The rating really is irrelevant - what's more important is the influence this film had. One of the first science fiction films, it really showed what you could do with the new medium of cinema. Heavily influenced by stage, but a crucial evolution from the Lumieres – the Lumieres photographed nature, Melies offered audiences a reconstructed life. The sets remain impressive and it's still good fun. The film was hugely successful, but not as profitable as it should have been because it was frequently illegally pirated.
Melies continued to produce films, but his filmmaking style did not progress much past the groundbreaking work of 1899 to 1902. His films began to seem old fashioned compared to the work done by other filmmakers such as Edwin S Porter and D W Griffith. (They would compose scenes out of separate shots rather than just one shot, change the camera's point of view, employ a close-up in addition to medium and long shots.)
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