Question About The Ending To Superman (1978) (scene, watching, best, character)

[ironpony]

My sister didn't like the ending at all, and she pointed out a huge plot hole in which Superman only stopped one missile to save Lois, but didn't bother to stop the second one. However, during the time travel you see everything reverse and go back to how it was, so I assumed he stopped both missiles, as that was just my natural assumption, and I think what the audience was suppose to assume

Am I wrong, and he only stopped one, or how do you tell?

[TamaraSavannah]

As I recall that scene, he was at altitude in the atmosphere pushing the Prattsville, NY (right?) missile away when the second one hit the west coast.


The thing is that one must remember that Superman isn't like us puny humans for he operates by a strong moral code of his ancestry, not our planet. When he reversed time, as I recall, he was arguing with his father's words.


He reversed time far enough to save his heart by saving Lois, that he could probably justify. To do more would have probably unraveled what makes him Superman...................


.......................to say nothing of erasing the evidence against Lex so he couldn't be imprisoned with the key thrown away and give him another chance to try again.



Moral codes, I wonder why so many miss that. This is like the argument I hear in the "The Six Million Dollar Man" pilot movie. Engineering wise, they should have replaced his left arm as well so he was balanced in capability. There are at least 4 reasons why they did not.


1. Dr. Wells was a dedicated physician and "do no harm" comes into play.


2. Dr. Wells was a good friend of Austin and this was not a person to him to experiment on. One does not come out of a coma to find themselves replaced by machinery and take it without comment. Dr. Wells probably knew that and probably couldn't tell his friend, "I wanted to make you the best you could be so I took away those parts of being human that I didn't think you needed anymore." It isn't like Robocop where R&D says, "We can pretty much do what we want.".


3. As indicated by the surgical team watching Austin come out of coma, they didn't know for certain if bionics was going to work in the first place.


And 4? It probably wasn't in the budget.........as indicated later on by "The Seven Million Dollar Man".


Or take "Solar Crisis" where the bad guy sabotages the solar mission because he believes it will hurt his profits. People argue how that doesn't make sense for if the mission is a hoax, he still has profits but if it is real and he stops it, he's toast with the rest of the planet.



THE POINT IS, he believes that delusion and he has the ability to put his agent aboard the solar mission. With that capability, it becomes meaningless to whether or not the threat is based on rational thought.


Movies.......what's in the head of a character does not necessarily have to be the same as our thoughts.

[English Dave]

I just thank gawd he saved Lois.......