Georges Méliès’ background as a liberal-minded political cartoonist is most clearly revealed in his cinematic tales of travel, adventure and exploration. At the turn of the nineteenth century, colonization was in the process of enriching major world powers while undermining or destroying indigenous cultures. Méliès recognized this internationally practiced government initiative as a power- and resource-mongering exploitation favoring violence toward and distrust of colonized peoples in the name of modernity. Consequently, many of Méliès’ voyage films depict absent-minded, abusive and disaster-prone characters as they bumble through wonderous settings and unknown places, often easily distracted from their missions or halted by missteps. In this way, Méliès illustrated the absurdity of colonialism and provided audiences with a lighthearted yet critical view of the driving foreign policy of the time. Along with Méliès’ humorously ineffectual characters, modern technology also proves its unreliability and unpredictability in his films—which are, of course, only made possible by that very genealogy of technological innovation—again revealing Méliès’ sense for the ironies of his era. At the same time, Méliès’ voyages often blend and overlap with his surreal dreamscapes. The Inventor Crazybrain and His Wonderful Airship is as much a fantasy of the blurring of dream and reality as it is a depiction of the spirit of discovery and technological advancement of his age, a commonality which underlines the sense that, for Méliès, the two were inextricably linked. As modernism rolls on from town to town (in panorama, from atop the train!), glimpses of beauty are overshadowed by the need to continue full steam ahead at all costs. If only it were all a dream!