Destination Moon tells the story of mankind's first moon landing and is told in almost a documentary style. The filmmakers were striving for a realistic approach to the logistics of spaceflight. Unfortunately, this tactic also worked against the film as audiences were less thrilled than they might have been had the film's astronauts encountered weird moon monsters or faced imminent death. It's a bit unfair to compare this film with others that would capitalize from its modest success, though. Destination Moon is an important film in the realm of science fiction for two reasons:

• It was the first film of the decade to take man into outer space and would establish many of the conventions of the genre.
• It was produced by George Pal, who would go on to produce the classic sci-fi films, War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide among others.

My Personal Views - "I have only seen this film once when I was a kid and can only remember bits and pieces of it. It was one of those late night creature feature programs that showed it and have never seen it on TV since. But thanks to the magic of video and DVD, this movie is now available for rental and I am looking for it now. My one lasting memory of the film was seeing the spacesuits the astronauts wore. I wanted one in the worst way and couldn't understand why you just couldn't buy one at the clothing store."

Rocketship XM is a bit more fanciful (and plays a lot more loosely with the laws of physics!) than Destination Moon. Like that film, Rocketship XM deals with a manned mission to the moon but somehow the ship veers off course and ends up landing on Mars. Now on the Red Planet, the crew finds an alien civilization and the encounter is not a friendly one. After some of the crew are killed and wounded the survivors blast off for Earth. In a surprisingly downbeat ending, the ship runs out of fuel and in the subsequent crash, the remaining crew are killed. This film was definitely more in the mode of space opera and would, like Destination Moon, inspire other films to come.

My Personal Views - "Now this is a film I only saw recently thanks to a friend who owned a video copy. What a neat little film! It has all the classic elements of good space opera and while the effects can be laughed at, it still holds up extremely well. And besides, it's got Mr. Lloyd "Airplane" Bridges himself in the cast. 'Looks like I picked the wrong day to go to the moon'."