of us would be intrigued when watching about going to the moon and finding extraterrestrials in 1902.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this is a science fiction film. As with many forms of media, the classifications are more of a spectrum than hard rigid lines. This is the case with scifi. A common range is hard scifi to soft scifi. Hard scifi takes itself seriously and bases the world on as much proven science theories as possible, but still some futuristic elements. An example of this is Ender’s Game. The opposite of this is soft scifi. This type is generally more humorous and lacks basis in science. An example of this would be the Star Wars series. A trip to the Moon falls heavily into the soft scifi, though it is still scifi. The movie shares a few things with modern science fiction movies. Exploration is a large part of the science fiction genre, and A Trip to the Moon, as the title suggests, the characters visit the moon. When this movie was made, man had yet to leave earth, so as short as just moon travel we see today, would’ve been a huge unknown back then. Speaking of the unknown, encountering the unknown is another part of scifi. Alien encounter is everywhere in scifi. A Trip to the moon is no exception. On the moon they encounter an alien species. Most scifi depicts aliens as highly advanced, but this is not the case for A trip to the Moon, their species is more tribal than the astronauts. Finally, they play with the rules of science, as soft scifi does. The method of return is simply falling back to earth, which is known to be inaccurate, but in this scifi would, could be possible. Scifi is indeed science fiction. I believe A Trip to the Moon is a scifi movie, despite its flaws.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI believe that a trip to the moon is indeed a science fiction film. When the outstanding Georges Méliés's released this film in 1902, it was one of the first films ever created that involved some aspect of space. From the beginning of the film, we see a group of so-called "scientists," who look like wizards. They were wearing pointy hats, and they did not seem serious at all. In the film, you can see either four or five scientists going into a metal tube that is attached to a giant cannon. As we know, this film was created over 100 years ago, and many people did not know what it was like in outer space. It would only be 50 years later until the first humans stepped foot on the moon. It is not fair to blame Méliés of the change in gravity. Many people wouldn't know about the moon's features for a long time. They were not far off. Méliés anticipated that there were living creatures on the moon, he couldn't have been farther off. Back in the early 20th century, it would be a wild thought to think about people going to the moon. I believe that this film relates a lot towards current science fiction films or shows because all they are doing is just predicting what they think might happen in the future. For instance, the movie Star Wars is considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. This film shows a lot of futuristic objects and species that we haven't ever seen before. This does not mean that it is impossible. We might not be alive ever to experience anything like it. Just like A Trip to the Moon, Star Wars portrays an extremely futurist society. I cannot see how A Trip to the Moon would not be considered a science fiction film. Even though it might not be up to many peoples standards, I believe that A Trip to the Moon is still a well-done science fiction film.
ReplyDelete