Superman

Superman (1978)

30 corrected entries

(10 votes)

Corrected entry: In the "Can you read my mind" scene where Superman is flying with Lois Lane through the clouds, we see a pigeon flying close beside them. Do pigeons fly above the clouds?

Correction: According to Encyclopedia Britannica, most pigeon species have been spotted above 2,000 feet. These could have been low-lying clouds.

wizard_of_gore

Corrected entry: Towards the end of the movie, where Clark is racing (or flying) after the rocket to save Lex's girl's mom first, it seems obvious how he is struggling to catch up to the rocket. But then later, he is circling the earth to 'rewind' time, to save Lois... he must have easily been going ten times faster than he was when trying to catch the rocket.

Correction: Even Superman has to deal with air resistance in the earth's atmosphere. When he is turning back time, he is in space and therefore can fly much faster.

Corrected entry: The first time he catches Lois, he doesn't break her fall at all - he just stops her in midair, meaning that there'd be no difference from if she'd hit the pavement.

Correction: I believe this is the scene where Lois falls from the helicopter on the roof of the Daily Planet building. He doesn't just stop her in midair, rather he slows her descent since he's actually moving downward for a bit as he catches her. Then reverses and flies to the roof of the building with her. You could tell this by the way the background moves when he catches her.

Corrected entry: When Lex is detailing his plan to Superman over the map on the floor, Otis puts an overlay of the San Andreas fault over California. A few moments later, Otis drops a second overlay on top of the first, this time of the revised coastline Luther is planning. Superman and Luthor talk for a few moments, and Lex tells him it was hard to find the ideal spot to hit with the missile. He then strikes the floor with his cane, cracking the glass of the map, but it's the first overlay that is cracked, and the second overlay is suddenly gone.

Vader47000

Correction: Otis may have picked up or moved the overlay aside when he was off-screen erasing "Otisburg."

JC Fernandez

Watching the scene now, I don't think Otis had time to move it. He is off-screen for no more than 2 seconds, the entire time which you can hear him wiping. We would have heard him move the overlay, plus I don't think he had room to do so, even if there was time because Superman crosses in front of it. I think the mistake is valid.

jshy7979

Corrected entry: In the scene where Superman is flying with Lois Lane, they climb up through the clouds, with the moon in the background. Their shadow appears directly below them on the clouds. Is there another moon we don't know about?

Correction: The light source of the shadow is the reflection of the moonlight from the clouds above them.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: If Superman has super-hearing, how come he didn't hear the helicopter crash on top of the Daily Planet? (You can tell he didn't hear by the double take he does when he looks up.)

Correction: This should be fairly obvious. Superman can control his super-hearing. Imagine what his life would be like if this ability were "on" all of the time.

Corrected entry: Baby superman's Christmas ornament spacecraft can travel right through a sun but the pointy things all around it shrivel and burn when it hits earth's atmosphere?

Correction: The spacecraft is an alien spacecraft. Jor-El could've detailed it to be impervious to the heat of the Krypton sun.

Corrected entry: When Lois is interviewing Superman for the first time, she already knows that he has X-ray vision and is impervious to pain. How can she know this since she is supposedly the 1st person to interview him? She should only know that he can fly and has amazing strength. (01:28:45)

Correction: At least half of this deserves a correction: I don't know about the other half. On Superman's first night, someone hits him with a crowbar. A police interrogation of that criminal would have made the papers and led to the conclusion that Superman might be impervious to pain. Lois would have read every word written about him before the interview (there may also have been a radio report, since this was the very next day). We didn't see anything on screen Superman's first night where he used X-ray vision, but it's not unreasonable to suggest that he showed a lot of powers that night and Lois was verifying rumors during the interview.

K.C. Sierra

Corrected entry: Lex Luthor claims the yield of each bomb is 500 megatons, and that the second one is headed for Hackensack, NJ. Given Hackensack's proximity to Metropolis, a 500 megaton bomb would wipe out the entire city, Lex Luthor included. (01:57:10 - 02:01:25)

Correction: This is part of the plan in case Superman gets free of the Kryptonite necklace. He states that Superman cannot stop both of the missiles, and by sending one close to Metropolis, this pretty much guarantees that Superman will have to stop the one closest to him first to have any chance at stopping the other one. As seen in the movie, it proves not to be enough time indeed, as the missile detonates in California.

Jazetopher

Corrected entry: When Superman reverses time and saves Lois, he never actually prevents the missiles from hitting the San Andreas fault, therefore he did not stop the earthquakes, therefore shouldn't the ground still open up behind her car?

Correction: Superman reversed time to a point where he was able to stop BOTH missiles. Presumably he went back to the point where he was originally stopping the first one, and went to stop the second one. So for a brief period there were two of him.

Factual error: When Superman is turning back time by flying around the Earth, right before he starts orbiting the Earth is spinning way faster than it actually should be. If the Earth actually spun that fast, a day would pass by every 1.44 minutes.

More mistakes in Superman

Superman: I'm here to fight for truth, justice and the American way.

More quotes from Superman

Trivia: The famous (or infamous) New York City blackout of 1977 occurred during location shooting for "Superman." According to director Richard Donner, cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth mistakenly believed he had caused the blackout by plugging in a spotlight to a lamppost while filming.

More trivia for Superman

Question: When Superman went back in time to save Lois, doesn't that mean that the people that he had originally saved are now doomed to die?

Teru_Kage

Chosen answer: No. Because the version of him *before* he time-traveled is still out doing those things. The REAL question is, what happens to that Superman, seeing as Lois no longer dies and he has no reason to travel back in time.

JC Fernandez

Answer: There are generally two methods of time travel. Skip vs Slide. When you slide through time, you are in essence rewinding or fast forwarding a tape. Time will accelerate to the desired moment. This method, the traveler will witness the rewind and will only allow one of them to exist. When skipping, you are plucking yourself from the time stream and placing yourself in the desired moment. This method, travel is instantaneous and can allow for multiples of the traveler to exist at once. Superman rewound time. He used the slide method and went directly to Lois after doing so. This means those he previously saved...died after his reversal.

Or he could have used the skip method. Like you said, it enables a traveler to pluck themself from the time stream and placing them at the desired moment allowing for two Supermen to be able to prevent both missiles from reaching their destinations.

He couldn't have used the skip method if he rewound time.

Bishop73

More questions & answers from Superman

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.