Hollywood Shoots The Moon: 117 Years Of Lunar Landings At The Movies
Motion pictures went to the moon long before Apollo 11 did, and they keep going back. Critic Bob Mondello reflects on the many films, from 1902 to today, that have made the journey.
As a college sophomore, I knew exactly what the Apollo astronauts would find when they arrived on the moon: a desolate rockscape, craters shining white in reflected earthglow — and a big, black monolith.
Stanley Kubrick showed us all of that in the top-grossing movie of 1968 — 2001: A Space Odyssey — a full 15 months before Neil Armstrong took his giant leap for mankind. And even Kubrick was late to the party: Moviegoers had been heading moonward from pretty much the moment there were filmmakers to lead the way.
In 1902, Georges Méliès led an expedition in the 13-minute, one of the first films
