https://screenrant.com/superman-1978-movie-time-travel-controversial-reason-explained/
Richard Donner's beloved 1978 film Superman has one polarizing moment - Superman's sudden use of time travel in the film's climactic ending.
I don't mind the idea of Supes time-traveling, what I mind is the way the time travel was represented visually!
Making the Earth stop spinning and go into reverse wouldn't affect the passage of time, it's just tear the continents off and end life on Earth in a volcanic hell.
I'm not sure how many times this needs to be explained. He did not make the earth rotate in reverse. He is flying faster than the speed of light to go back in time. (A common method used in comics and SF for decades.) The earth turning backward is simply his perception of it as he is moving backwards. Which is exactly what someone doing so would see.
The visual does not show him touching the earth or pushing anything. It shows him flying very fast.
It wasn't explained in the movie, at all. It looked like he was rewinding Earth, like a clock.
shareThey were likely depending on familiarity with the comics. That isn't a wise decision. Many people, including the makers, probably think that everyone knows Superman and is familiar with his abilities. I have seen studies which purport to show significant numbers of people have never heard of Superman. That actually doesn't surprise me. For any particular subject, whether fiction, entertainment, science, politics, or whatever, there are people who have so little interest in them that they simply no nothing about them.
shareThis was less surprising than Supes being felled by a horse in the 90s, even though he'd previously defeated Zod, an evil clone of himself, a murderous supercomputer, and Nuclear Man
shareI never read superhero comic books back then, because I HAD a LIFE, believe it or not.
That's such a jerk thing to say. I enjoy reading comics and it's not because I don't have a life. Way to diss peoples' hobbies. Not to mention if comics didn't exist neither would this movie.
shareI read comics when I was a kid, they were called The Beano, The Dandy, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee! and a few others. I bet you've never heard of those?
Nope. I'm more into Marvel and DC comics. Though I do own a few that aren't Marvel and DC. Like Raver and Zolastraya and the Bard.
shareI didn't mean to be nasty about people who read superhero comic books, after all, the artwork that goes into them is really quite cool and impressive. I actually think some of the imagination and skills in drawing them has diminished since Marvel and DC transferred to movies.
Yeah. Comics don't sell as well as they did years ago and they probably will cancel them eventually since DC and Marvel can make more money with just movies and shows.
shareExactly correct.
share[–] Costumer (1527) 14 days ago
I'm not sure how many times this needs to be explained. He did not make the earth rotate in reverse. He is flying faster than the speed of light to go back in time. (A common method used in comics and SF for decades.) The earth turning backward is simply his perception of it as he is moving backwards. Which is exactly what someone doing so would see.
The visual does not show him touching the earth or pushing anything. It shows him flying very fast.
No. Its the same perception thing. He went to the past. He overshot and came back a bit.
shareThat makes no sense. If he overshot by going too far back in the past, why does he have to reverse direction to go to the future? And if he's "flying faster than the speed of light to go back in time" then how does he go forward in time?
Edit: You have completely contradicted yourself with your response. If reversing direction and going the other way is because "he overshot and came back a bit" then clearly you agree that flying against the Earth's rotation causes time to reverse and flying with the Earth's rotation causes time to go forward.
This is in direct contradiction to your assertion that he's just "flying faster than the speed of light to go back in time"
Sigh. As I have said many times, in the comics, which is the source of this scene, Superman flies counter clockwise to go into the past. He flies clockwise to go to the future. Does that make sense? No. But that is how it is done, and what happens here.
Nearly all comic book physics doesn't make sense. But this was the consistent method at least up to the nineties.
It is not a matter of reverse and with. It is a matter of clockwise and counter clockwise. So, no, I have not contradicted myself. And before you go off on this isn't the comic, you're right. But a great deal of this film is based on that, without any explanation on how it "works."
WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE COMIC BOOKS!!! I CERTAINLY DON'T!!!!!!
Stop it, Costumer, you've lost the argument. That stupid time travel moment in Superman KILLS the movie for most people, including me!
I don't actually stop comments because someone says to. I reference the comics, because that is the source of the story and the character. Baring a specific declaration that the film is addressing the source differently (which does happen and is often a reasonable approach for some scenes) the original source material should take precedence.
My description of Superman's ability to travel through time is accurate. It fits the images in the film. He never touches the earth. He is traveling through time, not making the earth rotate backwards (which would not do anything other than mass destruction over the entire planet.)
You are free to interpret it differently. Whether you "give a shit about the comics" is your own predilection. Many of us do care. Many don't. Those of us that do are perfectly within our right to promote our view.
Is there a reason you decided to post 5 response within minutes of each other, displaying increasing anger the whole time?
I don't acknowledge any loss of argument. You think you are right. Fine. I think i am. Only I will decide when, and if, to stop posting on the topic.
Author of the Sodality Universe
The Road from Antioch
In the Markets of Tyre
Flight to Lystra
The Theater at Ephesus
The Council on Jerusalem (coming 2023)
Personally I will take the time travel story in this over the time travel story Donnor wanted for Superman 2.
shareThe time traveling was the one thing I hated about the movie. Superman is already incredibly powerful, and he can turn back time too? Having him pull that out in order to save Lois was pretty weak. And it raises the question of why he just doesn't do it any time he fails to save the day.
shareHe doesn't "turn back time," at least not the way I think you are saying. He goes back in time. Once there he does things differently so things turn out differently; which is one of several common tropes on the mechanics of time travel. (all of which are made up, of course.)
shareThat's it, you're Ignored.
Well what Donnor wanted was for this movie to end with Superman catching both missiles, throwing them into space, and then unintionally freeing Zod, Ursa, and Nom from the Phantom Zone. Then in the end of Superman 2, he would reverse time several days, in the same way, hurl the missiles in a different direction than the phantom zone prison, and make it so that the entire 2nd movie didn't happen. I'd argue the later is worse.
shareI didn't mind it.... :D It's fiction.
share