Georges Melies' film The Conquest Of The Pole is similar to several of his earlier adventure films except this film is much longer than most. As a result, many viewers claim this film is not quite as good as the others due to the padding of some scenes, especially the flying to the North Pole sequence when the aircraft passes constellation after constellation. The aircraft, though crude and ridiculously unrealistic, is synonymous with the backdrop/sets and other effects in the film. Remember, The Wright Brothers had only paved the way for air travel a few years before. Once at the pole, terrific action sequences occur with an ice monster of some sort followed by a rescue. By now Melies had fallen behind the times with developing film techniques, such as crosscutting, meaning Melies' development as a filmmaker was related more to his being a magician and an effects wizard and not necessarily his being a storyteller. The only issue in the film is there are only five explorers visible at the pole when several more were selected to go to begin with. *** of 4 stars.

I really enjoyed this movie. Some of the other users have complained that there are scenes that don't advance the plot. I can't say this really bothers me in a movie that's less than ten minutes long.I was most impressed by the production design. The sets and backdrops were lovely, and the whole film has a coherent look. The makers of this film obviously put a lot of effort into creating their fantasy world. Even if the journey through the zodiac didn't move the story forward, it held my attention because it was so imaginative and so beautiful.While the effects are primitive by today's standards, they work because they're consistent with the design as a whole. Modern special effects are much more sophisticated, but that means nothing if they aren't smoothly integrated into the rest of the film. Melies and his collaborators created a world that I wanted to believe in.

Méliès made some pretty weird features, and this is one of the strangest. It's certainly entertaining to watch, and at times it reminds you of "Trip to the Moon", although it is not as good. The main difference is that "Conquest of the Pole" has more padding, material that doesn't go anywhere other than to set up some camera tricks. Yet it's still worth seeing, and it is filled with interesting visual effects.The story itself, based on another Jules Verne story, starts off in a fashion similar to some other Méliès adaptations of Verne, this time with a scientist detailing his plans to go to the North Pole. It gets bizarre pretty fast, and many of the conceptions seem unnecessarily wacky. Yet there is always plenty to see on the screen, and Méliès's imagination is displayed in numerous ways. It's an interesting feature that is worth seeing for anyone who finds the great visual effects pioneer's movies interesting or enjoyable.

The great French innovator finally seems to be running out of imagination here. Having invented cinema as we understand it today, he eventually had to exhaust his fount of inspiration.This film could best be described as a remake of his "Voyage to the Moon" from 1902. Unfortunately much of the old vim is missing. Sequences run on for too long. At times the film seems more primitive than many of his earlier films.Still, there was life in the old boy yet. The « géant des neiges » (giant of the snows) episode is quite good with a monster who swallows intrepid Arctic explorers whole. The ice giant is about as good an effect as Fafner the dragon in Fritz Lang's "Siegfried", and that film was made in 1924. There is a funny moment when the explorers reach the Earth's Magnetic Pole. They are attracted right onto the needle they find and get stuck there.The long (too long) scene where the explorers in their airship fly past the signs of the zodiac reminded me strangely of what Dorothy sees from her window as she is caught in the tornado in "The Wizard of Oz". That would make Méliès nearly 30 years ahead of his time.Nevertheless, I got the same impression I get with a lot of modern special effects films. Méliès was spending more money without necessarily expending more ingenuity. Perhaps he was only trying to imitate the lesser but more successful mortals who came after him.