even before man experienced sustained flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, filmmakers were already making unforgettable films about space travel. cinema itself was born in 1895, and just 7 years later in 1902, George Méliès produced his high-production-value, visual-effects-laden silent film A Trip to the Moon.
based on Jules Verne’s novels about the moon in 1865/70, much of what we know about space travel and the moon is quite different than depicted in the film.
and yet the magic is the same. the public’s response to a successful launch and return in this film is not terribly different from the elation of the SpaceX engineers after the recent history-making successful snatch of Booster 12.
incredible that one of the first memorable films was about space travel before humans had even discovered how to fly. cinema allows our imagination to travel to places we are not yet ready to go.
in space
in 1966, as NASA was sunsetting the Gemini program with eyes on the moon, television ventured into space with Gene Roddenberry’s series Star Trek. the 60s were fraught with many political and social hot buttons, but the distance of space and time allowed the future-set Star Trek to deal with those issues allegorically (though not always subtly).
as space travel became a part of our reality, it also became a new canvas upon which to set our stories.
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke set out to create a story about mankind and his role in the universe, spanning from intelligent apes encountering tools to modern man encountering artificial intelligence and superior alien life. it’s a vast story, more tone poem than declarative statement. Kubrick and Clarke intended the film to raise more questions than it answered, which is why some viewers find the film bizarre and unsatisfactory.
i love this film, though. it has aged well, both in production and in sentiment. the themes of man vs. AI are more prescient today than in 1968 when the film was released. the majesty of what’s beyond our Earthly experience has a finer point on it now that we aim to put humanity on Mars in our lifetime.
the film stocks, the production techniques, the set design, the cinematography — not only were they groundbreaking for the time, but there’s still so much to love and learn from with this film. in 2024, fifty-six years later, this film continues to give and inspire.
also this shot makes me laugh every time:
the backdrop of space provided a new cinematic setting, simultaneously ancient and futuristic, terrifyingly empty yet full of exotic discoveries, mostly still unknown. it was the perfect canvas for imagination and creativity, blending magic and reality, giving fantastic ideas a place to exist in our actual daily lives.
the setting of Outer Space and all the questions of mankind’s journey into the greatest unknown has come to every conceivable genre, from serious (seriously bad?) movie-house serials to the seriously silly Pigs in Space recurring sketches on The Muppet Show.
not only do we dream of being in space, but we dream of making movies in space. Tom Cruise announced in 2020 that in 2021 he would film a movie in actual space, making it not just the fictional setting of the story, but the actual setting of the production.
but that film has seen years worth of delays, allowing the Russian film The Challenge — a narrative, fictional feature film shot aboard the International Space Station — to put the first professional actors in space… meaning once again the Russians have beaten us to orbit.
one of us
while many space-set films are filled with heroic do-gooders and ancient royalties, one of my favorite films is the original Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. the film follows the crew of the Nostromo — essentially intergalactic truckers — who are awoken early from their deep-space deep-sleep to answer a distress call. their investigation leads them to bizarre discoveries and horrific consequences.
it is a thriller of the horror variety, but not some 80s slasher. it’s a smart film with all the questions we’ve touched on — man’s inventiveness and the cost of progress, the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence, and the sobering vastness of space compared to the reach of a single human being. and it’s all wrapped up in a fantastic film that’s fun to watch.
it’s spawned a lot of sequels and series, but i think the magic of the original comes from seeing everyday people in extraordinary circumstances. this is not an uncommon situation in movies (it’s the most common) but to see every day people in space suggests one day we will all travel through space, and it may even begin to lose its magic.
but maybe not. we have been flying as long as i’ve been alive, cramming as many people into those metal tubes as we can, demanding peanuts and soda and wifi. the charter busses of the sky.
and yet on my daily walks, i still stop to watch the birds.
i think this is what makes the idea of Tom Cruise (the almost-official President of The Movies) going to space so compelling. he’s not an astronaut. he’s certainly a legitimate daredevil, but space? and besides he can’t make a movie up there alone. who will film him? who will pull focus and roll sound? what kind of Teamster do you need for space travel? that means crew — people like me.
what was once a place for the best of the best (those with The Right Stuff) is now a place for scientists, billionaires, and celebrities. even a family friend of ours was recently in space. a man from my town spent months on the space station. and soon actors, truckers, and the rest of us.
the intrigue of any unexplored territory is that it opens up our lives, just knowing about it.
the journey
this is what makes all of these films — think of Star Wars or the Fifth Element — such beloved tales across generations. they take that classic hero’s journey and elevate it to the stars and beyond, a place where anything is possible. at their heart, these stories are so intimately and privately human.
sometimes it takes going to fantastic places to realize how fantastic our ordinary lives really are.
bonus
in 2003, Chilean television aired Star Wars, interrupted occasionally by commercials for Cristal beer, which were made to look like part of the movie, and they have become an Internet favorite.