The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema, when Georges Melies' "A Trip to the Moon" (1902) employed trick photography effects. The next major example (first in feature length in the genre) was the film "Metropolis" (1927). From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubrick's landmark "" (1968), the science fiction film genre was taken more seriously. In the late 1970s, big-budget science fiction films filled with special effects became popular with audiences after the success of "Star Wars" and paved the way for the blockbuster hits of subsequent decades.