AN OPEN LETTER TO RICHARD DONNER

100 comments on “AN OPEN LETTER TO RICHARD DONNER”

1. 1
   >Keep rationalizing, folks. It’s obvious that Supes turned time back by reversing the Earth’s rotation, because he then had to reverse course and start the planet on its normal rotation. You can rationalize all you want, but that’s what the movie show

   –It’s not *obvious* at all.
   We’re seeing Superman’s POV as he reverses time. There is no indication that the world _itself_ is rotating in reverse.
   It could be possible. Yes. But it’s not stated.
   Nor is it stated that he simply reversed time without rotating the Earth in the opposite direction.
   To my mind, what makes more sense is that he simply flew around the world fast enough to crack the time barrier, went back, changed a few things, and then–as he went back to his present–flew around the Earth clockwise.
   Either way works, depending on your mindset.

2. Peter,

   Richard Donner had very little to do with the reconstruction of this cut: he gave his blessing for producer Michael Thau to do what he wanted in the editing of the material. Thau could have just as easily kept Lester’s kiss scene in, but he wanted to restore as much of Donner’s original idea as he could, including using the time-reversing ending.

   Superman I was supposed to end as a cliffhanger. After he tosses the first rocket, he turns back to Earth in time to see the second one explode. They’d show the earthquake starting; the dam breaking up; the crack opening up and Lois drowning in the dirt. Then they’d go back in space to show Superman as he races back, but instead of following him, they were going to follow the rocket. It would explode, break open the Phantom Zone, and end with Zod yelling “Freeeeeee!!!!!” To Be Continued in Superman II.

   The opening sequence of II would have had him fixing the chaos caused by the earthquake. He would have saved Lois before the crack killed her. Our heroes would go off thinking that all was right in the world, but we’d know that the villains were coming. Lois was supposed to die later, during the fight in the fortress. Then he’d go reverse everything and bring her back to life.

   The studio didn’t like the idea of the cliffhanger: they wanted a big, spectacular ending, so Donner moved the sequence to the end of the first movie. The whole scene with Lois dying in the desert was a new one. He and Mankiewicz were going to come up with a new idea for the ending of II, but he got fired before he even had a chance to come up one.

   I guess if they had released a Donner Cut of I (with the cliffhanger end) to go with the Donner Cut of II (with the time-reversing end), the whole thing would make more sense (although it still wouldn’t explain the whole paradox thing with the diner).

   This version of II is not perfect by any means, but I still enjoyed the heck out of it…

3. Hmm. Peter thinks that they should have ended the film WITH Lois knowing Clark’s secret.

   How would we all have felt about that? I really didn’t think about it that way. That might be a bit problematic in that there is no Daily Planet scene where we get to see how Lois and Clark interact back at work with her knowing what she does and circumstances remaining as they are. Of course, it wouldn’t be any more choppy than the reverse-time sequence.

   If they’d used that idea — well, I guess the movie would put in Superman flying off end-scene immediately after he and Lois say good-bye at her apartment. (I think they could have done without Clark returning to the diner.)

   Would we have been happy with that? No blank slate for “Superman Returns.” No follow-up film where we see what it’s like, Superman going about his business with Lois knowing the secret. Hmm. I wonder.

4. To those who think that Superman actually reversed the rotation of the earth by flying around it really fast, I must point out that it is, as Peter said, “nonsense physics”.

   If Superman were really spinning the earth backwards, wouldn’t he do it on the ground, where there was something to actually grab onto? (Tom Keller and Jason Bryant take note, please)

   I recall a comic from the old days, when Superman had to move the earth, he very carefully chose a remote location, and compressed the ground for a few square miles so that he’d actually have a surface to press against. Silly, I know, but there was at least a nod to something resembling real physics there.

   Mr. Bryant writes, “Then my roommate explained why that can’t be the case. In the movie we see him spinning around the Earth until it starts turning backwards. If he just stopped there and time started flowing normally, then the theory would make sense. However, he doesn’t, instead he flies against the rotation, *then* he starts flying in the direction of the proper rotation. After he does that the Earth starts spinning the right way again.

   So what’s show to happen is that he spins the Earth back to move time in reverse, then he spins it the right way to start moving time forward again. He wouldn’t need the second set of rotations if he was just going back in time.”

   Sorry, but your roommate’s dead wrong. When the earth stops spinning backwards from the audience POV, Superman is in the past. He stays there for a moment, and then (again from the audience POV) the earth starts spinning in its accustomed direction, but at the same rate as the backwards spin, showing that Superman is returning to the present day.

   Backwards into the past, forward to return to the present.

   This begs the question of ‘what about the alternate Superman who’s already in the present, since that version never traveled back through time to change the past?’, but I refuse to try to answer that one until someone tells me how Jor-El could have “been dead for many thousands of your years” but still know recent human history. Or have been able to recite “Trees”.

   Okay, so any version of this film is sort of a mess. But messes can work (see “Wizard of Oz” with Garland, Morgan, Lahr, Bolger, etc.)

5. I guess Donner should have just re-filmed those scenes with the actors before they re-edited the film….

   Oh wait.

   Not possible, is it?

   As other have mentioned: The ending to #1 was the original ending to #2. Donner never got the chance to do a proper ending to #2, so they had to use the Lester ending for the new edition. Personally, I think they did the best they could when you have 2 of the main actors dead and whatevwer footaqge they could garner was used.

   I’d rather have this than nothing….

6. Is there no way of confirming which interpretation of the time reversal is the correct one?

   What is the origin of the interpretation claiming that Superman spun the earth in the reverse direction?

7. As presented, the reversal of the earth’s rotation was literal.

   If the reverse spinning was only meant to manifest relative to Superman, he simply needed to slow down to restore the normal rotation to his own perspective. Flying forward should have resulted in a speeded rotation, which was not depicted, and only until he slowed down.

   Never mind that approaching the speed of light would increase his mass to where gravity would tear the earth apart.

8. “What is the origin of the interpretation claiming that Superman spun the earth in the reverse direction?”

   I think that would be everybody seeing the earth SPIN BACKWARDS up there on the big movie screen. Not so much an interpretation as a discription of what was actually in the movie.
   I do favor the interpretation that this is just a visual metaphor for Supes going back in time.

   as for RD-S2. I agree that it worked much better and I give Donner a lot of slack. It is obvious that he got as close as he could with what he had to work with.
   A lot of us are very familiar with S2. So it’s really a matter of watching this version to spot the differences. If you look at fresh eyes. That this was the only version of S2 and this is how you experienced it for the first time. then I think it’s no contest between the two.

9. Re: Spinning Earth…I think some commentary from Donner has him saying it’s the Earth being spun backwards. Anything else is just a rationalization of an irrational movie plot. It’s Superman, folks, and not today’s somewhat reality based Superman, but the Silver Age Superman, who on a monthly basis displayed some new power…maybe used for only one issue, or even for one panel. His powers are pretty much limited only by the current writer’s imagination. So Donner had him fly around the Earth to spin it backwards, reversing time. If that sticks out to you as being impossible, and thus wrong, you’re sticking on the wrong point. Before you even get to the idea that reversing the rotation of the Earth has nothing to do with time flow (according to you…prove that you’re wrong 😉 ) you need to start explaining how a man can fly…

   Overall, I think the so-called Donner cut was a neat production. It’s his vision as intended, unedited, more or less. Since Donner moved his ending to S1, it would have been interesting to see how Donner would have ended S2. I don’t like the time travel in either case. But at least in S1 it makes some sense…Kal is grief stricken, and is acting out of anger, maybe on instinct. I always liked the Jor El warnings about his actions. With the DS2 time travel, it invalidates the whole movie. I consider this to be a cardinal movie sin. It basically says to the audience “the imaginary movie you just saw is now even irrelevant to the characters within the movie.” What’s different at the end of DS2? A bully learns that he can’t pick on everyone. And Superman knows he can’t fall in love with Lois without giving up his powers, which he can’t ever do because Zod and Co. are still out there. While this would work in a comic format…where the audience has some acceptance of the illusion of change, but really wants things put back the way they were someday…it’s not in a movie.

   The better, more challenging ending, would be as PAD suggests…leave it at “Your secret is safe with me” and let it go. It creates a much more interesting dynamic, say, when you bring in the plot from Returns. Now you’ve got the opportunity for some real tension in the Lois/Clark interactions that you didn’t have before.

   I’m glad we’ve got the DS2 version, if for no other reason than to give closure to the troubled past of S2. But there’s some good reasons why the Salkinds wanted changes made…some were needed.

10. OK, the deal with the Donner cut was to show how different it was. That was accomplished with this DVD release. The trouble with it is twofold: firstly, he was fired halfway thru the shoot, so he did not have the opportunity to film many of the shots that would have made this able to be released theatrically. Secondly, and most importantly, is Peter’s quibble. The ending seen theatrically in the first movie was supposed to be the end of the second, and make them more cohesive. Unfortunately, due to time constraints (and not doing complete back-to-back filing a la LOTR) the first Superman was rushed out into theatres, the ending was as seen, and Donner said, “don’t worry, we’ll come up with a better ending for Superman II” This cut is not Donner’s version of what the film would be because he did not have the chance to make it, this film is rather a hybrid based on what source material is around. And it totally lacks whatever creative changes would have occurred for the ending which they were actively redoing up to the minute Donner was canned. So yes, you’re right Peter in saying that the ball is dropped in this cut, but it’s all that there is to work with due to Donner’s being fired and the filming never having taken place. Some of the shots used in this cut are actually screen tests. So although we will never see exactly what Donner would have completely made, this gives a much better idea of where Donner was taking it.

    Chris

11. My cousin loaned me his copy of the Donner Cut and I have to disagree that the ball was dropped.

    This is still in my humble opinion the best Superman movie ever made. Superman Returns while superior in terms of FX is the film that dropped the ball. Singer should be burned in Effigy for making that homage movie. If I want to watch a Luthor land scheme I will watch my Superman DVD.

    I think you gentlemen need to take into account the fact that this movie was made in the 1980’s and still stands the test of time. Many things were improved but the movie still is tethered by the script and the footage that was created.

    My only hope is that Brian Singer spins back the world and removes that human/Kryponian hybrid from the next Superman movie.

    Batman Begins should have set the bar for WB movies.

    Regards:
    Warren S. Jones III

12. As a kid, I thought that the amnesia kiss was a bit odd. As an adult, I wonder why Superman would risk Lois ending up with the very likely permanant and dehabilitating brain damage that would result by what seems to be him taking her breath away, momentarily losing consciousness all to simply save his identity and end her pain.

13. So, OK, time travel is possible.

    Enter the Time Patrol wielding Gold K and warning Supes that his tampering with the time stream goes against every rule they have and he’s to stop it. Or else.

    Actually, I think you’re onto something there. The movies, after all, seem to have forgotten that the heroes in DC are supposed to share a universe. (The only nod to that I’ve seen was a throwaway line in one of the worse Batman flicks.)

    So, something goes terribly wrong, Supes is about to pull his spin-the-Earth schtick to solve the problem the easy way…

    …and Waverider shows up, to show him some of the horrible consequences if he keeps screwing with the timestream. Now, Clark has to figure out some way of solving the problem without temporal transit. Maybe something involving the assistance of a shadowy, batlike figure from Gotham, and perhaps this former forensic police detective in Keystone…

14. I don’t remember whose review it was, but some reviewer or other advised that one must think of this movie as “the ultimate deleted scene”. I agree.

    Peter, I think you’re being too tough on this edition by itself. Given the already stated limitations of time and space (in the real world), this version is an interesting look at how this movie was originally intended to be.

    While some of the continuity issues that you point out are definitely serious errors of storytelling (the crooks going back into the PZ, for example), many of the issues of time travel in this movie remain in Superman: The Movie. If Superman could just fly around the earth a couple of times, why not just do that for any major disaster? The ending of S:TM completely undermines any struggles Superman faces in ANY of the other movies. (Why, for example, does he nearly kill himself in Returns to lift the stupid Krypto-continent? Why not just turn back time, stop Luthor from getting into the FoS, and Peeping Tom Lois some more?)

    I didn’t like the ending to this one, either, but I’ve argued for some time now that the “turn back the world” ending ruins the entire first movie, too. It doesn’t stop me from enjoying all of the great stuff on this DVD.

    Eric

15. The thing that must be kept in mind is that the Donner Cut is not a proper movie. It’s a fun little experiment, (put together by someone other than Donner, btw) combining one existing movie with a couple of unused scenes. And that’s all it is, fun for people who were curious.

    Donner never fully shot Superman II. He likely wouldn’t have used the “reverse the earth” ending because the first one already had at that point. He might have shown Lois start to become unravelled. It’s impossible to know. All the editor had to work with was 30-year-old footage which for all we know may have been dumped had Donner not been fired after “Superman”.

    The only way I can see being disappointed with the Donner Cut is expecting it to be something it was never meant to be…something it could never be…the definitive version of what Donner would have done had he never been fired. It’s just a fun fan edit.

16. “The only way I can see being disappointed with the Donner Cut is expecting it to be something it was never meant to be…something it could never be…the definitive version of what Donner would have done had he never been fired. It’s just a fun fan edit.”

    I’d be willing to accept that if Donner himself didn’t contradict you. Donner’s introduction is very specific: He says this is the way he meant the film to be. It’s HIS vision of Superman II. It’s not a fun little edit, an experiment, or a What If? It’s promoted by Donner himself as what the film would have been had he seen it through to completion.

    PAD

17. “I’d be willing to accept that if Donner himself didn’t contradict you. Donner’s introduction is very specific: He says this is the way he meant the film to be. It’s HIS vision of Superman II. It’s not a fun little edit, an experiment, or a What If? It’s promoted by Donner himself as what the film would have been had he seen it through to completion.”

    Donner also contradicts himself, though. During the commentary, he states many times that Michael Thau did the best he could with what he had to work with. He even mentioned that he and Tom Mankiewicz never got around to coming up with an ending for the sequel since they were fired right away.

    His saying that the film is exactly how he’d conceived it sounds like a mix of gratitude to Thau and, y’know, exaggerated enthusiasm to sell the disc. Perhaps a tiny bit shady, but not much more than any director who’s ever said, “Yeah, the studio made me cut this and this and this, but I still think the movie’s as strong as can be.”

18. >PAD writes:
    >
    > It’s promoted by Donner himself as what the film
    > would have been had he seen it through to
    > completion.

    Well, I suppose I am so cynical a person I just never took that ad copy seriously and didn’t judge the film as harshly.

    Hmm. Well, with creative fast-forwarding, I suppose we can all have the version of “Superman II” we want? 😉

19. Personally, being a Post-Crisis boy, I never cared for the idea of Superman travelling through time or turning back time at all. It’s a very “Silver Age” sort of thing and something I could never really get into.

    It’s also why I never cared for Zod and company. The whole “other guys survived Krypton” thing never appealed to me.

20. Jonathan–Batman Forever is one of my favorite Batmovies. Alhough, even I have problems with the neon-wearing tommy guns.

    Ibrahim–you may have just developed the next entertainment fad. Choose Your Own Adventure Movies, make ’em the way you want. Sort of an a la carte Hollywood.

21. I know this was probably addressed but:

    The ending always was intended for Superman II, according to Donner. But basically, at one point he was told there may not be a Superman II, even though most was filmed, and he moved it up to the first movie.

    Thus, he was supposed to come up with a new ending for Superman II, if made. But he was fired. So he never did. So lester and company did. But that wasn’t his ending.

    So he used his original ending, (and 25% of Lester’s stuff since he never filmed it) even though, had he been around, he would have filmed a different ending once thought up of.

22. It can never be Donner’s Superman II-he never came up with the ending and he used 25% of Lester’s film that he never filmed.

    In fact, he wasn’t even supposed to be that involved with this redo. He didn’t want to touch it. but he wound up becoming actively involved.

23. Gosh, Sean! I like “Batman Forever” too! Although its excesses in camp can be downright grating.

    We already have choose your own adventure movies. Admittedly, they’re adventures in pørņ, but…

24. Tom Mankiewitz (the writer):

    NRAMA: So how close is this new cut to what you and Donner had envisioned?

    TM: It’s very close. There were scenes we didn’t get to shoot. For instance, Donner did all the scenes with Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine. Those guys never worked a day with Lester. I wrote the scene where Lois shoots Clark as one of the two test scenes and what’s in the movie is the actual test of Chris Reeve and Margot [Kidder]. The scene is in the new cut and it’s almost seamless. Chris is 30 pounds lighter but at least he’s standing there. It works great.
    NRAMA: I was very surprised when I saw that it ends up being Luthor’s missile, that when thrown into outer space, was what freed the Phantom Zone criminals. It doesn’t make sense that they changed that.

    TM: I don’t really know because I wasn’t there but in this new cut of Superman II he turns the world backwards at the end. That was always going to be part of the second movie. But it was such a spectacular effect that one day when Donner and I were driving out to the studio he said, “Is there any way to get that into one? Because we’ve got to put our best foot forward here.” We put it into one and we were always going to figure out another fantastic thing for two, which never happened. So for the new cut of Superman II we put that back where it was originally intended to be. So because of that my favorite shot is back in the movie which is when Jackie Cooper is brushing his teeth and the toothpaste goes back into the tube.

    NRAMA: Do you ever think back about what you would have done for the end of Superman II?

    TM: No, because it’s exhausting to think about.

25. “Ibrahim–you may have just developed the next entertainment fad. Choose Your Own Adventure Movies, make ’em the way you want. Sort of an a la carte Hollywood.”

    Thy already have those. It’s just that it’s the fimmakers who choose and they do it within a franchise rather than one movie. Singer pulled a “CYOA” when he came up with Superman Returns and chose to ignore the latter two Superman movies. The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie will do that by acknowledging the first movie in the original series and parts of the second but forgetting about the third. It seems like a really goofy way of making movies, but that’s just my opinion.

26. “It can never be Donner’s Superman II-he never came up with the ending and he used 25% of Lester’s film that he never filmed.”

    Exactly my point, spiderrob8. This is as close as can be with what was available, but we’re never gonna take the Wayback Machine and see what Donner and Mankiewicz would have done if they’d written and shot 100% of the movie.

27. If Superman I and II were made he way Donner wanted, with the time reversal at the end of the 2nd movie it might have been good — assuming you don’t have a problem with the basic idea of the time reversal concept.

    If Donner had been able to make Superman II, after making 1 with the time reversal ending, he might have come with an excellent grandiose way to end the movie instead of time reversal or the memory erasing kiss.

    But he didn’t. Instead, he only was able to make the DVD now in stores. The decision to put the time reversal ending at the end of that version seems to have been a creative mistake for he following reasons:
    1) It does not make sense in the context of the rest of the movie.
    2) It does not make sense in the context of the previous movie. Instead it seems repetative.
    3) It seems that at present, as opposed to the time the original movie was made, the idea of time reversal is less acceptable to the public than the idea of Lois knowing Superman’s identity.
    4) As PAD demonstrated, other less problematic alternatives were available using the same material.

28. AdamYJ — come on. Sean was talking about Choose Your Own Adventure entertainment concepts, not retconning. Surely you didn’t need to use that avenue of discussion to sneak in your criticisms of movies you dislike for their retcons.

    Micha — Hmm… the more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking letting Lois *keep* her memory of Superman being Clark would be a great way to give later films in the series a whole new angle. But I guess Tom and Ðìçk were determined that Lois HAD to lose her memory of Superman and Clark being the same guy.

    I wonder if they would’ve done that if Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” had given us a Lois who knows the secret (and is mad at Superman AND Clark).

29. I like the whole idea of Superman being able to move planets and I think in the time that the movie was released that this was the closest way that they could do it.

30. “AdamYJ — come on. Sean was talking about Choose Your Own Adventure entertainment concepts, not retconning. Surely you didn’t need to use that avenue of discussion to sneak in your criticisms of movies you dislike for their retcons.”

    I don’t remember sneaking in anything. It always seemed to me like they were turning the franchises into “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Sort of like: “If you want Superman to fight Richard Pryor, turn the page to Superman III. If you don’t want Superman to fight Richard Pryor, turn to Superman Returns.” I’ve made the “Choose Your Own Adventure” joke before in regards to this on many a website. Though, I understand he was going for something different.

31. “Batman Forever is one of my favorite Batmovies. Alhough, even I have problems with the neon-wearing tommy guns.”

    Thanks, Sean. Now I know to ignore any of your posts in the future. 😉

32. Eeesh, Tom, I thought MOST people ignored my posts.

33. “I don’t really know because I wasn’t there but in this new cut of Superman II he turns the world backwards at the end. That was always going to be part of the second movie. But it was such a spectacular effect that one day when Donner and I were driving out to the studio he said, “Is there any way to get that into one? Because we’ve got to put our best foot forward here.”

    And that, right there, is why Hollywood thinking drives me nuts.

    “A spectacular effect.” They weren’t concerned about whether it made sense or whether it was dramatically sound or whether it opened up a massive can of worms or whether it was, quite simply, a bad idea. They liked it because it looked cool. On the commmentary track, the one thing they discuss is how cool it is when Jackie Cooper’s toothpaste goes back into the tube. The notion that it rendered THE ENTIRE THIRD ACT of the first film and THE ENTIRETY OF the second film pointless never entered into their calculations.

    Because it looked cool.

    Chriiiiiist….

    PAD

34. PAD: Don’t your complaints about the time-travel apply almost equally well to Superman: The Movie? How did the effect in that film not render the entire series pointless?

    I agree with what you’re saying about the time travel in the Donner cut. I really do. I just don’t see how it’s any better or worse in II than it is in I (except for the repetition). It might work better in I on a surface level, but it’s no more logical and it opens up many of the same cans of worms.

    Eric

35. Eric, when they used the gag in S:TM, Jor El’s floating head warns Kal against this use of his power. There’s a sense that this is something he’s only doing because of his grief, that some part of him recognizes he’s breaking the rules, and he shouldn’t. And he only turns time back far enough to stop both missiles and save Lois. Everything that happens before that still happens.

    It’s not a great thing…time travel rarely is…but it’s not nearly as bad as when it invalidates the entire movie you just watched.

36. It’s not a great thing…time travel rarely is…but it’s not nearly as bad as when it invalidates the entire movie you just watched.

    How doesn’t it? In S:TM, Superman turns time back to at least before the missles launch, and we are never shown him going and catching them early. Luthor’s Kryptonite might still be in the lead box, for all we know. At least the preceding half an hour is invalidated.

    More importantly, Superman’s every exertion, both past and present, is rendered superfluous. Any time he screws up, he could just call a “do-over”. It’s particularly bad for the whole movie series for the reasons I argued in my first post waaay up there: why does Superman ever even try to do… anything? Why bother going to Luthor’s krypto-continent? Why not just turn time back and stop him from ever stealing the crystals in the first place?

    Again, yes, it’s bad that the criminals are back in the PZ with powers and all. It opens up the question if Superman didn’t just bring Jor-El back from the “dead”. I agree that it undoes the whole movie.

    What I don’t get is why this doesn’t bug people in I or in Superman Returns. It’s more blatant in the RDC, but the RDC is also what I think of as “the ultimate deleted scene.” I guess it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of all the cool little Donner moments in the preceding two hours, each of which I took as a separate nugget of improvement over the clumsy Lester changes.

    Eric

37. Eric, for me, the warnings Jor El issue suggest that Kal at some level…maybe in a future movie, or something we don’t see on-screen…learns or accepts that time travel is dangerous, and he doesn’t do it again. At least with S: TM, there’s a sense that this is a desperate, one time event that he’ll never do again.

    With the Donner S2 ending, Kal actually smiles at one point as he’s reversing time. Jor El’s gone, so there’s no warning against the danger. There’s nothing to suggest that he won’t be doing this all the time, which to me makes it a much bigger flaw in the movie than when used in S:TM.

38. I can see what you’re saying. I don’t see it as the uniquely glaring flaw that you and Peter apparently do, but I see your point about the Jor-El warnings.

    Unfortunately, until there are consequences, that argument holds very little water for me, personally.

    Eric

39. I agree with what you’re saying about the time travel in the Donner cut. I really do. I just don’t see how it’s any better or worse in II than it is in I (except for the repetition). It might work better in I on a surface level, but it’s no more logical and it opens up many of the same cans of worms.

    As I recall, in S:TM, Supes didn’t go back in time very far. He’d failed to save Lois and keep the coast from sinking into the ocean, and his only option was to go back and stop it from happening in the first place. All the stuff from prior to that point had still happened.

    Whereas here, based on what I’ve read above, there’s no crisis or anything aside from Lois knowing his secret. So he has to turn time back at least to the point where she figured it out, which means somewhere in the first half of the movie, so almost none of what we saw wound up happening at all.

    If that isn’t a big enough problem by itself, according to Jor-El this is not something Clark should do frivolously. In S:TM he did it to save Lois’ life, and other peoples’ lives. In SII, the Donner cut, he did it because he was worried about his secret identity, which to me seems pretty frivolous.

40. “To those who think that Superman actually reversed the rotation of the earth by flying around it really fast, I must point out that it is, as Peter said, “nonsense physics”.”

    True. That’s why most people who believe in the “Reverse Rotation Theory” hate that part of the movie. I get the impression the supporters of the “Reverse Rotation Theory” fall into that category as well (it bugs them).

41. Eric, for me, the warnings Jor El issue suggest that Kal at some level…maybe in a future movie, or something we don’t see on-screen…learns or accepts that time travel is dangerous, and he doesn’t do it again.

    ****

    I always saw it differently-that he chooses his earth father’s teachings “we are here for a reason” over Jor-El’s teachings. By going back in time, he is rejecting Jor-El for his earth father, and his earth feelings. “It is forbidden” but he does it anyway. Because he is human

    Reminds me of Byrne’s line in Man of Steel. “Krypton may have given me my powers, but it is the Earth that gave me all I am, all that matters. It is Krypton that made me Superman, but it is the Earth..that makes me human.”

    Or something like that.

42. I’d always though that part of the reason that Superman had to renounce his powers in Superman 2 was because his parents were still pìššëd about the whole turning back time thing from the first movie and there was a missing scene where he had to promise never to do it again and renounce Lois’ love to get his powers back.

    I had, of course, absolutely no reason to believe this, other than some of that residual “I want a no-prize” mentality from reading Marvel comics for so long.

43. The idea of ignoring certain entries in a film series when making subsequent entries could be called Highlander 2 Syndrome, after the infamous Highlander sequel that angered so many people that everyone pretty much decided to ignore it when subsequent Highlander entries were made.

44. Mr. David,

    Would you like some cheese with your whine?

45. Oh come on, don’t tell me you’ve never been annoyed by something a writer did in a work of fiction, Alix. To this day I still grumble about what George Lucas did to the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, among other things in the prequels.

    I’m also sure PAD wouldn’t have made more than the single post about it if all of us others hadn’t joined the discussion, so if you’re saying he’s just going on and on about this endlessly that isn’t accurate.

46. “PAD: Don’t your complaints about the time-travel apply almost equally well to Superman: The Movie?”

    Pretty much. It’s not as if I stated I loved it in the first film and disliked the notion of it in the Donner cut. My point was that I found it incredibly annoying in the first film and now they dropped it into the Donner cut of the second film, which pìššëd me off even more.

    “Would you like some cheese with your whine?”

    Well, gee, if you find it so disturbing, feel free to leave.

    PAD

47. When I watched the Donner Cut I assumed that it changed the end of the first film by having him get to both the missiles in time, although it just showed the one. I just wondered how he got Lois pregnant with out her knowing he was Clark. But sometimes you just have to leave what you know behind and enjoy the show.

48. Um, the only question I have is does this mean in Singer’s version, Lois’s son is the result of what … wind pollenation?

    I really hate the hold turning back time thing, doesn’t matter which film you’re talking about it’s incredibly weak story telling. (Can’t say I found it particulary ‘cool’ either).

49. I had to hold off on reading this until I got the chance to watch the movie, which my wife gave me for Christmas.

    Several people, including PAD himself, have commented that it would have made a lot more sense to simply have Lois retain her knowledge of Clark’s dual identity. While I agree that this would have been the most satisfying outcome, in 1980 such a drastic revision to canon could never have been allowed.

    I know how I’d have written it.

    During the balcony scene near the end, Superman says, “Well, I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow”. And Lois replies tearfully that she’ll try to treat Clark a little nicer from now on.

    So…go from there. Lois would comment on how terribly hard it will be, sitting next to the man she loves every day and forced to pretend she feels nothing. “I wish now that I’d never found out”, she could say.

    And Superman pauses, and thoughtfully replies, “Well…if you really feel that way…”

    The actual mechanics of her forgetting could be pretty much any deus ex machina. The amnesia kiss, super-hypnotism, a gadget from the Fortress, maybe even that good old reliable staple from the Silver Age, the element Amnesium. They could even bypass the question entirely, and just have her show up for work apparently not remembering Clark’s secret…or does she? It would be left up to the audience to wonder.

    And the diner scene could then be played out just as it was.

50. Here’s the creepy thing about the Donner ending…Lois and Perry act as though the events still happened…or their memories are somewhere there that the events happened. They’ve just been repressed. Almost like Superman wiped their memories, and in fact probably the entire world. And Superman just repaired all the damage done.

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