Georges Méliès 'A Trip to the Moon' Dream Sequence Still, c.1902

On a jagged lunar landscape of painted rock and darkness, exhausted explorers lie sprawled on the alien ground while ethereal celestial spirits materialize around them — a goddess balanced on a crescent moon holding aloft the globe of Earth, a robed attendant beside her, and a ghostly ringed-planet spirit hovering at right. This dreamlike composite image from Georges Méliès' pioneering 1902 fantasy film blends theatrical stagecraft, double-exposure photography, and hand-painted backdrops into pure proto-science-fiction spectacle.