Check out the follow-up video: ua-cam.com/video/gKhbGslfvW8/v-deo.html All of you science-minded nerds who are arguing with us in the comments: I love you, but we are NOT talking about actual physics here. We are specifically talking about COMIC BOOK physics as a storytelling device. Specifically, how would a movie best convey this fantastical ability that Silver/Bronze age Superman had to travel time by breaking the "time barrier". The “time barrier” is not a real term, it's taken DIRECTLY from the comics, and I even show examples of this in the video. So let's even playing field here before you start rattling your logical swords at us in the comments.
@@prodigioussaps haha it’s like when science guys complain about Star Wars using light speed incorrectly but they are okay with space wizards and laser swords..
Regardless of the time travel elements, the part where Superman roared with grief over Lois's body and flew straight up towards the camera frightened the life out of me as a kid. Just one aspect of Christopher Reeve's awesome performance.
I agree. I always thought it showed Superman’s character perfectly. Such a powerful being is so gentle most of the time that when he does get angry, you know it’s serious.
@@prodigioussaps Superman rather Clark Kent would go back in time in Somewhere In time released in 1980 the same year as Superman II and The Shining. 🦸👍🤓🎥
But... When Supes stops his circling, the world continues spinning to the left. It doesn't immediately stop and resume it's normal spinning to the right like it should've. He has to fly in the other direction for Earth to finally change back to its original course. I know, it doesn't make sense scientifcally either, but that's what the filmmakers clearly showed.
@@hawaiidispenser You're correct. This wasn't an attempt to show him traveling back in time as they explain it, but actually showing superman spinning the earth backwards to reverse what happened. They're just fanboy's that are trying to justify the films awful portrayal of time travel.
Yes exactly. Otherwise, they would have just shown the events going backwards They clearly wanted to show that If the earth goes backwards Your reverse time
@@HappyDude1 You’re wrong…They made him fly faster until he was orbiting seven orbits per second (or close) which is light speed. Clearly HE was time travelling, not Earth. The intended mechanic looked perfectly well intended.
Literally the director said in 1978 that he turned the Earth backwards. It's in the script that way. Sorry, guys, but you're wrong on this. It's fine to accept that the movie has bad science in it; it's a superhero fantasy, not a documentary.
@@ViklasSvenske But it's still in the script. I and II were shot together although there were some reshoots after Donner was booted. Also, Donner talks about this in one of the documentaries.
Yup - I saw this as a 9 year old when it came out. the combination of the neat spinning effects and rolling the footage backwards made it pretty clear to me what was happening from a storytelling perspective. I was caught up in the emotion of the moment and went with it. I've been trying to recapture that as I watch movies these days - not concern myself with believability or physics, but storytelling. I actually find it more annoying when movies try to explain the "storytelling science" to me. Like Christopher Nolan movies. Interstellar in particular. He tried to get all cute with theoretical physics then makes a black hole something you can swim around in and contact your daughter in the past, then swim out of. It was a confusing mix of story physics and real physics and it annoyed me.
I don’t know man, that part where he “course corrects” more visually says he’s setting the rotation back to normal than over shooting and going back forward in time. The way you deciphered it makes better sense, but this scene doesn’t accurately covey that message. Especially as a kid, I saw that this movie defines time relative to the earths rotation and his super speed turned it backwards. Be honest, you did too.
Oh no question. And I agree, Brendan's "course correction" theory is just one way to look at it... I failed to mention this in the video, but the way I've always seen it personally is that's him returning to the present moment. Anyway this video is really more in response, as Brendan says at the beginning, to people who trash the scene because reversing the earth's rotation wouldn't turn back time. People who get hung up on that are missing the point. The important thing is to convey that he's altering "human history" to ressurect Lois (thus directly disobeying Jor-El's commandment), and I can't think of a more beautiful, poetic and emotionally impactful way to convey that than what they did. This way, you don't need any exposition, you can just show him doing it. Seeing it as him using super-speed to break the comic-booky time barrier is just a better way to think of it for the nerd-brained. Either way there are still loads of paradoxical problems with it, but I still love this whole damn thing to pieces. It's such an amazing scene.
Once Superman achieves traveling backward in time, even flying he has temporal momentum, still going back so that's why we still see Earth going backward. He must now do the reverse to go forward again, also he needs to watch what is happening to know when to pop back into the timeline. He comes in after Jimmy is rescued by the prior Superman (who he replaces in this new timeline) and fixes the fault line so Lois & the car never get swallowed in the crevice
When it's explained, it makes sense. Unfortunately, if a large number of people reasonably misinterpret it, the chosen method of storytelling has failed.
@@hadorstapa true. You need to dumb it down a lot for the general public if you are making blockbusters. Maybe if he went back in time only, the audience would have understood. The different directions flown coinciding with the same direction of Earth's rotation threw the audience off. Only 45 kids who graduate high school are ready for a job, military, or college. It's a frightening statistic but I'm just pointing out why you don't want blockbusters to be visually challenging. People will say it's dumb when they don't understand it.
@@vandammage2 true. The "death of the author" effect according to my English classes. But if we embrace that we can't go around saying "your interpretation is wrong!" about Superman making the planet spin backwards.
@@teagusmeagus7168 I didn't say the movie failed, just that little bit. And plenty of people commenting on this video seem to have had the same experience.
The real plothole is , Lex said earlier "even with your great speed,you can't stop them both" but this shows he would've been quick enough to stop both missiles.
It's not really a plothole? This is still early in Superman's life and he's still figuring his abilities out. You could always interpret it as, he didn't know he could go that fast, until he did.
@@Raja1938 True, he likely set the atmosphere on fire. There is an animation called Justice League where to beat Brainiac/Luthor Flash runs so fast he causes untold destruction to Earth. He ran so fast he looped the Earth in seconds. He also nearly gets sucked in the speed force, it was only because his friends pull him that he didn't get sucked in, he then states he can never go that fast again.
Yeah like most people, that part left me with so many questions. Like if he can fly faster than light, why wasn't he able to stop the other missile, lol.
THANK YOU! I always felt he went back far enough to save Lois while the Superman that was already there did what he did. He took off awfully fast when Jimmy showed up.
@@frankbrislin4378 for sure yeah, but isn't it plausible that his strength and actions are tied to his emotions? Or you never knew what you could do until you are pushed to a limit?
One theory we explore in the full episode is maybe Jor-El had warned him against flying over a certain speed because he would risk breaking the time barrier. Or maybe if he goes too fast he would ignite the atmosphere and cause a catastrophe, like the “Because Science” guy says in his video.
That's correct thinking. BUUUUT motivation. Rocky movies, Hulk TV. Show, Samson & Delilah, Chariots of Fire etc. you need love. Then the Hero finds it. Motivation I mean. Not Spinach.
The problem with the "course correction", if the theory is that he is flying so fast (faster than speed of light) that he turns back time, he cant just "reverse" the direction he is flying and then go forward again. Regardless of the direction he is flying, the speed would still turn time back.
That's a good explanation. Whenever we saw the Flash do it, it was just him running a straight path and you see a blur of colors & events around him. As a kid I just took it as "Earth spin backward, time go backward," which is only reinforced by everyone else saying that's that it was. They probably could have represented it better on screen, but I like your explanation WAY more than what most people have believe it was.
As a kid, and indeed when I grew up, I was under the impression that Superman flying at great speed caused the Earth to reverse its rotation, thus causing events to go backwards in time. I believed he was doing this so he could save Lois. However, I now believe he broke the time barrier, and from our perspective, the Earth was rotating backwards on its axis before returning to its normal forward rotation. Superman returned to Lois in the past, just a few minutes before the disaster struck. Overall, it's a great scene.
46 years later it took for this to come to light. I've watched all sorts of media about this movie and never has anyone ever said this is how the ending was supposed to be interpreted. Maybe there should have some exposition somewhere in the movie about how fast he can go and it leads us to this moment and think "oh, yeah, there's the thing they said an hour ago!".
Had the filmmakers shown Superman preventing the the second missile from detonating on San Andreas, then maybe it would have been a little clearer for the audience. Then again, regardless of how far back in time Superman went to prevent the disaster, it still doesn't explain how Lois Lane would have any knowledge of an earthquake, a gas station blowing up beside her car, and telephone poles falling all over the road. Why would she have experienced these things if Superman changed history and prevented them?
Exactly- that’s why I say in the video, the only thing changed was Lois didn’t die, or rather, the conditions in the immediate area around her that caused her death. We are lead to believe he undid all the damage because that’s what the film shows us, but as you say the dialog does not reflect that. It’s one of the oddities that makes this scene so fascinating to me. Also, we’re not actually shown him doing anything besides reversing time and then unreversing it… but I always assumed he must have zipped down to the surface and changed something before returning to the present moment. Otherwise nothing would have happened differently. But it’s all just head-canon really.
@@prodigioussaps How the the Super kiss which erases Lois Lanes memories of her knowning Superman's secret indentity in the second film? Part of the spinning the world back in time was used an alternate cut of Superman II which was originally intended for the second film or so I've heard?🦸♂🌏🌎🤔
@@prodigioussaps I think the only thing he may have done in the past was to simply move her car away from where the fissure was going to swallow it up. Then he returns to the present to reunite with her and @#$%-blocking Jimmy.
It bothers me that they took that scene in the film of Superman screaming in anguish at Lois' death and friggin' wore it out in Man of Steel. They had Superman SCREAMING every 15 minutes! Oh, Superman has an itch on his back that he can't reach... "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Ha! You know it's funny, it wasn't until I watched Screencrush's videos on Man of Steel that I realized how many story beats Snyder/Goyer borrowed from Donner's film. It’s just that so much of it is turned on its head (plus the non-linear storyline, of course).
I saw this in the theater when I was 9 years old. I went back and saw it 14 times before it left theaters. Every single time I imagined time being run backwards. I never once even considered the possibility that he was going back in time. I thought he was reversing time, up until this video. Now, that makes sense.
If that's what's really happening then that was a poor way to show it. Anyone seeing Superman flying around the earth and then seeing the earth turn backwards is going to assume that what Superman is doing is turning the earth back through time. If we just saw Superman flying around but showing him getting faster and faster as he does and then showing everything rewinding that would have communicated the idea much better but as it stands how can you blame people for thinking Superman is turning the earth back through time when everything being shown on screen seems to confirm that?
I don't blame them for thinking that. I've said so elsewhere in the comments and actually in the full episode this clip is taken from we literally wrap up the conversation by saying that... annnnd maybe I should have left that in this clip. Brendan started this conversation talking specifically about people who trash the scene because they can only see the scene the way you described. Some people have said in the comments that scene ruins the film for them because they can't NOT see it that way, and that makes me sad. Doesn't have to be that way!
The one “flaw” is that when he gets back in time to the moment when he saves Lois, the earthquake should be happening and the big crack on its way to swallow her car.
I like to think Superman went back in time to secretly add another gallon of gas into Lois' car so she didn't stop at the same point as she did previously.
I thought the same thing the first time I saw it. In fact, when they cut to what turns out to be the warden of Luther's prison and you hear the alarm go off, I thought he was the manager of the dam and the alarm was because of the earthquake happening again!
I figured this out as a nerdy kid who liked science. I immediately understood that by flying faster than light he travelled back in time, like a tachyon. Thank you Isaac Asimov for an informative childhood...
But then, as soon as he stops going fast Earth should have spun normally again. Furthermore, "course correcting" would have the same effect: going back through time even more. It is blatantly clear that was not the case, according to the way the Earth spins in the movie. He was changing the rotation of the Earth and putting it back the way it was afterwards.
@@Aerxis but, spinning around in space doesn't affect the earth. And if the planet started spinning the other way, we wouldn't go back in time. I think the planet still turning is supposed to mean that he's still time traveling a little bit, but has realized that he went too far back and now has to go the other way.
@@neutrino78x but going the other way doesn't make you go to the future, it gets you further back into the past (assuming you go at the same speed). If you reach faster than light travel continuously from below that speed, at some point you probably destroy the universe.
@@Aerxis "but going the other way doesn't make you go to the future, it gets you further back into the past " Right, that's what we're saying. He went too far back, so he had to circle back and go forward a bit. "If you reach faster than light travel continuously from below that speed, at some point you probably destroy the universe." I don't see how....are you talking about real physics or comic book physics? If you're talking Hard Science Fiction, well, as far as we know, you can only travel forward in time, and you can't reach or exceed the speed of light. I'm not sure where comic book/movie physics has said that traveling back in time would destroy the universe, unless you're changing something the causes the destruction of the universe....the mere act of going back in time would not... 🙂
Without watching the video: He didn't make the Earth spin backwards to reverse time. He reversed time, and so the Earth spun backwards. Unfortunately, the way it's shot doesn't visually tell that story clearly.
No, there are several major problems with the visual. And the producers didn't understand this either, because they added that "course correction" at the end to get Earth spinning the right way again. That wouldn't be needed at all, and would only cause a second time jump into the past.
@@protorhinocerator142 I mean, you could argue that it was *time* being made to go the right way again. There's no rules to something that's impossible to begin with. As for causing a second time jump to the past, we see the Earth rotate a good long way before Supes gets it spinning the right way again. Looks like more like a half a day or so to me.
@@protorhinocerator142 Shouldv'e. But of course that goes to other questions, like if he could reverse time, then why not go back far enough to catch the nuke he couldn't get to the first time and prevent it from hitting in the first place? And the answer of course is "it's a movie, quit asking logical questions."
I think the shot conveys exactly what it was intended to convey when they made the movie. We're here 40+ years later putting our own more informed expectations on it.
Finally someone lays it out nicely for the laymen. I’ve been saying this ever since I first saw the movie. He doesn’t turn back the world. It’s a visual device to illustrate time travel. The viewer POV is from outside of space/time
“And over the last few years we have heard a lot about something called ‘family values’. And like many of you, I have struggled to figure out what that means. And since my accident, I've found a definition that seems to make sense. I think it means that we're all family. And that we all have value.” Christopher Reeve, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1996. What a Super Man.
Oh my gosh, he clearly is spinning the Earth in the opposite direction. Then he has to subtly kick start it back in the other direction. This is clearly the focus and his intention. Furthermore, they act as if he had to do nothing once time is reversed. He still would’ve had to help all those people. How was Lois suddenly not in any danger? What changed? Did he get both missiles?? If so, they don’t show it. The entire thing is nonsensical and has always made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief.
@@Foebane72 lol part 2 is actually the worst as far as nonsensical things going on. And yes, the Donner cut didn’t do much to help it. I just don’t understand why they sucked so badly at sticking the landing, when clearly a lot of thought and effort went into every movie.
correct, and also, this ending completely contradicts the Silver Age constant that Superman cannot alter history when he goes back in time. If he attempts to do so, fate will intervene and put it back to what originally happened, just in a different manner. Same as when Jimmy Olson found his ancestors responsible for historic assassinations and he could not change the outcome of any when he tried.
@@dancarrick4357 It's my headcanon that the universe is always "picking" on Lois Lane because she was supposed to die. So fate keeps putting her in increasingly more and more dangerous scenarios in order to correct history, but Superman keeps saving her. Though, yeah it's absolutely maddening that they decidedly portray him as doing _nothing_ after going back. Even a line of dialogue from Luthor, like "I can't believe you stopped _both_ missiles!" would have established what happened if they ran out of budget to show it. Of course, if they ran out of budget, they certainly couldn't afford new lines from Gene Hackman, so there's that. But they could have easily done The Parent Trap (1961) thing and had Christopher Reeve tell himself "There's not enough time for both, just go to the past strait away after you save Hackensack, to preserve the time continuum." or something like that, I'm not a writer. Maybe, if they had the budget, and a double of Lois' car, they could do the stunt again and have him rip the door off and take her out of the car before it falls in the rift? Just _anything_ would have been better than _nothing._
Durning the making of Superman they were also shooting scenes for Superman 2. Superman going back in time was the ending to Superman 2 and that Special effect shots were finished The ending to Superman 1 was not done and they were running out of time and money so decided to stick the ending for Superman 2 on Superman 1 instead of finishing the special effects needed for 1. The movie had a set release date so no time was left. The Donner cut don't help as now both movies have the same ending. On some box sets they only give you the Donner cut! At least the original 2 movies stories work. Most people only see the Directors cut and Donner cuts which both differ from the theatrical versions. In my mind only Superman went back in time , the earth spinning backwards was just a visual cue that he bas going backwards. They didn't have any footage to add to the storyline of what he did different and Jimmy still says "thanks for saving me" so the bomb still went off. The only change shown was getting to Lois early and stopping her car before the hole it fell in, you can still see the cracked road in front of her car. Thats probably the only extra scenes shot to fix the movie before release. The movie was a hit anyways and now the sequel which was 3/4 shot had to have it's story change to fit a new beginning and end plus they didn't want to pay Donner or Brando to come back for the extra work to finish now that the first one was a hit. They cheap'ed out and it git worse with each movie 3 & 4. I still love the first two films flaws and all. Not a fan of the Donner cut as its still a mess too.
@@flavadave3943 I thought that when he turned back time that meant his past self was still saving everyone from the missle-caused earthquake while his time-traveling self saved Lois. It's the same as when the Avengers travel back to 2012. They don't need to fight the aliens, their past selves are already doing that. They can focus on their new mission of collecting the stones.
Here is my theory about this epic moment. Since Kal'El had volumes of knowledge stored away in the Fortress of Solitude, Jor'El may have taught him about the Speed-Force. It is also the reason Jor'El said you are forbidden to interfere in Human history as a way of keep Kal'El rooted in the present. Also, breaking the time barrier meant that there would be unforeseen consequences of breaking the time barrier (note Flashpoint Paradox). So, Superman moved through time to about several hours and also was able to occupy all points in time, thereby saving everyone during the quake and other events not shown. His final act was saving Lois and then returning to the exact he left. And when he landed, he was breathing heavy because he not expended so much power, he also was still dealing with the Kryptonite poisoning. He was tired, but he had a chance to save everyone, including the ones he loved.
Superman canonically doesn't use the Speed Force like the Flash does. He's simply so powerful that he can fly faster than light. But if you start looking at the physics of Superman brute forcing his way back in time, that much energy would destroy the planet. The Speed Force is "comic book magic" and doesn't destroy the world. We don't really know what it is, so we can't understand the physics of it.
@@protorhinocerator142. The speed force is a different dimension where speedsters access their powers. When Berry time travels he goes into the speed force then pops back out sense that dimension does not follow our universes timeline.
The problem is more that is superman goes back and saves Lois, original time superman shouldn’t have seen Lois dead and thus wouldn’t have gone back to save her.
Yep, it's one of several discrepancies in this scene that they didn't bother to clean up. But I can forgive it. The beautiful effects and emotional weight of the scene carry it for me.
That, and he could have gone back just a few minutes earlier and made it so the nuke never detonated in the first place. No nuke, no earthquake. But then you still have the paradox.
Reminds me of a similar thing that the Silver Surfer did back when he was still stuck behind Galactus' barrier that trapped him on Earth in the late '60s. He flew around the Earth, exceeding the speed of light, only to find that in doing so, he had flung himself far, far into the future, where Galactus' barrier was indeed gone... but the entire universe had been devastated by a nigh-invincible mutant conqueror. He tried to find a life in this dismal alternate future now that he could freely roam the stars again, but the tyrannical devastation of the mutant overlord was so great that he eventually decided that it was better to return back to the present, barrier and all.
The director's commentary (with the producer as well) does say he spun the earth backwards to turn back the earth's time. And what changed was the missile that was pushed out of the earth was what wasn't affected, leaving him able to stop the other missile that had killed Lois (and lots of other people).
The audience is seeing from Superman’s perspective but because the audience is seeing a wider perspective than the first person it’s a little confusing.
Maybe the filmmakers overlooked how the comic books illustrated Superman going back in time when doing that scene, because what they showed, implied Superman turning back time by reversing the rotation of the earth. Then he spins it back the other way, not to course correct his point in time, but to return the earth to its proper rotation. I think they wanted to put a new spin on his time travel, so they showed him reversing the earth's rotation. It would've been very easy to show him turning back time as shown in the comics. We see it in movies and shows when they superimpose years or dates or even calendar pages going back in years.
Yep that was pretty much our point, what you say in your second paragraph there. Like you say, it's a "new spin" on portraying time travel. I think some people are getting too hung up on the visual mechanics. We simply don't need accept that he literally reversed the earth's rotation. I mean you can, if you like, but the story doesn't require that to be literally what's happening.
I think you are giving the makers of the movie too much credit. They are movie makers, not physicists. While they may not have thought that just getting the Earth to rotate the opposite direction would reverse time of itself, they clearly thought he was reversing the direction of time flow and had to get it running in the right direction again once he got it to the point he was aiming for. Oddly enough, they accidentally came somewhat close. There is a solution in Einstein's General Relativity that implies that if you have an infinitely long massive rotating cylinder, and you travel around it counter to its rotation, you can be displaced in time. So, if you fudge a bit, you could argue that traveling really fast opposite the Earth's rotation, could have the same effect.
Yes but to be clear, we’re talking about comic book physics and how best to convey this ability that silver/bronze age Superman had, not actual physics. The “time barrier” is not a real term, it’s something the comic books used, and I show examples of this in the video. Comic book writers aren’t physicists either. It’s just a storytelling device. But yeah, I’ve come across that solution you mention as well, that’s pretty cool.
I think it is something in between: You start with an object made of a material from a part of the universe where the laws of physics are different (Superman's body) - which they make reference to earlier in the movie. Then you accelerate that object past the speed of light, around the earth. It creates a kind of warp bubble of reverse time. The earth, inside that bubble, appears to rotate the other way because it is moving backward in time. Superman has to then disperse the spacetime bubble of anti-time by going back the other way, bringing earth back into our time flow. So no, time doesn't automatically go backward just because the earth's spin is changed. That is the effect, not the cause, of reversed time. But also no, it's not just Superman going back in time - which wouldn't make sense that he would need to course correct or that it would still be going backward once he stopped. This was Kryptonian physics at play, involving creation of an area of reverse time.
1:27 -- I like how one of the answers establishes its bona fides by citing BACK TO THE FUTURE as its source. Like that's the Einsteinian irrefutable model for time-travel or something. 🤣
Ha, well yeah. Fair cop. But it is a really good example of how to handle that particular scenario. My favorite time travel of all time is still George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE. No nitpicks with that one at all, really, a very simple and solid story.
Thanks! I saw the Theatrical release when I was 11. I thought the time travel “power” was just bad science and was not familiar with the comic book explanation. Damn. I had Star Wars #1-10 in collectors bags, Howard the Duck, KISS (Blood ink). Speaking of Star Wars the movie. I saw it when I was 9, going into 6th grade and there was one scene that I thought was so campy I shared with my friend to see if he “got it.” Scene: Princess Leah’s interrogation droid. Problem? High tech Civ that is still using “syringes.” Ha!
Hey thanks so much for the super thanks! Yeah you’re right about the syringe, it’s also kinda like, is that a safety protocol thing where only droids are allowed to handle needles? CHEERS 👊
Well I never read the comics so thanks for clearing this up! Makes way more sense. Understandably confusing though. Tricky thing for the filmmakers to visualise I suppose.
Thank you! That drives me crazy too. When I first saw the movie, age 10, it was obvious to me that the world spinning backwards was code for "going back in time," and I couldn't believe it when I came across people who didn't get that. Which it seems like is everyone else. Except you. Thank you for reaffirming my sanity
He’s not spinning the Earth. It would destroy/kill everything for a start. The film cgi artists just should have had the Earth going back to its normal rotation when superman slows down, instead of keeping it rotating backward when he’s course-correcting. That’s the element that gives the false impression.
Sadly, said element is present in the movie, thus making it the correct impression. He is either correcting Earth's spin or correcting the time flow. Both of which are dumb, even in comic book logic.
Thanks for clearing this up! I bought nearly everything else in the story, but thought that making the world spin backwards was too far-fetched. Having this context helps a lot.
Speaking of getting things wrong, going fast has no effect of making time run backwards or transporting the fast object into a previous time, and material objects cannot travel at the speed of light. The physics of high speed objects has been understood for a long time. It's like saying that you're going to go back in time by reciting the words "Back, back, back...." There's no mystery about it and it doesn't work that way.
It stupid either way . Lois should have been hurt bad and put into the hospital. Then he realizes his limits and how close he came to losing her. Would have been a better emotional scene. He could have still done his scream seeing how hurt she was. Time travel was unnecessary and stupid in a mostly fantastic movie. Its the reason the scene of Mr. Kent dying of a heart attack is so good. With all his powers he cannot save everyone.
OMG ... FINALLY someone posted what a geek like me has been saying since I saw this as a kid. It was showing him going back in time because stopping the Earth and making it spin "backwards" would have, literally, destroyed the planet. - Thanks for posting!
In the Alyn Tudick show Powerless. They realize that Superman goes back in time whenever Lois Lane dies, so it turns into The Purge because they know they can get away with anything. Tudyk visits his cousin Bruce and returns to tell everyone that he knows who Batman is…
I always loved this movie. Everything about it is awesome. Also anytime someone has a debate about whether people can travel back in time I always say, 'Superman did it'!
I think the one thing that gets people messed up in how it's shown is that he changes direction. It shouldn't make any difference which direction he's flying, only the speed. But I understood the idea behind this moment even as a kid. The Earth only appears to change its rotation because we're seeing it from Superman's perspective as *he* is going backwards through time, folding his own timeline over so to speak. If he had just been shown slowing down instead of turning around, maybe people would be less confused about what's happening. I haven't read the script, but I suspect this was a miscommunication somewhere in the chain between the writer and the animator.
Except it's still a misunderstanding of Einstein's theory. Had the scene applied real-world physics, Superman (relative to observers on Earth) would have travelled into the "future" not the past - and not even by much, either!
@@paulholgate4664 I wasn't being serious. The entire comment thread is overanalyzing a film based on a comic book character, so I was just satirically joining in. 🤷♂️
Clearly, they were going for exciting drama and Superhero Moments. I was so young when I first saw this film (I was born in 1978) that I just thought something like “Superman is SO COOL!!!” I really think that was the simple reaction they wanted viewers to have.
Saw it in the theater and my first thought was that showing the Earth rotating in reverse was a weird way to show that Superman was travelling back in time. It was years later before I heard someone talking about how stupid it was to rotate the Earth backwards to reverse time; I had no idea that was what people thought was happening and now I can't unsee it whenever I watch the movie. Someone should make a cut just showing him flying up and screaming while his father talks, and then show a clock spinning backwards, a missile exploding in the air, and Lois alive; controversy resolved. And when DeadPool was fixing DC movie problems, he should have went back in time and cut out 4 minutes of that opening title sequence.
Hahaa love the Deadpool idea! As problematic as this scene may be for whatever reason, I still think it’s brilliant and the effect still looks gorgeous, even all these decades later. Plus it allows sufficient time for the emotional weight of it all to play out.
When I was 6 years old and saw this for the first time I asked my father "What is he doing??". My father explained he's going fast than the speed of light so that he can go back in time to save her. This movie introduced to 6 year old me in 1983 what the speed of light was and time dilation.
When I was much younger, I used to think that, but gradually understood what was happening as I grew up. Didn't even remember when it click for me. I only remember that even the first time I saw it, it looks ridiculous, yet there's something right about it, just couldn't put my finger on why it looks right.
There's a point earlier in the film where that quote is followed by "rather, let your leadership stir others to." I took that as being an instruction that Superman should try to help out, but not to directly change the outcomes of major events in human society. Taken in that sense, stopping certain major disasters could be seen as interference; especially when they're caused by other human beings, but Superman crossed that line a while back anyway, because he's not just an outside observer. What happens to people on Earth matters to him. That's what I took away from that scene.
@frankbrislin4378 - Yes. That's why he just said "F*** it!" and decided to change history anyway. What's a few minutes when thousands of lives are at stake?
Thank you! Now i KNOW I'm not the only one who got that. To continue that point, there is a reason you don't see TWO Supermans; there wouldn't be. Once Kal-El re enters the timeline at an earlier point he has altered time; the other Superman fades from this new version. He enters AFTER the prior Superman saves Jimmy but now knows where Lois is and corrects the faultline resulting in less damage. This is why they stand there and the car doesn't get swallowed up in the Earth.
I like that idea... but I'm confused, why woudn't the first Superman be just as permanent as the other characters? There is no causal relationship between the actions of time-traveling Superman and the Superman who has just saved Jimmy. Unless I'm missing something. From the first Superman's perspective, there is now a second version of himself visiting from five minutes in the future or whatever.... why would he fade from existence? Not arguing just playing devil's advocate. I love this shit.
@@prodigioussaps The instant that time traveling Superman re enters the timeline it branches off as a new timeline. The Law of Conservation of Energy says matter in the universe can neither be created or destroyed; it stays constant. So the current Kal-El stays in the old timeline, to follow up on the action as the entering Kal-El makes the change. The audience is now following what's happening in the new timeline.
I watched this video yesterday, and I was thinking about it all evening, and I've concluded that I disagree with you about the time-travel component of the movie, _Superman._ First, we must understand that what you said and what I'm going to say are just interpretations, and interpretations are as individual for movies and viewers. But despite your evidence and argumentation (which is excellent, by the way), I cannot agree with you. We have to remember that a movie is visual, so what the visuals tell us makes for a sound interpretation. I might agree with your interpretation, for example, if, once Superman, the character (hereafter referred to as S) reaches lightspeed in his orbit, the Earth had already begun to slow and/or reverse, but it wasn't until AFTER he made several revolutions at lightspeed that the Earth began to slow and reverse, which indicates that he is, indeed, reversing the rotation of the Earth. Further, if S were alone travelling back in time, and the Earth had not reversed direction in rotation, then when S stopped his lightspeed orbit, Earth would not have continued rotating because, as YOU say, S is moving back in time, not Earth. But the fact that the Earth continues to rotate backwards AFTER S has stopped his orbit, Earth must then be rotating backwards. Finally, the fact that Earth slows in its retrograde rotation before it moves in the right direction again also shows, as it does in my first point, that S did alter Earth's rotation. So I contend that S is, indeed, "making the Earth spin backwards" (0:23-0:25). Now, many are still going to argue that Earth spinning backward won't alter the direction of time. To this, one could counter, "How do you know? How many times have you witnessed Earth altering its rotation?" Since we don't KNOW that it wouldn't have that effect, there's no reason for anyone to argue against it. One last thought from a guy who taught high school and college literature for 30 years: A work of art (literary, pictorial, musical or cinematic) is not dependent on what the author or artist says. An interpretation of a work of art is valid as long as it is supported by that work of art. In other words, I can't argue that _Star Wars_ is a tale about mice because there's no foil in the text for me to point to to indicate that I have that leeway. I can, however, argue that the premiere episode, "A New Hope," is an allegory of good vs evil, because the story does support that, whether Lucas has said so or not. So, since the visuals of the movie _Superman_ can be interpreted as S reversing Earth's rotation, the interpretation is valid because the visuals support it. Mind you, what I say is JUST my interpretation. You are free and welcome to disagree and even offer counterarguments. And, in the words of the legendary philosopher Forest, Forest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that." 😉
"Overshooting" isn't the reason for his second zip around Earth. By breaking the speed of light, he (I would argue) time-reveresed himself with respect to the Earth, as the characters do in Tenet when they enter a turnstile. So he had to break the speed of light AGAIN to un-time-reverse himself.
Speaking as someone who really likes Superman '78 overall and think it gets underrated in modern superhero movie discourse: I think it's reasonable to say the movie didn't convey this as effectively as it could have. Especially considering general audiences don't consider time travel as something Superman could do (I'd say even today, the vast majority of people who know he can do that know it because of this movie).
I must admit I didnt realise this, but I was 4 when the movie came out so was probably very young when I first saw it. This makes much more sense to me now.
Wait a minute... isn't there a scene where Perry's toothpaste goes back into the tube? Your theory would work, though... make more sense, at least... but also ... isn't there a scene where the stones are returned to where they were, at the dam? I'm both a science and science fiction fan, I learned a long time ago that there were some questions in science fiction that are better unasked. In the real universe there is no way that a star ship could travel as fast as the Enterprise travels, but hey, it is FICTION. Nudge, nudge (and I bet neither of you know where 'nudge, nudge' comes from! )
Hi Kathleen! The toothpaste-going-back-in-the-tube shot is in the Donner Cut of SUPERMAN II, but yes we do see boulders rolling backwards up the hill and all the damage to the dam being undone, etc. as time is running in reverse. BUT! And here's my big BUT (as our friend Willy used to say)... when Superman returns to the present, none of those things appear to actually have been undone, based on what Jimmy says when he runs up to them bitching about being left in the middle of nowhere during an earthquake. Meaning, he still rescued Jimmy from the dam, thus the earthquake still happened, thus the missile still hit California, and so on. Otherwise why would he even be there? If all those things had actually been undone Jimmy would still be at Hoover Dam taking photographs. Lois talks about the earthquake, as well. As I say in the video, the only thing that's really different is that crack in the earth didn't overtake Lois's car and the landslide didn't hit her, so Superman must have done something to minimize the aftershocks in the immediate area. Her death appears to be the only event that he changed.
@@prodigioussaps Wink wink, say no more! This is a DEAD parrot. Confuse a cat. I'm a lumber jack and I'm OK. (I wonder if the young would get 'the vapors' if we sung that in front of them?)
@@prodigioussaps You're right! Especially Jimmy's rescue, implies everything happens except the cracked road and Lois' death. I wonder if the writers ever saw that (cough cough) the crack in their plot? If they had considered showing him doing something to prevent the crack, I mean? I have one weakness, I like things to make sense, even in fantasy and science fiction. When I write I struggle with keeping the plot details tight knit and coherent. I always wished better writers had had a hand in writing the later Superman movies. The second and third movies, particularly. The Fourth one, I understand... the mid-late 1980s, cold war, the USSR and the constant threat that someone would do something really stupid... it was a time when sending all the nukes sailing into the sun seemed like a genuinely good idea. I try to ignore the scene with the lady editor breathing vacuum.
Surprisingly when I was a kid I get the part of back on time, I really think the film lacked of a signal of Supes travelling because it looks the only thing it was done was magicaly reverse time, but if a Superman who knows what's going to happen stops the missiles before they got rocketed, and saves lois that is logic from a script perspective. I still love the Superman movie and it's one of my favorites on the superhero genre. Thanks for the video!
Where are the cracks in the ground that Lois was trapped in? Jimmy confirms that there was an earthquake, but no cracks that originally "un-alived" her?
Superman did what an middle aged Will Riker did in the Star Trek TNG novel, "Imzadi", he used to Guardian of Forever to get Troi, who was killed in his timeline, BACK. Same purpose, slightly different methods. Changing time to save someone you love.
The Rick and Morty anime did something like that when Space Morty died. Reverse Rick made an antimatter event to destroy the whole universe and get him back. It was a whole lot more complex, and required pretty much the whole season for the concept to really make sense for me.
Thank you. Finally, somebody has said exactly what I've been thinking about this. It's always so frustrating when people rip it apart because he's 'rotating the earth backwards to turn back time - that can't happen'. No. He is moving so fast that he is travelling back through time, and this causes the earth to 'appear' as if it is spinning backwards. Why is this so hard to understand? I get that it is a comic book movie. There are a lot of issues/plotholes. This isn't one of them.
Yeah, i don't buy it. Because "course correct" is a far less-convincing argument than the more obvious intent of saying he put things back on course again. I think it was just a bad idea in one of the first-ever superhero films. I could buy the explanation if he hadn't done that; all he needed to do under that concept is reverse time and stop, then.
@@Goldnfoxx we shall have to agree to disagree. I prefer to 'believe' that Superman is an aspirational figure, but he is not perfect. When trying to do something that he has never attempted before (time travel) he doesn't get it exactly right first time. He overshoots and backs up to get the right point. He has been warned about the dangers of time travel, if you loosely interpret the line about not interfering in their history. If he were to re-engage at an earlier point then there is greater chance of problems by the dint of there being two versions of himself present. His earlier self seeing him would create a paradox because it may influence the decisions he then makes. He wants to reverse this one event, nothing more. On the other hand, we are arguing about a man travelling faster than the speed of light. Through self-powered flight. While maintaining perfect hair.
@@JamieVogelsBrain I don't mind agreeing to disagree. I just think it's more the sort of thing that, had this been Marvel Comics instead of a DC film, might've won a No Prize. I just don't see any reason to think that's what Donner was going for, and just wasn't noticed or challenged beyond being poked fun at for most of my life.
Not being a "comic" reader, I didn't know that Superman had been able to time travel... so this is the first time I've realised what was actually happening in the film, with the "Earth spinning backwards" thing. I always assumed that he was rewinding time, rather than travelling back in time himself... so thank you for clearing this up for me, after all these years. I didn't "like" the idea of him rewinding time by making the Earth spin backwards, but I just accepted it, because it's just a film!
There is enough context. Light is fast enough that if it's curved it could travel around the world 7 times in one second. And since he's definitely circling more than 7 times a second, he must be going FTL.
There is just one problem with your theory. If Superman went back in time, why didn't he go to the point before the bomb exploded and prevented it from happening?
Well that’s a fair question no matter how you interpret this scene. If he can undo historical events, why not just prevent the missiles from launching in the first place? The only answer is he just didn’t. Saving Lois was his only concern at that point. Funny thing is in the Donner Cut of Superman II, where they have him turning back time again because that was their original ending for that movie, Superman actually DOES undo everything… he essentially rewinds the entire movie and sends the villains back into the Phantom Zone.
@@BoundyMan Maybe he didn't alter time. He altered the trajectory of the plot to which he understood it drifted from his path. He had already done things to mitigate the damage caused by the earthquake but couldn't save Lois. That was the calamity he couldn't forestall. So what he did was reverse it. He reversed the outcome and it is possible maybe even did prevent the catastrophe because when he lands she isn't in any danger. We're missing something from when he reversed it and began moving it forward. I suspect he did something to prevent further catastrophe.
I think that the direction he flew helped cause that misunderstanding. If he flew in the same direction as the earths spin, or North to South, it wouldnt have looked like he's spinning the earth backwards.
From 1978 until October 2024, I thought that in the universe of the movie, time could be reversed for everyone by reversing the rotation of Earth, and Superman used his kinetic powers to force the planet backwards. It never occurred to me that he simply travelled in time by himself. I suppose the disconnect is the movie writers assumed the viewers would be familiar with the physics of the comic books, but a vast majority of us weren't. The movie was a blockbuster in its own right, not just bringing Superman to life for fans of the comic book.
This is what I've been saying since I first saw it. Being a Superman and a Superboy and The Legion Of Superheroes fan, I knew exactly what I was looking at.
Having to explain what is obvious to us is why many comic readers don't like watching shows with non-comic readers. I was around 10 when this came out and it seemed obvious what was happening.
Thank you. I've been trying to explain that to people since 1978. He flies so fast he goes back in time, so from our third-party perspective the Earth _appears_ to spin backwards. He flew around it rather than in a straight line so he wouldn't end up outside the solar system. The other mistake people make happens right before. They question why he can't catch both missiles but can then fly so fast he reverses time (or the Earth's rotation, derp). With the missiles he doesn't know he can fly that fast, and he's anxious, so he does his best. When Lois is killed his deep-seated anger drives him to push beyond what he thought possible. It's the Superman equivalent of a mother lifting the car off of her child. It's sad that some people are so dim or so desperate to be right even when they are wrong that they cling to the belief he made the Earth spin backwards. Worse is the fact some of them posted comments here even after hearing the explanation.
Thanks - I don’t fault anyone for arguing against this theory, really. The only thing that pains me is when they go on to say that it ruined their immersion and lessens their enjoyment of the film.
@@prodigioussaps That is far too common with modern fans. Nitpicking things to death even when there's nothing to nitpick, but then blindly accepting the laziest lapses in logic and science.
But that's wrong. Our third party perspective would show the Earth spinning normally and Superman disappears into the past. We would only see the Earth going the other way if we were also time jumping, and perfectly synchronized with Superman's time jump. If a third party in space saw the Earth rotate backwards, then everyone on Earth would see it too. There's no difference. Superman alone experienced the time jump. Not the people on Earth, and not some assumed hypothetical observer in space.
@@RealBLAlleybut even if you time jump with him, Earth's rotation should have returned to normal as soon as he slowed down. You can clearly see in the movie superman fixes the rotation afterwards, hence, you are not an external observer but you are also not going back with superman. The movie is depicting precisely what most of us understood: superman is reversing time by reversing the Earth's rotation. Which is hilarious.
I didn't even know this was a thing until long after I'd seen the movie. Probably because I had been exposed to the Star Trek method of having a ship slingshot around the sun to time travel and I linked it that as a kid.
That might all be true but what is presented, to your average viewer, is the backwards-spinning world reversing time. If you need a degree in comicology to understand a movie, then the script isn't up to scratch
You don’t need a comics degree. I’ve never read a single Superman comic (or many of any others, either). I figured it out as a young teen-this video simply gave me historical background to confirm what I already knew.
Yes! Finally someone gets this right! One of Superman's (in any media) most mocked moments and its not even what they all say it is. The director, writer, etc, gave us credit for being smart enough to get it (or in us kids' case probably comic-savy enough). Aside from the unwarrented mocking what also always annoyed me where that this is never shown in clips about time travel (understandably when not even understood as that) and the nerdly-cool perodox conversations this shouldve been leading two all these decades likewise almost never pop up (though I'm guessing at least some interesting chats about planetary rotation physics have come from this).
Here's what everyone misses. He went back in time JUST TO SAVE LOIS. He did everything else he did the first time . He just REMEMBERED Lois. Go back to when he builds the dam and saves the town. He takes a deep breath and the suddenly...he remembers Lois. So there was a lot of wasted time. All the pictures of stuff like the dam sealing itself , and things going backward was only to represent the going back in time. Those things never happened. The earthquake still took place. Stuff was still destroyed. He only went back to save Lois. Which is there isn't a giant hole the car fell in. But Jimmy clearly was talking about the earthquake when he met up with Lois and Superman.
Yep, great take on it! I agree, a lot of people miss those details and just assume that he stopped the second missile or something, which doesn't track with the dialog you mention. Cheers 👊
Richard Donner thought he was reversing time so I still go with that. I do find it weird though that it's almost like the missiles don't exist once he does. Lois car still breaks down and when superman turns up there should still be the earthquake and ground falling away but none of that happens. Maybe he reverses time, goes and disposes of both missiles and then goes to pick up Lois. Would have made for a very drawn out scene with repeated effects though.
Okay I’m reading the comments and I see people making a bunch of unsupported claims (which are false) that I need to correct. Some are saying that Superman turning back time by reversing the rotation of the Earth was “in the script”, therefore that’s how we are meant to interpret the scene. This is false! In fact there was no time travel element in the script at all. Whether by simply breaking the time barrier or rotating the Earth backwards. In the script, Superman gets to Lois in time and saves her, just like he saved everyone else. What happened was the producers decided at the last minute to change the ending and they tacked on this time travel element to give it a more spectacular ending because they weren’t sure if Superman II would ever be finished. They only decided to continue with Superman II after the response to the original was positive and it made a lot of money. The time travel ending was originally meant for Superman II (which we can see in the Donner cut). But it hadn’t been written yet, only conceived as a possible way to end that film. The final scene in the original film (according to the script) was the second nuclear missile cracking the phantom zone window allowing Zod and the criminals to escape. This was meant to be a cliffhanger ending leading to Superman II. Part of Richard Donner’s frustration with the Salkinds was their continued interference in what he was filming, including last minute re-writes like this. It’s one of the reasons he was fired from the second film. He didn’t even know what the ending to this movie was until he was almost finished making it. Donner’s commentary about Superman “spinning the Earth back” even if we want to take him literally cannot be relied on. He did that commentary many years after the film was made, based on a scene that was not scripted and tacked on at the last minute. He was going off of memory and his interpretation of what was filmed almost 30 years prior (just like the rest of us). So his interpretation of that scene is no more valid than anyone else’s. He didn’t write the movie, Mario Puzo did. And Puzo didn’t write that scene, the Salkinds did. So for anyone saying that Superman spinning the Earth backwards was the intent of the writers or director of the first film, they are factually incorrect. Here is where you can read the actual script: assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/superman-1978.pdf?v=1729115002
Thank you. It annoys me to no end when people say he’s spinning the earth to reverse time when all he’s doing is moving so fast he goes back in time. The earth spinning is just a visual effect. I also think he had replaced himself during that and was able to stop both missiles easily in the process.
Agree -- however it doesn't appear that he stopped the second missile by going back in time, because afterwards both Jimmy and Lois are still talking about the earthquake, which was caused by the missile.
No, you're wrong. The fact that the *direction* he goes around the Earth is directly related to whether he is going forward or backward in time proves that the spinning of the Earth is precisely what they meant. But you know what? That's totally fine! No one I know of, as a kid anyway, had a problem with this.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere disagree. This is just the best way the visual effects could best explain it to the audience without teaching them how time dilation would in fact reverse, while traveling above the speed of light.
@JustWasted3HoursHere Well, then you also have to accept the notion that reversing the earth’s rotation also reverses time. If you’re okay with that, great. In reality of course, doing that would not turn back time but instead likely cause a cataclysmic global disaster. I can't abide that. The comic-booky time travel concept Brendan describes in the video sooths my nerdy brain.
@@prodigioussaps no I do not have to accept that. I reiterate my previous statement visual effects artists were tasked with making it clear to the audience that time had been reversed. This is 1978 not 2024. This movie came out audiences did not understand that breaking the speed of light would reverse time. And the Director was not interested in teaching relativity to the audience I take it for what it is, he dumbed the scene down for effect. Edit: sorry @prodigioussaps. I was too fast on the reply button
HOLY CRAP as many times as I've watched Back To The Future, it never even occurred to me that the Marty who goes back in time at the end is not the same Marty who went back in time in the beginning - he's the Marty who grew up with cooler parents, as a result of what the fist Marty did to the original timeline.
To be honest I think that only occurred to me shortly before we recorded this. That movie is really, really cleverly written. People are arguing with me in the comments about that too, which is great.
Which is kind of a paradox as well. Because when in BttF 2 they change events, it changes the newspapers. That means that the person also changes. When Marty looks at his siblings in the photo, Doc says they were disappearing from reality. So when Marty changes history, he should become the new Marty and should have his memories. It's a paradox that he doesn't recognise his life after he returns. It makes more sense in Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, because in that series, they change history and the next time travelers are fundamentally different people from different futures; they are all travel and get stuck in different pasts because each time travel creates a new timeline. Back to the Future mixes up both time travel concepts.
The more relevant part is that it is the moment where Superman gives up his Kryptonian heritage and chooses instead to embrace his humanity. He decides which one of his fathers he is going to honor. He can't live in both worlds. And for what it's worth: From my perspective it wasn't that he was reversing the Earth's rotation, nor going back in time. He was reversing the direction of time. Presumably if he didn't correct it, time would continue to flow backwards.
It only describes what we see on screen, although that it's in the original script for II. I haven't seen a draft of the first movie that has this scene, probably because it was revised late in productiion.
Even as kid, this made no sense. The way the time and the speed of light are connected require you to move away from the object in a straight line. If you then move back to it, you essentially nullify the effect. So even if you could travel at the speed of light in a circle, there wouldn’t be any perceived change of time. I remember debating this with the adults actually.
The part where he’s kneeling over Lois’s body and there’s a far away shot of both of them….then just silence and the wind blowing……gets me every time.😢
Very emotional scene but so contrived. That earthquake stops about 5 feet in front of her car. Look at how many hoops they had to jump through to make sure Lois died. If she simply didn't stop at that one defunct gas station, she would have definitely conserved enough momentum to get past the death zone. The writers forced Lois to die so Chris Reeves could have his emotional scene. The whole thing is pretty absurd when you watch that part of the movie again.
Check out the follow-up video:
ua-cam.com/video/gKhbGslfvW8/v-deo.html
All of you science-minded nerds who are arguing with us in the comments: I love you, but we are NOT talking about actual physics here. We are specifically talking about COMIC BOOK physics as a storytelling device. Specifically, how would a movie best convey this fantastical ability that Silver/Bronze age Superman had to travel time by breaking the "time barrier". The “time barrier” is not a real term, it's taken DIRECTLY from the comics, and I even show examples of this in the video. So let's even playing field here before you start rattling your logical swords at us in the comments.
@@prodigioussaps well the use of the term ‘nerd’ appears to be a bit of a double standard here..🧐
@@prodigioussaps haha it’s like when science guys complain about Star Wars using light speed incorrectly but they are okay with space wizards and laser swords..
@jasonturner2206 No no, “nerd” is always a term of endearment when I say it. But you know... nerds.
yeah its called Soft Sci-Fi not Hard Sci-Fi you are correct.
@@presencerocks2224 Or "Fire in Space " don't get me started how asisine a complaint that was.
Regardless of the time travel elements, the part where Superman roared with grief over Lois's body and flew straight up towards the camera frightened the life out of me as a kid. Just one aspect of Christopher Reeve's awesome performance.
Oh man, yeah. That moment just kills me… every. single. time. So good.
I agree. I always thought it showed Superman’s character perfectly. Such a powerful being is so gentle most of the time that when he does get angry, you know it’s serious.
@@prodigioussaps Superman rather Clark Kent would go back in time in Somewhere In time released in 1980 the same year as Superman II and The Shining. 🦸👍🤓🎥
@SuperMarioBrosIII Oh man, I loved "Somewhere in Time". Watched it dozens of times on cable TV when I was a kid.
Same here
! That scene frightened me as a child.
But... When Supes stops his circling, the world continues spinning to the left. It doesn't immediately stop and resume it's normal spinning to the right like it should've. He has to fly in the other direction for Earth to finally change back to its original course. I know, it doesn't make sense scientifcally either, but that's what the filmmakers clearly showed.
Exactly, well said, its obvious to the real scientific minds. Plus we know it's all make believe and don't care how the time was made to go backwards.
@@hawaiidispenser You're correct. This wasn't an attempt to show him traveling back in time as they explain it, but actually showing superman spinning the earth backwards to reverse what happened. They're just fanboy's that are trying to justify the films awful portrayal of time travel.
that was my exact thought. this is the first time hearing anything different.
Yes exactly.
Otherwise, they would have just shown the events going backwards
They clearly wanted to show that If the earth goes backwards Your reverse time
@@HappyDude1 You’re wrong…They made him fly faster until he was orbiting seven orbits per second (or close) which is light speed. Clearly HE was time travelling, not Earth. The intended mechanic looked perfectly well intended.
Literally the director said in 1978 that he turned the Earth backwards. It's in the script that way. Sorry, guys, but you're wrong on this. It's fine to accept that the movie has bad science in it; it's a superhero fantasy, not a documentary.
@@ViklasSvenske But it's still in the script. I and II were shot together although there were some reshoots after Donner was booted. Also, Donner talks about this in one of the documentaries.
@RetroMaticGamer I don't know if he literally said it. Maybe he figuratively said it. Or he metaphorically said it.
Yup - I saw this as a 9 year old when it came out. the combination of the neat spinning effects and rolling the footage backwards made it pretty clear to me what was happening from a storytelling perspective. I was caught up in the emotion of the moment and went with it. I've been trying to recapture that as I watch movies these days - not concern myself with believability or physics, but storytelling. I actually find it more annoying when movies try to explain the "storytelling science" to me. Like Christopher Nolan movies. Interstellar in particular. He tried to get all cute with theoretical physics then makes a black hole something you can swim around in and contact your daughter in the past, then swim out of. It was a confusing mix of story physics and real physics and it annoyed me.
Well, that's fine and good, but what about Oliver Twist appearing in Part 2 in a Midwest town? "General, please let my daddy down"
What gets me is that the crack in the road stops right at the car. Then when he goes back in time the road isn't cracking.
I don’t know man, that part where he “course corrects” more visually says he’s setting the rotation back to normal than over shooting and going back forward in time.
The way you deciphered it makes better sense, but this scene doesn’t accurately covey that message. Especially as a kid, I saw that this movie defines time relative to the earths rotation and his super speed turned it backwards.
Be honest, you did too.
Oh no question. And I agree, Brendan's "course correction" theory is just one way to look at it... I failed to mention this in the video, but the way I've always seen it personally is that's him returning to the present moment.
Anyway this video is really more in response, as Brendan says at the beginning, to people who trash the scene because reversing the earth's rotation wouldn't turn back time. People who get hung up on that are missing the point. The important thing is to convey that he's altering "human history" to ressurect Lois (thus directly disobeying Jor-El's commandment), and I can't think of a more beautiful, poetic and emotionally impactful way to convey that than what they did. This way, you don't need any exposition, you can just show him doing it.
Seeing it as him using super-speed to break the comic-booky time barrier is just a better way to think of it for the nerd-brained. Either way there are still loads of paradoxical problems with it, but I still love this whole damn thing to pieces. It's such an amazing scene.
I agree completely. The earth continues to spin backwards even as he flies back forward until he picks speed back up. It’s looks like rewinding a tape
@@prodigioussaps had he have have not gone back in time... wair a second sheldon... :P
Once Superman achieves traveling backward in time, even flying he has temporal momentum, still going back so that's why we still see Earth going backward. He must now do the reverse to go forward again, also he needs to watch what is happening to know when to pop back into the timeline. He comes in after Jimmy is rescued by the prior Superman (who he replaces in this new timeline) and fixes the fault line so Lois & the car never get swallowed in the crevice
@@remo1wodmnetwork9605 Ohhhhhh BAM! Chef's kiss, monsieur.
When it's explained, it makes sense. Unfortunately, if a large number of people reasonably misinterpret it, the chosen method of storytelling has failed.
@@hadorstapa true. You need to dumb it down a lot for the general public if you are making blockbusters. Maybe if he went back in time only, the audience would have understood. The different directions flown coinciding with the same direction of Earth's rotation threw the audience off. Only 45 kids who graduate high school are ready for a job, military, or college. It's a frightening statistic but I'm just pointing out why you don't want blockbusters to be visually challenging. People will say it's dumb when they don't understand it.
Good art always leaves room for the interpretation of the viewer and doesn’t hit you over the head with what just happened.
@@vandammage2 true. The "death of the author" effect according to my English classes. But if we embrace that we can't go around saying "your interpretation is wrong!" about Superman making the planet spin backwards.
@@hadorstapa I got it at the time and most people I know got it. Just because there are dumb people doesn’t mean the movie failed.
@@teagusmeagus7168 I didn't say the movie failed, just that little bit. And plenty of people commenting on this video seem to have had the same experience.
The real plothole is , Lex said earlier "even with your great speed,you can't stop them both" but this shows he would've been quick enough to stop both missiles.
LOL So it's a "plothole" just because Lex got something wrong?
It's not really a plothole? This is still early in Superman's life and he's still figuring his abilities out. You could always interpret it as, he didn't know he could go that fast, until he did.
Only if he were to fly out into space before going after each one. Superman is limited to how fast he can move within the atmosphere.
@@Raja1938 True, he likely set the atmosphere on fire. There is an animation called Justice League where to beat Brainiac/Luthor Flash runs so fast he causes untold destruction to Earth. He ran so fast he looped the Earth in seconds. He also nearly gets sucked in the speed force, it was only because his friends pull him that he didn't get sucked in, he then states he can never go that fast again.
@@jasonmack760 and he was abiding by Jor-El's edict... Until the human woman he loves dies!
Yeah like most people, that part left me with so many questions. Like if he can fly faster than light, why wasn't he able to stop the other missile, lol.
Hence the first HISHE cartoon! Search Superman HISHE. It's fun. 😊
I always interpreted that scene as pure symbolism, a visual way to show us that he went back in time, but not meant to be taken literally.
Spot on!
But you’re smarter than everyone else. No fair.
THANK YOU! I always felt he went back far enough to save Lois while the Superman that was already there did what he did. He took off awfully fast when Jimmy showed up.
I was 10, and even my 10 year old self was dissatisfied with that ending. What a cop-out! Where are the consequences?
Really ?
Either way, if he can fly that fast; they he can catch two blinking missiles.
Ha, yep I brought that up in the full episode this clip came from.
@@frankbrislin4378 for sure yeah, but isn't it plausible that his strength and actions are tied to his emotions? Or you never knew what you could do until you are pushed to a limit?
One theory we explore in the full episode is maybe Jor-El had warned him against flying over a certain speed because he would risk breaking the time barrier. Or maybe if he goes too fast he would ignite the atmosphere and cause a catastrophe, like the “Because Science” guy says in his video.
That's correct thinking. BUUUUT motivation. Rocky movies, Hulk TV. Show, Samson & Delilah, Chariots of Fire etc. you need love. Then the Hero finds it. Motivation I mean. Not Spinach.
Maybe he hasn't fully recovered from the effect of the kryptonite. 🤷♂
The problem with the "course correction", if the theory is that he is flying so fast (faster than speed of light) that he turns back time, he cant just "reverse" the direction he is flying and then go forward again. Regardless of the direction he is flying, the speed would still turn time back.
That's a good explanation. Whenever we saw the Flash do it, it was just him running a straight path and you see a blur of colors & events around him. As a kid I just took it as "Earth spin backward, time go backward," which is only reinforced by everyone else saying that's that it was. They probably could have represented it better on screen, but I like your explanation WAY more than what most people have believe it was.
As a kid, and indeed when I grew up, I was under the impression that Superman flying at great speed caused the Earth to reverse its rotation, thus causing events to go backwards in time. I believed he was doing this so he could save Lois. However, I now believe he broke the time barrier, and from our perspective, the Earth was rotating backwards on its axis before returning to its normal forward rotation. Superman returned to Lois in the past, just a few minutes before the disaster struck. Overall, it's a great scene.
46 years later it took for this to come to light. I've watched all sorts of media about this movie and never has anyone ever said this is how the ending was supposed to be interpreted. Maybe there should have some exposition somewhere in the movie about how fast he can go and it leads us to this moment and think "oh, yeah, there's the thing they said an hour ago!".
Had the filmmakers shown Superman preventing the the second missile from detonating on San Andreas, then maybe it would have been a little clearer for the audience. Then again, regardless of how far back in time Superman went to prevent the disaster, it still doesn't explain how Lois Lane would have any knowledge of an earthquake, a gas station blowing up beside her car, and telephone poles falling all over the road. Why would she have experienced these things if Superman changed history and prevented them?
Exactly- that’s why I say in the video, the only thing changed was Lois didn’t die, or rather, the conditions in the immediate area around her that caused her death. We are lead to believe he undid all the damage because that’s what the film shows us, but as you say the dialog does not reflect that. It’s one of the oddities that makes this scene so fascinating to me.
Also, we’re not actually shown him doing anything besides reversing time and then unreversing it… but I always assumed he must have zipped down to the surface and changed something before returning to the present moment. Otherwise nothing would have happened differently. But it’s all just head-canon really.
@@prodigioussaps How the the Super kiss which erases Lois Lanes memories of her knowning Superman's secret indentity in the second film? Part of the spinning the world back in time was used an alternate cut of Superman II which was originally intended for the second film or so I've heard?🦸♂🌏🌎🤔
@SuperMarioBrosIII Yep that’s correct. That’s what you see in the Donner Cut, which pretty much follows Mankiewicz’s original script for II.
@@prodigioussaps I think the only thing he may have done in the past was to simply move her car away from where the fissure was going to swallow it up. Then he returns to the present to reunite with her and @#$%-blocking Jimmy.
It bothers me that they took that scene in the film of Superman screaming in anguish at Lois' death and friggin' wore it out in Man of Steel. They had Superman SCREAMING every 15 minutes! Oh, Superman has an itch on his back that he can't reach... "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Ha! You know it's funny, it wasn't until I watched Screencrush's videos on Man of Steel that I realized how many story beats Snyder/Goyer borrowed from Donner's film. It’s just that so much of it is turned on its head (plus the non-linear storyline, of course).
@@prodigioussaps - Ha-ha! Exactly!
I saw this in the theater when I was 9 years old. I went back and saw it 14 times before it left theaters. Every single time I imagined time being run backwards. I never once even considered the possibility that he was going back in time. I thought he was reversing time, up until this video. Now, that makes sense.
If that's what's really happening then that was a poor way to show it. Anyone seeing Superman flying around the earth and then seeing the earth turn backwards is going to assume that what Superman is doing is turning the earth back through time.
If we just saw Superman flying around but showing him getting faster and faster as he does and then showing everything rewinding that would have communicated the idea much better but as it stands how can you blame people for thinking Superman is turning the earth back through time when everything being shown on screen seems to confirm that?
I don't blame them for thinking that. I've said so elsewhere in the comments and actually in the full episode this clip is taken from we literally wrap up the conversation by saying that... annnnd maybe I should have left that in this clip.
Brendan started this conversation talking specifically about people who trash the scene because they can only see the scene the way you described. Some people have said in the comments that scene ruins the film for them because they can't NOT see it that way, and that makes me sad. Doesn't have to be that way!
The one “flaw” is that when he gets back in time to the moment when he saves Lois, the earthquake should be happening and the big crack on its way to swallow her car.
Ohhh that’s not the only “flaw”. Paradoxical problems abound!
I like to think Superman went back in time to secretly add another gallon of gas into Lois' car so she didn't stop at the same point as she did previously.
Ha, not a bad idea either. Certainly easier than the alternative (presumably messing with the fault line again)
I thought the same thing the first time I saw it. In fact, when they cut to what turns out to be the warden of Luther's prison and you hear the alarm go off, I thought he was the manager of the dam and the alarm was because of the earthquake happening again!
He repaired the entire San Andreas fault. He can stop and prevent the crack that takes out Lois before he shows up to see her.
He overshot... then he changes direction and goes the other way... with speed of light... but the earth is spinning the other way...
"... but then nobody's perfect."
This tells me the producers thought he was changing the rotation of the Earth. They didn't get FTL time jumps.
@@protorhinocerator142 Probably, but reversing the Earth's rotation would have no effect on time.
@@AntVFRF Going the speed of light will also not reverse time, only slow it to a stop. The whole scene is wrong.
I figured this out as a nerdy kid who liked science. I immediately understood that by flying faster than light he travelled back in time, like a tachyon. Thank you Isaac Asimov for an informative childhood...
I tip my hat to you, sir! 👊
But then, as soon as he stops going fast Earth should have spun normally again. Furthermore, "course correcting" would have the same effect: going back through time even more. It is blatantly clear that was not the case, according to the way the Earth spins in the movie. He was changing the rotation of the Earth and putting it back the way it was afterwards.
@@Aerxis but, spinning around in space doesn't affect the earth. And if the planet started spinning the other way, we wouldn't go back in time.
I think the planet still turning is supposed to mean that he's still time traveling a little bit, but has realized that he went too far back and now has to go the other way.
@@neutrino78x but going the other way doesn't make you go to the future, it gets you further back into the past (assuming you go at the same speed). If you reach faster than light travel continuously from below that speed, at some point you probably destroy the universe.
@@Aerxis
"but going the other way doesn't make you go to the future, it gets you further back into the past "
Right, that's what we're saying. He went too far back, so he had to circle back and go forward a bit.
"If you reach faster than light travel continuously from below that speed, at some point you probably destroy the universe."
I don't see how....are you talking about real physics or comic book physics? If you're talking Hard Science Fiction, well, as far as we know, you can only travel forward in time, and you can't reach or exceed the speed of light.
I'm not sure where comic book/movie physics has said that traveling back in time would destroy the universe, unless you're changing something the causes the destruction of the universe....the mere act of going back in time would not... 🙂
Without watching the video:
He didn't make the Earth spin backwards to reverse time. He reversed time, and so the Earth spun backwards. Unfortunately, the way it's shot doesn't visually tell that story clearly.
No, there are several major problems with the visual.
And the producers didn't understand this either, because they added that "course correction" at the end to get Earth spinning the right way again. That wouldn't be needed at all, and would only cause a second time jump into the past.
@@protorhinocerator142 I mean, you could argue that it was *time* being made to go the right way again. There's no rules to something that's impossible to begin with. As for causing a second time jump to the past, we see the Earth rotate a good long way before Supes gets it spinning the right way again. Looks like more like a half a day or so to me.
@@jasonmack760 So by all rights, he should have appeared in the past before either of the nukes was launched.
@@protorhinocerator142 Shouldv'e. But of course that goes to other questions, like if he could reverse time, then why not go back far enough to catch the nuke he couldn't get to the first time and prevent it from hitting in the first place? And the answer of course is "it's a movie, quit asking logical questions."
I think the shot conveys exactly what it was intended to convey when they made the movie. We're here 40+ years later putting our own more informed expectations on it.
Finally someone lays it out nicely for the laymen. I’ve been saying this ever since I first saw the movie. He doesn’t turn back the world. It’s a visual device to illustrate time travel. The viewer POV is from outside of space/time
“And over the last few years we have heard a lot about something called ‘family values’. And like many of you, I have struggled to figure out what that means. And since my accident, I've found a definition that seems to make sense. I think it means that we're all family. And that we all have value.”
Christopher Reeve, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1996.
What a Super Man.
Love it. Yeah, I saw SUPER/MAN the other night and they have that in there. God I was a wreck after seeing that film.
He's going so fast that the Earth is spinning backwards no matter how you perceive it...
Oh my gosh, he clearly is spinning the Earth in the opposite direction. Then he has to subtly kick start it back in the other direction. This is clearly the focus and his intention. Furthermore, they act as if he had to do nothing once time is reversed. He still would’ve had to help all those people. How was Lois suddenly not in any danger? What changed? Did he get both missiles?? If so, they don’t show it. The entire thing is nonsensical and has always made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief.
@@Foebane72 lol part 2 is actually the worst as far as nonsensical things going on. And yes, the Donner cut didn’t do much to help it. I just don’t understand why they sucked so badly at sticking the landing, when clearly a lot of thought and effort went into every movie.
correct, and also, this ending completely contradicts the Silver Age constant that Superman cannot alter history when he goes back in time. If he attempts to do so, fate will intervene and put it back to what originally happened, just in a different manner. Same as when Jimmy Olson found his ancestors responsible for historic assassinations and he could not change the outcome of any when he tried.
@@dancarrick4357 It's my headcanon that the universe is always "picking" on Lois Lane because she was supposed to die. So fate keeps putting her in increasingly more and more dangerous scenarios in order to correct history, but Superman keeps saving her. Though, yeah it's absolutely maddening that they decidedly portray him as doing _nothing_ after going back. Even a line of dialogue from Luthor, like "I can't believe you stopped _both_ missiles!" would have established what happened if they ran out of budget to show it. Of course, if they ran out of budget, they certainly couldn't afford new lines from Gene Hackman, so there's that. But they could have easily done The Parent Trap (1961) thing and had Christopher Reeve tell himself "There's not enough time for both, just go to the past strait away after you save Hackensack, to preserve the time continuum." or something like that, I'm not a writer. Maybe, if they had the budget, and a double of Lois' car, they could do the stunt again and have him rip the door off and take her out of the car before it falls in the rift? Just _anything_ would have been better than _nothing._
Durning the making of Superman they were also shooting scenes for Superman 2. Superman going back in time was the ending to Superman 2 and that Special effect shots were finished The ending to Superman 1 was not done and they were running out of time and money so decided to stick the ending for Superman 2 on Superman 1 instead of finishing the special effects needed for 1. The movie had a set release date so no time was left. The Donner cut don't help as now both movies have the same ending. On some box sets they only give you the Donner cut! At least the original 2 movies stories work. Most people only see the Directors cut and Donner cuts which both differ from the theatrical versions. In my mind only Superman went back in time , the earth spinning backwards was just a visual cue that he bas going backwards. They didn't have any footage to add to the storyline of what he did different and Jimmy still says "thanks for saving me" so the bomb still went off. The only change shown was getting to Lois early and stopping her car before the hole it fell in, you can still see the cracked road in front of her car. Thats probably the only extra scenes shot to fix the movie before release. The movie was a hit anyways and now the sequel which was 3/4 shot had to have it's story change to fit a new beginning and end plus they didn't want to pay Donner or Brando to come back for the extra work to finish now that the first one was a hit. They cheap'ed out and it git worse with each movie 3 & 4. I still love the first two films flaws and all. Not a fan of the Donner cut as its still a mess too.
@@flavadave3943 I thought that when he turned back time that meant his past self was still saving everyone from the missle-caused earthquake while his time-traveling self saved Lois.
It's the same as when the Avengers travel back to 2012. They don't need to fight the aliens, their past selves are already doing that. They can focus on their new mission of collecting the stones.
Here is my theory about this epic moment. Since Kal'El had volumes of knowledge stored away in the Fortress of Solitude, Jor'El may have taught him about the Speed-Force. It is also the reason Jor'El said you are forbidden to interfere in Human history as a way of keep Kal'El rooted in the present. Also, breaking the time barrier meant that there would be unforeseen consequences of breaking the time barrier (note Flashpoint Paradox). So, Superman moved through time to about several hours and also was able to occupy all points in time, thereby saving everyone during the quake and other events not shown. His final act was saving Lois and then returning to the exact he left. And when he landed, he was breathing heavy because he not expended so much power, he also was still dealing with the Kryptonite poisoning. He was tired, but he had a chance to save everyone, including the ones he loved.
Bravo, sir.
Superman canonically doesn't use the Speed Force like the Flash does.
He's simply so powerful that he can fly faster than light. But if you start looking at the physics of Superman brute forcing his way back in time, that much energy would destroy the planet.
The Speed Force is "comic book magic" and doesn't destroy the world. We don't really know what it is, so we can't understand the physics of it.
@@protorhinocerator142. The speed force is a different dimension where speedsters access their powers.
When Berry time travels he goes into the speed force then pops back out sense that dimension does not follow our universes timeline.
@@briansmith48 So it's kinda like hyperspace.
The problem is more that is superman goes back and saves Lois, original time superman shouldn’t have seen Lois dead and thus wouldn’t have gone back to save her.
Yep, it's one of several discrepancies in this scene that they didn't bother to clean up. But I can forgive it. The beautiful effects and emotional weight of the scene carry it for me.
That, and he could have gone back just a few minutes earlier and made it so the nuke never detonated in the first place.
No nuke, no earthquake.
But then you still have the paradox.
Reminds me of a similar thing that the Silver Surfer did back when he was still stuck behind Galactus' barrier that trapped him on Earth in the late '60s. He flew around the Earth, exceeding the speed of light, only to find that in doing so, he had flung himself far, far into the future, where Galactus' barrier was indeed gone... but the entire universe had been devastated by a nigh-invincible mutant conqueror.
He tried to find a life in this dismal alternate future now that he could freely roam the stars again, but the tyrannical devastation of the mutant overlord was so great that he eventually decided that it was better to return back to the present, barrier and all.
Is there anyone left alive who worked on the story who we could just ask?
Sadly I don’t think so
The director's commentary (with the producer as well) does say he spun the earth backwards to turn back the earth's time. And what changed was the missile that was pushed out of the earth was what wasn't affected, leaving him able to stop the other missile that had killed Lois (and lots of other people).
The audience is seeing from Superman’s perspective but because the audience is seeing a wider perspective than the first person it’s a little confusing.
Maybe the filmmakers overlooked how the comic books illustrated Superman going back in time when doing that scene, because what they showed, implied Superman turning back time by reversing the rotation of the earth. Then he spins it back the other way, not to course correct his point in time, but to return the earth to its proper rotation.
I think they wanted to put a new spin on his time travel, so they showed him reversing the earth's rotation. It would've been very easy to show him turning back time as shown in the comics. We see it in movies and shows when they superimpose years or dates or even calendar pages going back in years.
Yep that was pretty much our point, what you say in your second paragraph there. Like you say, it's a "new spin" on portraying time travel. I think some people are getting too hung up on the visual mechanics. We simply don't need accept that he literally reversed the earth's rotation. I mean you can, if you like, but the story doesn't require that to be literally what's happening.
I think you are giving the makers of the movie too much credit. They are movie makers, not physicists. While they may not have thought that just getting the Earth to rotate the opposite direction would reverse time of itself, they clearly thought he was reversing the direction of time flow and had to get it running in the right direction again once he got it to the point he was aiming for. Oddly enough, they accidentally came somewhat close. There is a solution in Einstein's General Relativity that implies that if you have an infinitely long massive rotating cylinder, and you travel around it counter to its rotation, you can be displaced in time. So, if you fudge a bit, you could argue that traveling really fast opposite the Earth's rotation, could have the same effect.
Yes but to be clear, we’re talking about comic book physics and how best to convey this ability that silver/bronze age Superman had, not actual physics. The “time barrier” is not a real term, it’s something the comic books used, and I show examples of this in the video. Comic book writers aren’t physicists either. It’s just a storytelling device. But yeah, I’ve come across that solution you mention as well, that’s pretty cool.
I think it is something in between: You start with an object made of a material from a part of the universe where the laws of physics are different (Superman's body) - which they make reference to earlier in the movie. Then you accelerate that object past the speed of light, around the earth. It creates a kind of warp bubble of reverse time. The earth, inside that bubble, appears to rotate the other way because it is moving backward in time. Superman has to then disperse the spacetime bubble of anti-time by going back the other way, bringing earth back into our time flow. So no, time doesn't automatically go backward just because the earth's spin is changed. That is the effect, not the cause, of reversed time. But also no, it's not just Superman going back in time - which wouldn't make sense that he would need to course correct or that it would still be going backward once he stopped. This was Kryptonian physics at play, involving creation of an area of reverse time.
1:27 -- I like how one of the answers establishes its bona fides by citing BACK TO THE FUTURE as its source. Like that's the Einsteinian irrefutable model for time-travel or something. 🤣
Ha, well yeah. Fair cop. But it is a really good example of how to handle that particular scenario. My favorite time travel of all time is still George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE. No nitpicks with that one at all, really, a very simple and solid story.
Thanks! I saw the Theatrical release when I was 11. I thought the time travel “power” was just bad science and was not familiar with the comic book explanation.
Damn. I had Star Wars #1-10 in collectors bags, Howard the Duck, KISS (Blood ink). Speaking of Star Wars the movie. I saw it when I was 9, going into 6th grade and there was one scene that I thought was so campy I shared with my friend to see if he “got it.” Scene: Princess Leah’s interrogation droid. Problem? High tech Civ that is still using “syringes.” Ha!
Hey thanks so much for the super thanks! Yeah you’re right about the syringe, it’s also kinda like, is that a safety protocol thing where only droids are allowed to handle needles? CHEERS 👊
Well I never read the comics so thanks for clearing this up! Makes way more sense. Understandably confusing though. Tricky thing for the filmmakers to visualise I suppose.
Thank you! That drives me crazy too. When I first saw the movie, age 10, it was obvious to me that the world spinning backwards was code for "going back in time," and I couldn't believe it when I came across people who didn't get that. Which it seems like is everyone else. Except you. Thank you for reaffirming my sanity
Cheers, man - sift through the comments here and you’ll see you’re not alone! Thanks so much for commenting 👊
He’s not spinning the Earth. It would destroy/kill everything for a start. The film cgi artists just should have had the Earth going back to its normal rotation when superman slows down, instead of keeping it rotating backward when he’s course-correcting. That’s the element that gives the false impression.
Sadly, said element is present in the movie, thus making it the correct impression. He is either correcting Earth's spin or correcting the time flow. Both of which are dumb, even in comic book logic.
Thanks for clearing this up! I bought nearly everything else in the story, but thought that making the world spin backwards was too far-fetched. Having this context helps a lot.
Cool! Cheers
Far-fetched?? Ah, it's a comic character......😊
Thank you for correcting a misunderstanding I carried over 45 years.
Speaking of getting things wrong, going fast has no effect of making time run backwards or transporting the fast object into a previous time, and material objects cannot travel at the speed of light. The physics of high speed objects has been understood for a long time. It's like saying that you're going to go back in time by reciting the words "Back, back, back...." There's no mystery about it and it doesn't work that way.
It stupid either way . Lois should have been hurt bad and put into the hospital. Then he realizes his limits and how close he came to losing her. Would have been a better emotional scene. He could have still done his scream seeing how hurt she was. Time travel was unnecessary and stupid in a mostly fantastic movie. Its the reason the scene of Mr. Kent dying of a heart attack is so good. With all his powers he cannot save everyone.
Fair points! I still love the scene, though, despite is many flaws.
OMG ... FINALLY someone posted what a geek like me has been saying since I saw this as a kid. It was showing him going back in time because stopping the Earth and making it spin "backwards" would have, literally, destroyed the planet. - Thanks for posting!
Cheers Scott! Appreciate that, thanks for commenting.
In the Alyn Tudick show Powerless. They realize that Superman goes back in time whenever Lois Lane dies, so it turns into The Purge because they know they can get away with anything.
Tudyk visits his cousin Bruce and returns to tell everyone that he knows who Batman is…
Oh cool, I need to check that out. Thanks!
This was so good, thank you.
Thanks Steve! 👊
I always loved this movie. Everything about it is awesome. Also anytime someone has a debate about whether people can travel back in time I always say, 'Superman did it'!
I think the one thing that gets people messed up in how it's shown is that he changes direction. It shouldn't make any difference which direction he's flying, only the speed. But I understood the idea behind this moment even as a kid. The Earth only appears to change its rotation because we're seeing it from Superman's perspective as *he* is going backwards through time, folding his own timeline over so to speak. If he had just been shown slowing down instead of turning around, maybe people would be less confused about what's happening. I haven't read the script, but I suspect this was a miscommunication somewhere in the chain between the writer and the animator.
Except it's still a misunderstanding of Einstein's theory. Had the scene applied real-world physics, Superman (relative to observers on Earth) would have travelled into the "future" not the past - and not even by much, either!
@@paulholgate4664 I wasn't being serious. The entire comment thread is overanalyzing a film based on a comic book character, so I was just satirically joining in. 🤷♂️
Clearly, they were going for exciting drama and Superhero Moments. I was so young when I first saw this film (I was born in 1978) that I just thought something like “Superman is SO COOL!!!” I really think that was the simple reaction they wanted viewers to have.
2:01 Wonder what happened to Marty's cool parents when he came back to 1985?
@@TheCastellan I think that both Marty s swapped time lines. So cool parents Marty has the lame parents now
Saw it in the theater and my first thought was that showing the Earth rotating in reverse was a weird way to show that Superman was travelling back in time. It was years later before I heard someone talking about how stupid it was to rotate the Earth backwards to reverse time; I had no idea that was what people thought was happening and now I can't unsee it whenever I watch the movie.
Someone should make a cut just showing him flying up and screaming while his father talks, and then show a clock spinning backwards, a missile exploding in the air, and Lois alive; controversy resolved.
And when DeadPool was fixing DC movie problems, he should have went back in time and cut out 4 minutes of that opening title sequence.
Hahaa love the Deadpool idea!
As problematic as this scene may be for whatever reason, I still think it’s brilliant and the effect still looks gorgeous, even all these decades later. Plus it allows sufficient time for the emotional weight of it all to play out.
When I was 6 years old and saw this for the first time I asked my father "What is he doing??". My father explained he's going fast than the speed of light so that he can go back in time to save her. This movie introduced to 6 year old me in 1983 what the speed of light was and time dilation.
👏 Love it, that’s excellent parenting there. Cheers.
When I was much younger, I used to think that, but gradually understood what was happening as I grew up. Didn't even remember when it click for me. I only remember that even the first time I saw it, it looks ridiculous, yet there's something right about it, just couldn't put my finger on why it looks right.
What gets me is that Jor-el told him it is "forbidden to interfere in human history". But isn't he interfering in our history by just being here? 🤔🤔🤔
Yeah, that is a vaguely worded directive. I guess it was too on-the-nose to just say “It is forbidden to travel into the past and change shit, son.”
There's a point earlier in the film where that quote is followed by "rather, let your leadership stir others to." I took that as being an instruction that Superman should try to help out, but not to directly change the outcomes of major events in human society. Taken in that sense, stopping certain major disasters could be seen as interference; especially when they're caused by other human beings, but Superman crossed that line a while back anyway, because he's not just an outside observer. What happens to people on Earth matters to him. That's what I took away from that scene.
@frankbrislin4378 - Yes. That's why he just said "F*** it!" and decided to change history anyway.
What's a few minutes when thousands of lives are at stake?
Forbidden but who's left to penalize him?
@@zonked1200Jor El’s AI.
Thank you! Now i KNOW I'm not the only one who got that. To continue that point, there is a reason you don't see TWO Supermans; there wouldn't be. Once Kal-El re enters the timeline at an earlier point he has altered time; the other Superman fades from this new version. He enters AFTER the prior Superman saves Jimmy but now knows where Lois is and corrects the faultline resulting in less damage. This is why they stand there and the car doesn't get swallowed up in the Earth.
I like that idea... but I'm confused, why woudn't the first Superman be just as permanent as the other characters? There is no causal relationship between the actions of time-traveling Superman and the Superman who has just saved Jimmy. Unless I'm missing something. From the first Superman's perspective, there is now a second version of himself visiting from five minutes in the future or whatever.... why would he fade from existence? Not arguing just playing devil's advocate. I love this shit.
@@prodigioussaps The instant that time traveling Superman re enters the timeline it branches off as a new timeline. The Law of Conservation of Energy says matter in the universe can neither be created or destroyed; it stays constant. So the current Kal-El stays in the old timeline, to follow up on the action as the entering Kal-El makes the change. The audience is now following what's happening in the new timeline.
@@prodigioussaps To simplify, He didn't so much change history but jumped to an adjacent timeline so she lives via his actions... he took a Mulligan.
@@remo1wodmnetwork9605 so that would mean Lois is killed in an earthquake and both Clark and Superman disappears?
@@bradprice8040 Yes, in the timeline that Kal-El left
I watched this video yesterday, and I was thinking about it all evening, and I've concluded that I disagree with you about the time-travel component of the movie, _Superman._ First, we must understand that what you said and what I'm going to say are just interpretations, and interpretations are as individual for movies and viewers. But despite your evidence and argumentation (which is excellent, by the way), I cannot agree with you.
We have to remember that a movie is visual, so what the visuals tell us makes for a sound interpretation. I might agree with your interpretation, for example, if, once Superman, the character (hereafter referred to as S) reaches lightspeed in his orbit, the Earth had already begun to slow and/or reverse, but it wasn't until AFTER he made several revolutions at lightspeed that the Earth began to slow and reverse, which indicates that he is, indeed, reversing the rotation of the Earth.
Further, if S were alone travelling back in time, and the Earth had not reversed direction in rotation, then when S stopped his lightspeed orbit, Earth would not have continued rotating because, as YOU say, S is moving back in time, not Earth. But the fact that the Earth continues to rotate backwards AFTER S has stopped his orbit, Earth must then be rotating backwards.
Finally, the fact that Earth slows in its retrograde rotation before it moves in the right direction again also shows, as it does in my first point, that S did alter Earth's rotation. So I contend that S is, indeed, "making the Earth spin backwards" (0:23-0:25).
Now, many are still going to argue that Earth spinning backward won't alter the direction of time. To this, one could counter, "How do you know? How many times have you witnessed Earth altering its rotation?" Since we don't KNOW that it wouldn't have that effect, there's no reason for anyone to argue against it.
One last thought from a guy who taught high school and college literature for 30 years: A work of art (literary, pictorial, musical or cinematic) is not dependent on what the author or artist says. An interpretation of a work of art is valid as long as it is supported by that work of art. In other words, I can't argue that _Star Wars_ is a tale about mice because there's no foil in the text for me to point to to indicate that I have that leeway. I can, however, argue that the premiere episode, "A New Hope," is an allegory of good vs evil, because the story does support that, whether Lucas has said so or not. So, since the visuals of the movie _Superman_ can be interpreted as S reversing Earth's rotation, the interpretation is valid because the visuals support it.
Mind you, what I say is JUST my interpretation. You are free and welcome to disagree and even offer counterarguments.
And, in the words of the legendary philosopher Forest, Forest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that." 😉
"Overshooting" isn't the reason for his second zip around Earth. By breaking the speed of light, he (I would argue) time-reveresed himself with respect to the Earth, as the characters do in Tenet when they enter a turnstile. So he had to break the speed of light AGAIN to un-time-reverse himself.
I dig that idea, too. Thanks!
Speaking as someone who really likes Superman '78 overall and think it gets underrated in modern superhero movie discourse: I think it's reasonable to say the movie didn't convey this as effectively as it could have. Especially considering general audiences don't consider time travel as something Superman could do (I'd say even today, the vast majority of people who know he can do that know it because of this movie).
I must admit I didnt realise this, but I was 4 when the movie came out so was probably very young when I first saw it. This makes much more sense to me now.
Wait a minute... isn't there a scene where Perry's toothpaste goes back into the tube? Your theory would work, though... make more sense, at least... but also ... isn't there a scene where the stones are returned to where they were, at the dam?
I'm both a science and science fiction fan, I learned a long time ago that there were some questions in science fiction that are better unasked. In the real universe there is no way that a star ship could travel as fast as the Enterprise travels, but hey, it is FICTION. Nudge, nudge (and I bet neither of you know where 'nudge, nudge' comes from! )
Hi Kathleen! The toothpaste-going-back-in-the-tube shot is in the Donner Cut of SUPERMAN II, but yes we do see boulders rolling backwards up the hill and all the damage to the dam being undone, etc. as time is running in reverse.
BUT! And here's my big BUT (as our friend Willy used to say)... when Superman returns to the present, none of those things appear to actually have been undone, based on what Jimmy says when he runs up to them bitching about being left in the middle of nowhere during an earthquake. Meaning, he still rescued Jimmy from the dam, thus the earthquake still happened, thus the missile still hit California, and so on. Otherwise why would he even be there? If all those things had actually been undone Jimmy would still be at Hoover Dam taking photographs. Lois talks about the earthquake, as well.
As I say in the video, the only thing that's really different is that crack in the earth didn't overtake Lois's car and the landslide didn't hit her, so Superman must have done something to minimize the aftershocks in the immediate area. Her death appears to be the only event that he changed.
Oh and OF COURSE we know that Monty Python reference! We're both 55 and grew up watching that show. LOVE IT, too. Wink, wink say NO MORE! ;)
@@prodigioussaps You two are the best!
@@prodigioussaps Wink wink, say no more!
This is a DEAD parrot.
Confuse a cat.
I'm a lumber jack and I'm OK. (I wonder if the young would get 'the vapors' if we sung that in front of them?)
@@prodigioussaps You're right! Especially Jimmy's rescue, implies everything happens except the cracked road and Lois' death. I wonder if the writers ever saw that (cough cough) the crack in their plot? If they had considered showing him doing something to prevent the crack, I mean? I have one weakness, I like things to make sense, even in fantasy and science fiction. When I write I struggle with keeping the plot details tight knit and coherent. I always wished better writers had had a hand in writing the later Superman movies. The second and third movies, particularly. The Fourth one, I understand... the mid-late 1980s, cold war, the USSR and the constant threat that someone would do something really stupid... it was a time when sending all the nukes sailing into the sun seemed like a genuinely good idea. I try to ignore the scene with the lady editor breathing vacuum.
Surprisingly when I was a kid I get the part of back on time, I really think the film lacked of a signal of Supes travelling because it looks the only thing it was done was magicaly reverse time, but if a Superman who knows what's going to happen stops the missiles before they got rocketed, and saves lois that is logic from a script perspective.
I still love the Superman movie and it's one of my favorites on the superhero genre. Thanks for the video!
My response is always “it’s not real” and it’s made for us nerds/comic book kids who grew up on this.
Where are the cracks in the ground that Lois was trapped in? Jimmy confirms that there was an earthquake, but no cracks that originally "un-alived" her?
This may well be the most scientifically inaccurate scene in film history and yet my eight year old self will forever defend it with his little life.
Superman did what an middle aged Will Riker did in the Star Trek TNG novel, "Imzadi", he used to Guardian of Forever to get Troi, who was killed in his timeline, BACK. Same purpose, slightly different methods. Changing time to save someone you love.
The Rick and Morty anime did something like that when Space Morty died. Reverse Rick made an antimatter event to destroy the whole universe and get him back. It was a whole lot more complex, and required pretty much the whole season for the concept to really make sense for me.
Thank you. Finally, somebody has said exactly what I've been thinking about this. It's always so frustrating when people rip it apart because he's 'rotating the earth backwards to turn back time - that can't happen'. No. He is moving so fast that he is travelling back through time, and this causes the earth to 'appear' as if it is spinning backwards. Why is this so hard to understand? I get that it is a comic book movie. There are a lot of issues/plotholes. This isn't one of them.
Yeah, i don't buy it. Because "course correct" is a far less-convincing argument than the more obvious intent of saying he put things back on course again. I think it was just a bad idea in one of the first-ever superhero films. I could buy the explanation if he hadn't done that; all he needed to do under that concept is reverse time and stop, then.
@@Goldnfoxx we shall have to agree to disagree. I prefer to 'believe' that Superman is an aspirational figure, but he is not perfect. When trying to do something that he has never attempted before (time travel) he doesn't get it exactly right first time. He overshoots and backs up to get the right point. He has been warned about the dangers of time travel, if you loosely interpret the line about not interfering in their history. If he were to re-engage at an earlier point then there is greater chance of problems by the dint of there being two versions of himself present. His earlier self seeing him would create a paradox because it may influence the decisions he then makes. He wants to reverse this one event, nothing more.
On the other hand, we are arguing about a man travelling faster than the speed of light. Through self-powered flight. While maintaining perfect hair.
@@JamieVogelsBrain I don't mind agreeing to disagree. I just think it's more the sort of thing that, had this been Marvel Comics instead of a DC film, might've won a No Prize. I just don't see any reason to think that's what Donner was going for, and just wasn't noticed or challenged beyond being poked fun at for most of my life.
Not being a "comic" reader, I didn't know that Superman had been able to time travel... so this is the first time I've realised what was actually happening in the film, with the "Earth spinning backwards" thing.
I always assumed that he was rewinding time, rather than travelling back in time himself... so thank you for clearing this up for me, after all these years.
I didn't "like" the idea of him rewinding time by making the Earth spin backwards, but I just accepted it, because it's just a film!
There is enough context. Light is fast enough that if it's curved it could travel around the world 7 times in one second.
And since he's definitely circling more than 7 times a second, he must be going FTL.
There is just one problem with your theory. If Superman went back in time, why didn't he go to the point before the bomb exploded and prevented it from happening?
Well that’s a fair question no matter how you interpret this scene. If he can undo historical events, why not just prevent the missiles from launching in the first place? The only answer is he just didn’t. Saving Lois was his only concern at that point.
Funny thing is in the Donner Cut of Superman II, where they have him turning back time again because that was their original ending for that movie, Superman actually DOES undo everything… he essentially rewinds the entire movie and sends the villains back into the Phantom Zone.
Plot. 🤣🤣🤣
Because he's not supposed to be doing this at all, so he's keeping the interference to a minimum.
Keeping it to an absolute bare minimum, every second makes a big change.
@@BoundyMan Maybe he didn't alter time. He altered the trajectory of the plot to which he understood it drifted from his path. He had already done things to mitigate the damage caused by the earthquake but couldn't save Lois. That was the calamity he couldn't forestall. So what he did was reverse it. He reversed the outcome and it is possible maybe even did prevent the catastrophe because when he lands she isn't in any danger. We're missing something from when he reversed it and began moving it forward. I suspect he did something to prevent further catastrophe.
I think that the direction he flew helped cause that misunderstanding.
If he flew in the same direction as the earths spin, or North to South, it wouldnt have looked like he's spinning the earth backwards.
From 1978 until October 2024, I thought that in the universe of the movie, time could be reversed for everyone by reversing the rotation of Earth, and Superman used his kinetic powers to force the planet backwards. It never occurred to me that he simply travelled in time by himself. I suppose the disconnect is the movie writers assumed the viewers would be familiar with the physics of the comic books, but a vast majority of us weren't. The movie was a blockbuster in its own right, not just bringing Superman to life for fans of the comic book.
This is what I've been saying since I first saw it. Being a Superman and a Superboy and The Legion Of Superheroes fan, I knew exactly what I was looking at.
Having to explain what is obvious to us is why many comic readers don't like watching shows with non-comic readers. I was around 10 when this came out and it seemed obvious what was happening.
@@daverhoden445 I was somewhere around the same age then as well.
The part I always thought was dumb (of fans). They accept a guy with all those powers...except they draw the line at time travel.
Thank you. I've been trying to explain that to people since 1978. He flies so fast he goes back in time, so from our third-party perspective the Earth _appears_ to spin backwards. He flew around it rather than in a straight line so he wouldn't end up outside the solar system.
The other mistake people make happens right before. They question why he can't catch both missiles but can then fly so fast he reverses time (or the Earth's rotation, derp). With the missiles he doesn't know he can fly that fast, and he's anxious, so he does his best. When Lois is killed his deep-seated anger drives him to push beyond what he thought possible. It's the Superman equivalent of a mother lifting the car off of her child.
It's sad that some people are so dim or so desperate to be right even when they are wrong that they cling to the belief he made the Earth spin backwards. Worse is the fact some of them posted comments here even after hearing the explanation.
Thanks - I don’t fault anyone for arguing against this theory, really. The only thing that pains me is when they go on to say that it ruined their immersion and lessens their enjoyment of the film.
@@prodigioussaps That is far too common with modern fans. Nitpicking things to death even when there's nothing to nitpick, but then blindly accepting the laziest lapses in logic and science.
But that's wrong. Our third party perspective would show the Earth spinning normally and Superman disappears into the past.
We would only see the Earth going the other way if we were also time jumping, and perfectly synchronized with Superman's time jump.
If a third party in space saw the Earth rotate backwards, then everyone on Earth would see it too. There's no difference. Superman alone experienced the time jump. Not the people on Earth, and not some assumed hypothetical observer in space.
@@protorhinocerator142 Third party AUDIENCE. It's a fucking movie, so yes, we are time jumping with him.
@@RealBLAlleybut even if you time jump with him, Earth's rotation should have returned to normal as soon as he slowed down. You can clearly see in the movie superman fixes the rotation afterwards, hence, you are not an external observer but you are also not going back with superman. The movie is depicting precisely what most of us understood: superman is reversing time by reversing the Earth's rotation. Which is hilarious.
That's what I always assumed. That the camera was just following him back in time.
I didn't even know this was a thing until long after I'd seen the movie. Probably because I had been exposed to the Star Trek method of having a ship slingshot around the sun to time travel and I linked it that as a kid.
That might all be true but what is presented, to your average viewer, is the backwards-spinning world reversing time. If you need a degree in comicology to understand a movie, then the script isn't up to scratch
Oh, the script is far from perfect! I still love it though.
You don’t need a comics degree. I’ve never read a single Superman comic (or many of any others, either). I figured it out as a young teen-this video simply gave me historical background to confirm what I already knew.
1:07 - 1:08
When every superhero in the comics time travel. 😂
Yes! Finally someone gets this right! One of Superman's (in any media) most mocked moments and its not even what they all say it is. The director, writer, etc, gave us credit for being smart enough to get it (or in us kids' case probably comic-savy enough). Aside from the unwarrented mocking what also always annoyed me where that this is never shown in clips about time travel (understandably when not even understood as that) and the nerdly-cool perodox conversations this shouldve been leading two all these decades likewise almost never pop up (though I'm guessing at least some interesting chats about planetary rotation physics have come from this).
Here's what everyone misses. He went back in time JUST TO SAVE LOIS. He did everything else he did the first time . He just REMEMBERED Lois. Go back to when he builds the dam and saves the town. He takes a deep breath and the suddenly...he remembers Lois. So there was a lot of wasted time. All the pictures of stuff like the dam sealing itself , and things going backward was only to represent the going back in time. Those things never happened. The earthquake still took place. Stuff was still destroyed. He only went back to save Lois. Which is there isn't a giant hole the car fell in. But Jimmy clearly was talking about the earthquake when he met up with Lois and Superman.
Yep, great take on it! I agree, a lot of people miss those details and just assume that he stopped the second missile or something, which doesn't track with the dialog you mention. Cheers 👊
Flash does something similar with the speed force. At least it's a better explanation than spinning Earth backward.
If Flash were doing that though, wouldn't we see the Earth spinning backwards? It doesn't mean Flash is spinning it backwards.
Richard Donner thought he was reversing time so I still go with that. I do find it weird though that it's almost like the missiles don't exist once he does. Lois car still breaks down and when superman turns up there should still be the earthquake and ground falling away but none of that happens. Maybe he reverses time, goes and disposes of both missiles and then goes to pick up Lois. Would have made for a very drawn out scene with repeated effects though.
Okay I’m reading the comments and I see people making a bunch of unsupported claims (which are false) that I need to correct. Some are saying that Superman turning back time by reversing the rotation of the Earth was “in the script”, therefore that’s how we are meant to interpret the scene. This is false! In fact there was no time travel element in the script at all. Whether by simply breaking the time barrier or rotating the Earth backwards. In the script, Superman gets to Lois in time and saves her, just like he saved everyone else.
What happened was the producers decided at the last minute to change the ending and they tacked on this time travel element to give it a more spectacular ending because they weren’t sure if Superman II would ever be finished. They only decided to continue with Superman II after the response to the original was positive and it made a lot of money. The time travel ending was originally meant for Superman II (which we can see in the Donner cut). But it hadn’t been written yet, only conceived as a possible way to end that film.
The final scene in the original film (according to the script) was the second nuclear missile cracking the phantom zone window allowing Zod and the criminals to escape. This was meant to be a cliffhanger ending leading to Superman II. Part of Richard Donner’s frustration with the Salkinds was their continued interference in what he was filming, including last minute re-writes like this. It’s one of the reasons he was fired from the second film. He didn’t even know what the ending to this movie was until he was almost finished making it.
Donner’s commentary about Superman “spinning the Earth back” even if we want to take him literally cannot be relied on. He did that commentary many years after the film was made, based on a scene that was not scripted and tacked on at the last minute. He was going off of memory and his interpretation of what was filmed almost 30 years prior (just like the rest of us). So his interpretation of that scene is no more valid than anyone else’s. He didn’t write the movie, Mario Puzo did. And Puzo didn’t write that scene, the Salkinds did. So for anyone saying that Superman spinning the Earth backwards was the intent of the writers or director of the first film, they are factually incorrect.
Here is where you can read the actual script: assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/superman-1978.pdf?v=1729115002
He reversed time, my opinion.
I first watched this as a little kid and was told that he was moving the Earth back in time so that's what I always thought was going on.
Thank you. It annoys me to no end when people say he’s spinning the earth to reverse time when all he’s doing is moving so fast he goes back in time. The earth spinning is just a visual effect. I also think he had replaced himself during that and was able to stop both missiles easily in the process.
Agree -- however it doesn't appear that he stopped the second missile by going back in time, because afterwards both Jimmy and Lois are still talking about the earthquake, which was caused by the missile.
@@prodigioussapsTrue.
Great explanation I always thought the earth was going in reverse. I guess he’s just as fast as the flash since he was able to run through time.
No, you're wrong. The fact that the *direction* he goes around the Earth is directly related to whether he is going forward or backward in time proves that the spinning of the Earth is precisely what they meant. But you know what? That's totally fine! No one I know of, as a kid anyway, had a problem with this.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere disagree. This is just the best way the visual effects could best explain it to the audience without teaching them how time dilation would in fact reverse, while traveling above the speed of light.
@JustWasted3HoursHere Well, then you also have to accept the notion that reversing the earth’s rotation also reverses time. If you’re okay with that, great. In reality of course, doing that would not turn back time but instead likely cause a cataclysmic global disaster. I can't abide that. The comic-booky time travel concept Brendan describes in the video sooths my nerdy brain.
@@prodigioussaps no I do not have to accept that. I reiterate my previous statement visual effects artists were tasked with making it clear to the audience that time had been reversed. This is 1978 not 2024. This movie came out audiences did not understand that breaking the speed of light would reverse time.
And the Director was not interested in teaching relativity to the audience
I take it for what it is, he dumbed the scene down for effect.
Edit: sorry @prodigioussaps. I was too fast on the reply button
Joe I was replying to the original commenter. I agree with your statement.
@@prodigioussaps duh me lol. Sorry bro.
HOLY CRAP as many times as I've watched Back To The Future, it never even occurred to me that the Marty who goes back in time at the end is not the same Marty who went back in time in the beginning - he's the Marty who grew up with cooler parents, as a result of what the fist Marty did to the original timeline.
To be honest I think that only occurred to me shortly before we recorded this. That movie is really, really cleverly written. People are arguing with me in the comments about that too, which is great.
Which is kind of a paradox as well. Because when in BttF 2 they change events, it changes the newspapers. That means that the person also changes. When Marty looks at his siblings in the photo, Doc says they were disappearing from reality. So when Marty changes history, he should become the new Marty and should have his memories. It's a paradox that he doesn't recognise his life after he returns. It makes more sense in Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, because in that series, they change history and the next time travelers are fundamentally different people from different futures; they are all travel and get stuck in different pasts because each time travel creates a new timeline. Back to the Future mixes up both time travel concepts.
THANK YOU!!!!
I've been saying exactly this thing for YEARS
High five! 🖐️
The more relevant part is that it is the moment where Superman gives up his Kryptonian heritage and chooses instead to embrace his humanity. He decides which one of his fathers he is going to honor. He can't live in both worlds.
And for what it's worth: From my perspective it wasn't that he was reversing the Earth's rotation, nor going back in time. He was reversing the direction of time. Presumably if he didn't correct it, time would continue to flow backwards.
You cannot exceed the speed of light! Unless you're Superman. LOL!
What’s it actually say in the script?
It only describes what we see on screen, although that it's in the original script for II. I haven't seen a draft of the first movie that has this scene, probably because it was revised late in productiion.
My ALL-TIME FAVORITE movie. I always thought of this scene as you guys do: he went faster than light and went back in time.
Cool, it’s my #1 too - cheers 👊
Even as kid, this made no sense. The way the time and the speed of light are connected require you to move away from the object in a straight line. If you then move back to it, you essentially nullify the effect. So even if you could travel at the speed of light in a circle, there wouldn’t be any perceived change of time. I remember debating this with the adults actually.
The part where he’s kneeling over Lois’s body and there’s a far away shot of both of them….then just silence and the wind blowing……gets me every time.😢
Yes, me too… that is such a masterful piece of filmmaking right there. They really needed that there in order for what comes next to land.
Very emotional scene but so contrived. That earthquake stops about 5 feet in front of her car. Look at how many hoops they had to jump through to make sure Lois died. If she simply didn't stop at that one defunct gas station, she would have definitely conserved enough momentum to get past the death zone.
The writers forced Lois to die so Chris Reeves could have his emotional scene.
The whole thing is pretty absurd when you watch that part of the movie again.
@@protorhinocerator142Wow, does someone need a hug?? Pick a fight somewhere else….
Thank you for this explanation. It makes great sense in a comic book reality.