Since the inception of the science fiction film, the genre has been built upon a thematic interest in the social and philosophical delights and dangers associated with industrial, communications and biological technologies. This is a characteristic that it shares with the written genre and, to an extent, with the science fiction comic book, graphic novel and television series. However, science fiction films are also known for their devotion to technological display and for the presentation of phenomenal spectacle. These are characteristics of the film genre that can be traced back to the beginnings of cinema. As outlined in the introduction, early forerunners of the science fiction film genre often featured the new technologies of the industrial age at the same time as they showcased the illusions made possible by the advent of the cinematic apparatus. Although George Méliès' La Voyage dans la Lune (1902) is probably the most famous proto-science fiction film, on a structural level many ‘trick films’ displayed a two-fold convention of presenting new and fantastic technologies within a formal composition that fore grounded cinematic intervention and invention. While audience members in 1895 may well have run away from the screen in fear and panic upon viewing Auguste and Louis Lumière's short ‘actualité’ of a train approaching the camera in L'Arrivée d'un train à la Ciotat, viewers quickly learned to distinguish the experience of seeing a film from the reality of modern life.