Japan on the Moon! On January 19, the Japanese space agency succeeded in becoming the fifth nation to land a device on the surface. But are scientists aware of what the cinema has already found there?
After the United States, Russia, China and India, Japan entered the history of space conquest this Friday January 19, 2024, by managing to land the unmanned ship Moon Sniper on the moon at 4:20 p.m. French time (12:20 a.m. Japanese time) on lunar soil. A major accomplishment for JAXA (the Japanese aerospace exploration agency), which will allow Japanese scientists to conduct research and analyzes on the Moon… but perhaps also to discover some cinematic oddities there!
Minions
Illumination Entertainment
This is one of the latest cinematographic forays to the Moon: that of Mooned, an animated short film from Illumination studios released in theaters as a preview of Migration. Or how Vector, Gru’s rival in Despicable Me, finds himself stuck on lunar soil and tries to find a way to return to Earth. In his misadventures, he will come across a group of Minions who are as funny as they are invasive…
Mysterious structures
Metropolitan FilmExport
What if the Moon is not what we think? Director of The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, Roland Emmerich signs with Moonfall a new disaster film (in every sense of the word, with a rating of 2 out of 5 from spectators) which will see Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley discover the incredible and improbable truth that lies beneath the lunar surface…
A space shell
Star Film
It is undoubtedly one of the most famous images in the history of the 7th Art. That of Georges Méliès’ Journey to the Moon (1902), or the lunar expedition of Professor Barbenfouillis, sent to the lunar surface with his fellow astronomers using a giant cannon and who then landed directly in the eye of the satellite.
An amusement park
FOX
Under a pressurized dome, which makes the air breathable and offers the same atmospheric pressure as on Earth, gigantic attractions await visitors to the Futurama series. Among them, creepy marmots, a visit to the lunar surface and a boat trip telling the story of “Whalers on the Moon”.
A little fisherman
DreamWorks SKG
A child fishing for dreams from the Moon: a logo that has become cult, born from the imagination of Steven Spielberg (co-founder of the DreamWorks studio with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen) and the pencils of the artist Robert Hunt.
A black monolith
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
In his cult 2001: A Space Odyssey, adapted from Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick presents the Moon through the Clavius scientific base, then through the discovery of a mysterious black monolith in the heart of the Tycho crater.
Cheese
Aardman Animations
In the short film A Great Excursion, inventor Wallace and his faithful dog Gromit are running out of cheese! They decide to go to Moon which, everyone knows, is entirely made up of it.
An Autobot ship
Paramount Pictures
What did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin really discover on the Moon? According to Michael Bay and Transformers 3, the true goal of the Apollo 11 mission was to explore the wreckage of an unknown ship, Sentinel Prime’s Ark, containing in particular the pillars necessary for the manufacture of a space bridge.
Stars by the thousands
Pixar Animation Studios
In the short film La Luna, the geniuses at Pixar tell through the eyes of a child how, every evening, the Moon changes shape thanks to the discreet work of lunar sweepers. Poetic and magical.
Ads
Pixar Animation Studios
In its journey to the Axiom space station, the small robot WALL-E sees the lunar soil and the remains of the Apollo missions, overlooked by a giant advertising panel to the glory of Buy’N’Large, a chain of stores that we regularly come across at Pixar (Buzz Lightyear is powered, for example, by BnL batteries).
The first bulwark of the Terran Federation
Buena Vista International
A 6,400 kilometer long ring orbiting 300 kilometers above the lunar surface: this is the first line of defense of the Earth Federation of Starship Troopers. A space base with cannons facing the arachnid quarantine zone, lined with ships ready for takeoff. Will this be enough in the war against insects? Not sure…
A dislocated surface
Warner Bros.
In Time Machine – The Time Machine, Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) stops time on August 20, 2037 to note the dislocation of the Moon, the result of a change of orbit due to explosions to create a colony on its surface.
A Nazi base
Energia Productions
In Iron Sky, in 2018, a drilling mission accidentally discovers a fortress on the far side of the Moon, whose occupants are planning an attack and reconquest of Earth after more than 70 years of preparations.
Living rocks
Bazelevs
What is really happening on the surface of the Moon? Why is a Soviet ship landing there? Who killed the cosmonauts whose bodies were found in the lunar dust? So many questions answered by the Apollo 18 found-footage.
Doctor Hell’s moon base
New Line Cinema
From this fortress, Austin Powers’ best enemy sets up the “Alan Parsons Project”, a “giga-laser” hidden within this “black star” capable of destroying the city of Washington DC (demonic laughter and little finger raised, and quotation marks to mime with middle and index fingers).
A giant egg
BBC
This is the discovery made by Doctor Who in 2049, during an expedition to the Moon which turns out to be a giant egg more than 100 million years old, and containing a mysterious creature ready to hatch… (season 8 episode 7)
The colonies of Little America and Luna Beach
Castle Rock Entertainment
In 2087, the Moon has become independent and a perfect playground for party people and gamblers, and Pluto Nash, aka Eddie Murphy, a successful owner of the nightclub “Club Pluto”.
Gold
Universum Film
In Fritz Lang’s Woman on the Moon, a scientist discovers that there is gold on the moon. He builds a rocket to get there, but too much rivalry within the team complicates the expedition…
Alpha Beta Station (and tourists)
Paramount Pictures
Lulled by cicadas and frogs and the “shhh” of its automatic doors, this base led by a totally incompetent William Shatner attempts to land the Mayflower shuttle safely in Is There Finally a Pilot on the Plane? .
The flagship of ESD
Twentieth Century Fox
In Independence Day Resurgence, twenty years after a first alien invasion, the Moon has become an advanced defense post for Earth Space Defense (ESD)… which will however be quickly swept away by the response of ever more bellicose and very vengeful aliens.
LunarMax Prison
Columbia Pictures
A maximum security prison, which houses the worst criminals in the universe. Among them, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), a formidable Boglodite who dreams of revenge on Agent K, one of the best Men in Black.
Damage from “Raptors”
Radical Pictures
Destroyed by this warlike alien race, the Moon caused a cataclysm on Earth, forcing humanity to find refuge on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. At least, that’s what Tom Cruise thought he knew about the world of Oblivion…
Sam Rockwell
Sony Pictures Classics
You don’t need a budget to make a great sci-fi film. The proof with Moon, who sends Sam Rockwell alone to the Selene lunar station, where he manages the extraction of helium 3, the only solution to the energy crisis on Earth… Until a strange discovery turns his daily life upside down.
The Alpha base
ITV
In the Cosmos 1999 series, at the end of the 20th century, following a violent explosion, the Moon has diverted from its orbit and is drifting to the edge of space. The inhabitants of the Alpha base will have to face the multiple dangers that this infinite universe conceals. Will they see Earth again?
The body of a Space Cowboy
Warner Bros.
Warning, spoilers… In the moving finale of Space Cowboys, by Clint Eastwood, William “Hawk” Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), suffering from a serious illness, sacrifices himself for the mission and treats himself to the moment he had always dreamed of, a face to face with the Earth from the lunar surface.