In 1999 , Anton Gimenez of the Filmoteca de Catalunya mentioned the existence of this print , which he believed to be in a state of total decomposition , to Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange of the French film company Lobster Films . Bromberg and Lange offered to trade a recently rediscovered film by Segundo de Chomón for the hand-colored print , and Gimenez accepted . Bromberg and Lange consulted various specialist laboratories in an attempt to restore the film , but because the reel of film had apparently decomposed into a rigid mass , none believed restoration to be possible . Consequently , Bromberg and Lange themselves set to work separating the film frames , discovering that only the edges of the film stock had decomposed and congealed together , and thus that many of the frames themselves were still salvageable . Between 2002 and 2005 , various digitization efforts allowed 13,375 fragments of images from the print to be saved . In 2010 , a complete restoration of the hand-colored print was launched by Lobster Films , the Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema , and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage . The digitized fragments of the hand-colored print were reassembled and restored , with missing frames recreated with the help of a black-and-white print in the possession of the Méliès family , and time-converted to run at an authentic silent-film speed , 14 frames per second . The restoration was completed in 2011 at Technicolor 's laboratories in Los Angeles . Restoration costs were $ 1 million . The restored version premiered on 11 May 2011 , eighteen years after its discovery and 109 years after its original release , at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival , with a new soundtrack by the French band Air . The restoration was released by Flicker Alley in a 2-disc Blu-Ray and DVD edition also including '' The Extraordinary Voyage '' , a feature-length documentary by Bromberg and Lange about the film 's restoration , in 2012 . In '' The New York Times '' , A. O. Scott called the restoration " surely a cinematic highlight of the year , maybe the century . " As '' A Short History of Film '' notes , '' A Trip to the Moon '' combined " spectacle , sensation , and technical wizardry to create a cosmic fantasy that was an international sensation . " 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 . In addition , Méliès 's innovative editing and special effects techniques were widely imitated and became important elements of the medium . 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 . 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 . " Similarly , D. W. Griffith said simply of Méliès : " I owe him everything . " Since these American directors are widely credited with developing modern film narrative technique , the literary and film scholar Edward Wagenknecht once summed up Méliès 's importance to film history by commenting that Méliès " profoundly influenced both Porter and Griffith and through them the whole course of American film-making . " It remains Méliès 's most famous film as well as a classic example of early cinema , with the image of the capsule stuck in the Man in the Moon 's eye particularly well-known . The film has been evoked in other creative works many times , ranging from Segundo de Chomón 's 1908 unauthorized remake '' Excursion to the Moon '' through the extensive tribute to Méliès and the film in the Brian Selznick novel '' The Invention of Hugo Cabret '' and its 2011 Martin Scorsese film adaptation '' Hugo '' . Film scholar Andrew J. Rausch includes '' A Trip to the Moon '' among the " 32 most pivotal moments in the history of film , " saying it " changed the way movies were produced . " Chiara Ferrari 's essay on the film in '' 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die '' , which places '' A Trip to the Moon '' as the first entry , argues that the film " directly reflects the histrionic personality of its director " , and that the film " deserves a legitimate place among the milestones in world cinema history . "
2011 Cannes Film Festival
2011 Cannes Film Festival
A Trip to the Moon