✨A Passage to the Stars🌟

01 | Int. Lumière Workshop (Late 1800s) - Night

The 'multi-plain' train slowly drifts into the first scene. Guests transcend into the Lumière brothers' workshop, with the two brothers as static figures sitting around a microscope attempting to perfect the next cinematic invention...the Cinematograph (camera). Scattered both clumsily and orderly around the scene are piles of books and boxes on bookshelves, which emanate an Ollivander's workshop feel.

The short glimpse of the scene makes sure that guests don't spend too long to find out that the brothers aren't animatronics, but have enough time to admire their detail. Additionally, sound is almost nonexistent in the musical sense, but the aesthetic of fans, clocks ticking, and projectors whirring fill the air. Mid-transition, the Brothers are seen pointing their Cinematograph (camera) into the darkness. 

Narrator: Here we see some of the first pioneers of the filmmaking industry, the Lumière brothers, hard at work assembling what would be one of the most revolutionary devices that would create a cascading effect into the early 20th century. 

02 | Ext. The Arrival of a Train (1897) - Day

One of the earliest live-action films is The Arrival of a Train. This near-terrifying film by the Lumière brothers is one of the highlights (in fact, critics rate this film a 7.4/10 on IMDB, equal to that of Spider-Man: Homecoming) of the early film industry:

According to the tale, as the silent black-and-white image of a moving locomotive filled a movie screen in Paris, the people in the cinema thought it was going to drive right into them. They panicked and bolted for the back of the theater...

This piece of legend makes this film the perfect first entry to the ride, and the scene emanates the feeling of terror that the theater-goers had felt when they saw the film- Soon, the ride vehicles turn a corner and move in a forward direction. A circular piece of light is in the distance. It continues to move forward until it takes the image of a train. It moves so close- appearing to hit the vehicle- when with a short turn the vehicles head into the next transition, representing the fear that the audience felt because of how "real" the train seemed. The patented system for this train arriving "animatronic" is very similar to that of Indiana Jones' boulder scene, except for the fact that the ride vehicles do not move down, instead right. With this momentous scene complete, Music now fills the air, very crisp and clear, highlighting the idea of live players playing along with the film before sound in film was invented. The transition scene is a small, circular tunnel filled with almost comedic giant newspapers displaying the impressive Lumière achievements on its headlines.

Narrator: One of the biggest achievements of the Lumiere Brother's time was the filming of the Arrival of a Train, which shocked audiences because of its realism... 

In the olden times of film, sound was nonexistent- instead, live players would play music for the audience to hear while the films ran.

03 | Int. The Magician's Prestige (Early 1900s) - Night

Darkness again, cascaded with a blinding light at the end of the shadowy tunnel. This the magical workshop of one George Méliès, the famed filmmaking-pioneer. A short scene follows of Méliès and his eclectic automatons haphazardly animating about the room - the first "animatronics". Quirky period music and tremoring carnival lights flicker with electric delight.

Sprinkles of light spin around as the animatronic Méliès points (silently exclaiming!) at the curtain behind us - a grandiose film camera.

(In the early days of cinematography, filmmaking was seen like a play - rarely did the camera cut between angles of a scene, preferring to view everything from a singular fourth wall)

Méliès's "camera" was once an animatrography before he personally altered it to become a camera. The vehicles turn into stiller darkness, entering the next scene of Méliès's most famous work.

Narrator: Formally a magician, George Méliès was inspired by the original works of the Lumière brothers, and is recognized as one of the first pioneers to recognize the potential of narrative film. Some of his surrealist journeys introduced the world to science-fiction, inspired by the creative works of renowned authors such as Jules Verne...

04 | Ext. A Trip to the Moon (1902) - Night

Excited music steadily builds as the vehicles travel down another dark tunnel, backlit with the iconic face of the Man in the Moon. Approaching the moon, the famed rocket splices into its eye (a Hatbox Ghost practical effect). 

We abruptly turn into the moon (a larger copy, to our right, taking up the entire wall) with a hole through it for the track to pass through. And suddenly, we are on the whimsical world of Méliès's moon.

Towering rocks and vines surround the magical landscape, with caves filled with man-sized fungi and the dark skies littered with humanoid representations of constellations, comets, and gods. Atmospheric orchestra hums lightly in the background. Traveling across the expansive landscape, we cross brief vignettes from the film - stars opening up to reveal human heads, the spirit of the moon casting snow, and a brief journey into the cavernous underground - meeting the Selenites, insectoid aliens.

The Selenites (cut-outs) pop up shaking in a mock threat, disturbed by our presence on this alien world. Indeed, it may be time to leave - a climatic cut-out sees that same rocket leaning off a cliff, ready to descend through outer space back to safe ocean shores below...

Narrator: A Trip to the Moon was one of the most complex endeavors undertaken during this era of filmmaking in the early 1900s. Filmed in a greenhouse-like studio, Méliès incorporated eclectic magician tricks to create this surreal environment. The substitution splice technique was a nuanced effect where the camera stopped filming long enough for something to be altered on-screen. Call it, one of the first 'special' effects in cinema history. 

...but not before we are greeted with one final moment of clarity - a cut-out of the Earth, our home, rising from the depths of a pitch-black outer space. Created in 1902, decades before we would ever enter space (let alone visit the moon), the filmmakers of their time still realized the importance of such an iconic frame.