Superman the Movie and Time Travel

[Megotu]

It was only years later that I realized that most people interpreted the time travel sequence in the first Superman movie as Superman spinning the Earth backwards on its axis to reverse the course of time.

If that was the intent of the movie makers, that sucks. And it makes no sense at all.

Stopping the Earth would have the Coriolis effect create 1000 mph winds across the face of the planet. Picture this...the Earth stops but the entire fluid atmosphere would continue rotating just like always. 1000 mph is a rough estimate using the Earth's rotational speed which is pretty obvious when you think 24 hours for a rotation of a 25000 mile circumference spheroid.

When I saw the movie, I was thinking of a slingshot effect time warp as seen several times in Star Trek, sending Superman into the past and not the Earth.
Basically, Superman puts himself into a high speed orbit and attains relatavistic speed and shears away at a tangent. This places him at faster than relativistic speed. Since you cannot go faster than the speed of light, time begins to flow backwards. Think of it as climbing a mountain. Climbing upwards is equal to going forward in time. But once you cross the peak of the mountain, or its relativistic peak, you begin climbing down, whch is backwards in time. the visual of seeing the Earth stop spinning and then rotate backwards was a visual interpretation of the time travel.

That was how I always saw it anyway.

[Riffster]

that was the worst part of the movie..

[Brazoo]

When I saw it I thought he was spinning the world backward, I was 7 years-old when it came out and it blew my mind.

The flaw in your thinking is that he doesn't stop or reverse the Earth alone, he reverses the atmosphere and everything - prove me wrong - so there!

Actually I hadn't seen it in years, and when the Donner cut of part 2 came out I realized that Superman was actually going back in time and not reversing time. But that still doesn't fully explain why it happened.

This does:

deus ex machina
–noun
1. (in ancient Greek and Roman drama) a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot.
2. any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot.

[Brazoo]

Oh - and I still like it a thousand times more than the super-kiss!

[LadyZod]

In comics (pre crisis) whenever Superman traveled back in time, he would just get himself to top speed and would fly in a circle or something to get to that point.

I always figured he went back in time and just happened to fly around the earth to do it and still stay in relatively in the same place (better than breaking the time barrier and finding himself 8 kabillion miles away from earth)

That's why none of his good deeds are undone.

Although that does bring up an interesting dilemma, in comics it's stated he cannot physically be in two time periods at one time, otherwise the second (time traveling) version of himself would be a ghost with no tangible physical body and therefore would be unable to touch or change anything. That prevented using time travel as a means to correct his mistakes... and it prevent him teaming up with himself.

[boynightwing]

I think it was more of a metaphor. He was slingshoting back in time.

I'm also of the belief he can only ever do that once. It was the trauma of seeing Lois dead that gave him the will/raw emotion to do it. So he can't willy-nilly just time travel.

[Brazoo]

Wait a second - I seem to recall Superman 'correcting' the Earth's spin after making it go backwards for a bit. If he was just traveling back why would he need to do that?

[Riffster]

for me it was cause he didn't do anything but make time go backwards.. when he stated the world/time again the earthquake would happen all over again and Lois would still die..

[kryptosmaster]

Wait a second - I seem to recall Superman 'correcting' the Earth's spin after making it go backwards for a bit. If he was just traveling back why would he need to do that?

Well maybe he was moving backward through time so his view of events were in reverse and perhaps he over-shot his intended timeframe so he then started flying in the other direction in order to arrive at the intended minute. Kind of like if you were on one of those playground merry-go-round spinning things and then you jump off and it continues to spin as you watch it but if you want it to spin in the other direction you have to slow it down to a stop and then spin it the other way.
Rich

[jp1969]

I saw this movie at the Drive in age 9.
Looked to me as if he spun the world around and time reversed itself,then gave it a nudge to get it going in the right direction again.
Always thought that was the lame part of the movie.
The fun part of that night was the arcade.
Loved Phoenix.

[thunderbolt]

He should have done it again to make Superman 3 and 4 go away.

[Brazoo]

Ha - Well said.

I'd still like to hear a rationalized sciencey version of the super-kiss.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I re-watched this just the other day. I think a lot of problems would have been solved by having Superman do his spin thing and actually re-enter the timestream in the past and stop Lois' car from going into the crack in the earth. This way he would have stopped all the other disasters the first time around, and by traveling back in time, saved Lois. She was "killed" after he performed his last super-feat after all.

I always wondered why he didn't just go back and spin it back enough to stop Lex from taking over the missles, so NO damage would be done.

My son was watching it with me and asked "Why didn't he just go back and save his dad (Pa Kent)?

It's a cool effect, but upon ANY examination, it just falls apart. If Superman can and would do that for Lois, and not for more important matters, it makes him look a bit selfish.

Of course, it was a last minute addition to the movie, since they were starting to wonder if Superman II would ever be released, so they added it to the first movie.

Chris

[Mikey]

It is forbidden for you to interfere with ...

It is forbidden

It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history

It is forbidden

[Brazoo]

He's going pretty quick when he spins the world backwards - maybe he should have just flown quicker when he had the chance to save her in the first place! He have a cramp in his leg or something?!

Personally, I thought the selfishness of the act was probably the whole point Donner and Puzo were going for. It's a lot clearer (and more interesting) in the Donner Cut of part 2. In part one I take it as sort of a message like; Superman is not an infallible god - he's a man with a gods powers - and his struggle to consolidate that side of himself will always be his burden.

Again, I think it's A LOT better in the Donner version of Part 2. He's saving the entire world - not just Lois, he's breaking his oath to his father because of his mistake (of giving up his power to be a normal man), and he cuts off his final ties with Krypton to regain his powers.

It's a lot more effective to me - Also (and please correct me if I'm wrong) I think it's the first time Superman's character has been portrayed with any kind of 3rd dimension. I also thought Donner and Puzo did a brilliant job of giving his character dimension without stepping over the line (in Superman Returns I thought they stepped over the line and portrayed him like he was on the verge of mental collapse. It was way too much.)