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Mistakes

The day young Clark Kent leaves his parents' home, there's a shot where mother is watching him from inside the house. The clouds and sky colour reflected on the glass is different to the one we see in the following angle. See more...

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If you look very closely when Superman is floating in Lex Luther's swimming pool, you'll notice a small floatation device placed under his cape to keep his head above the water. That's because Superman boots weighed a whole lot after they became filled with water. The floatation device made it easier for Clark Kent to swim during that scene. See more...

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Superman (1978) - 25 corrections

Directed by Richard Donner, starring Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-fi

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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When Lex is detailing his plan to Superman over the map on the floor, Otis puts an overlay of the San Andreas fault over California. A few moments later, Otis drops a second overlay on top of the first, this time of the revised coastline Luther is planning. Superman and Luthor talk for a few moments, and Lex tells him it was hard to find the ideal spot to hit with the missile. He then strikes the floor with his cane, cracking the glass of the map, but it's the first overlay that is cracked, and the second overlay is suddenly gone. [Otis may have picked up or moved the overlay aside when he was off-screen erasing "Otisburg."]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
After Clark and Lois leave the Daily Planet building after Clark's first day, one quick cut later, they are in Chinatown (I realize Metropolis isn't literally New York City, but since the movie makes no attempt to hide that the Metropolis scenes were filmed in NYC, it seems legit. Even if you discount that, Lois and Clark still managed to be in a very noticeably different part of Metropolis within seconds). [You've supplied the needed correction in your submission. That certain landmarks indeed look like New York City, its not portrayed as NYC onscreen, its only ever referred to as Metropolis. Its not referred to as a suburb of NYC either, so unfortunately, whilst it looks like NYC, its Metropolis and if Chinatown is that close as portrayed onscreen, then thats how close it is in Metropolis.]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight Time
When Johnathan Kent has a heart attack and falls to the ground, Clark's mother yells out "Johnathan!" There's a reaction shot of Clark inside the barn with the dog, then it cuts to a wide angle shot. Clark runs out of the barn, but the dog is now outside towards the back, running along the outside of the building to catch up with Clark. Not nearly enough time between the two shots for the dog to run all the way out the back of the barn and around the side. [The dog runs out of the barn with Clark and is then offscreen for a full three seconds before the shot changes to the wide angle view with the dog along the *side* (not the back) of the barn. Considering it takes the dog less than three seconds to run the full length of the barn when he runs out with Clark, the fact that it ran less than half that distance in those offscreen seconds is not impossible.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When the thief is climbing the building, you can see the panels that he is climbing on are not made of glass as the don't cast any reflection. It is just some kind of black plastic. [Not true. He is always on clear, reflective glass panels. There are whole vertical and horizontal rows of flat black panels, specifically a vertical column of them immediately to the left of the glass panel he is on in one shot, and these are all decorative features of the building he is climbing. They don't appear and disappear.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
In the scene where Superman is flying with Lois Lane, they climb up through the clouds, with the moon in the background. Their shadow appears directly below them on the clouds. Is there another moon we don't know about? [The light source of the shadow is the reflection of the moonlight from the clouds above them.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
After Superman has reversed time the Hoover Dam reverts to its previous undamaged state as it should, but Jimmy Olsen should then have been replaced back on the dam. Instead he interrupts the potential kiss between Lois and Superman and complains of being abandoned by Superman in the desert. [Superman didn't undo any damage, he merely traveled back in time to a point before Lois's car gets caught in the crack. So the Hoover Dam still got destroyed and he still stranded Jimmy in the desert.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
This occurs just after Superman saves the town in the valley from being washed away by the flood from the broken dam. He stops and listens, and hears Lois. Just before the scene changes and he goes to rescue her, his lips move as though he is saying "Lois" but no audio is heard. No subtitle is on the DVD either. [So, he mouths her name when he hears her. Nothing wrong with that - people don't always speak out loud.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Superman saves the train from derailing during the earthquake, he places his body between the tracks, hold up one rail with his right hand, and uses his left arm and side as the other rail. But even Superman can't change physics. Train wheels have a flange that goes on the inside of the rail to keep it from slipping off the rail. (Go look at your model train set). Since Superman is indestructible, this flange would hit him and derail the train (Perhaps this is why he ducks his head). [And when he grabs the plane to help it fly, he would punch right through the skin. And, and, and... Every single thing he does in the movie is against the laws of our reality, but some leeway has to be given for movies like this.]
Edit Corrected by Rlvlk
Lex Luthor claims the yield of each bomb is 500 megatons, and that the second one is headed for Hackensack, NJ. Given Hackensack's proximity to Metropolis, a 500 megaton bomb would wipe out the entire city, Lex Luthor included. [This is part of the plan in case Superman gets free of the Kryptonite necklace. He states that Superman cannot stop both of the missiles, and by sending one close to Metropolis, this pretty much guarantees that Superman will have to stop the one closest to him first to have any chance at stopping the other one. As seen in the movie, it proves not to be enough time indeed, as the missile detonates in California.]
Edit Corrected by Jazetopher Time
When Superman reverses time and saves Lois, he never actually prevents the missiles from hitting the San Andreas fault, therefore he did not stop the earthquakes, therefore shouldn't the ground still open up behind her car? [Superman reversed time to a point where he was able to stop BOTH missiles. Presumably he went back to the point where he was originally stopping the first one, and went to stop the second one. So for a brief period there were two of him.]
Edit
When Lois Lane falls out of the helicopter we assume the building she is on is the Daily Planet since we have no indication she left, and Clark exits the same building. However, the building differs from the one pictured before the opening credits (they have different roof styles). [The building in the opening credits was from 1938. It is perfectly plausible that the offices of a major metropolitan newspaper changed in their design, or that they moved to a newer building, in the space of 40 years.]
Edit
During Kal-El's voyage to earth the narration states that he has all the knowledge of the "28 Known Galaxies" Given that Jor-El is supposedly from a more advanced race and that we currently know of thousands of galaxies perhaps he is a bit off. Must be the red sun. [True, we know of several thousand galaxies, but how much knowledge do we have from uninhabited or presumably uninhabited galaxies? What Jor-El was most likely saying, is that the life pod contains information from the species of 28 galaxies, and that from the other galaxies no info was to be had, as they were unpopulated or the species living there had not evolved past the very basic stages. He worded it a bit awkwardly, but that's understandable.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
Superman takes Lois' car out of the ground by the bumper. With his strength it should have come away in his hands. [Superman can control his strength. With the line of thinking you propose, then every door he opens, the handle would come off.]
Edit
If Superman has super-hearing, how come he didn't hear the helicopter crash on top of the Daily Planet? (You can tell he didn't hear by the double take he does when he looks up.) [This should be fairly obvious. Superman can control his super-hearing. Imagine what his life would be like if this ability were "on" all of the time.]
Edit
Baby superman's Christmas ornament spacecraft can travel right through a sun but the pointy things all around it shrivel and burn when it hits earth's atmosphere? [The spacecraft is an alien spacecraft. Jor-El could've detailed it to be impervious to the heat of the Krypton sun.]
Edit
When young Clark Kent is being taken on a journey by his deceased father, the journey ends with Jor-El saying, "By the time we return to the confines of your galaxy, twelve of your years will have passed." If Clark was gone twelve years, how could he have managed to get a job at the Daily Planet? There would have been a background check to see which journalism school that Clark went to as well as college and also to see if he had other jobs, yet he simply gets the job without a problem. All of the people that Clark grew up with would probably be curious as to why they haven't seen or heard from him in a long time as well. [His father says "by the time you finished hearing this 12 years of OUR PLANETS time has passed" their years are only minutes in our time, which explains why clark's father says he is thousands of years old.]
Edit
In the scene where Officer Mooney dashes into his precinct to report that Superman has hand delivered him a burglar - the officer tries to say 'In big red boots' - but actually says 'Big red ROOTS.' Incidentally where's the burglar? He wasn't there, or tied up outside with the villainous boat crew. [First off, it sounds to me like he says BOOTS. Either way, a foreignaccented character being unable to pronounce a word correctly is hardly a mistake within the film, more personal error. Secondly, there has been a MASSIVE time gap since Superman caught the burglar. He could easily have been booked in and be in a cell somewhere.]
Edit
When Lois is interviewing Superman for the first time, she already knows that he has X-ray vision and is impervious to pain. How can she know this since she is supposedly the 1st person to interview him? She should only know that he can fly and has amazing strength. [At least half of this deserves a correction: I don't know about the other half. On Superman's first night, someone hits him with a crowbar. A police interrogation of that criminal would have made the papers and led to the conclusion that Superman might be impervious to pain. Lois would have read every word written about him before the interview (there may also have been a radio report, since this was the very next day). We didn't see anything on screen Superman's first night where he used X-ray vision, but it's not unreasonable to suggest that he showed a lot of powers that night and Lois was verifying rumors during the interview.]
Edit Corrected by K.C. Sierra Time
This is only a mistake if you watch the extended version: Superman walks through Lex's 'gauntlet of doom' where machine guns, flame throwers and sub zero blasts are used to try and deter him. The mistake is that Lex Luthor is controlling all this and he and Otis seem to expect it to work, and are surprised when Superman isn't harmed. Yet earlier Lex and Otis both established that "fire and bullets can't hurt this guy". Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz argue about this scene on the commentary. [The Gauntlet was never intended to stop Superman. Luthor was putting on a show so Superman would think Luthor was trying to stop him from getting to the lair. Superman then assumed he had gotten past all of Lex's defenses. Once Superman wasn't expecting anything, Luthor tricked him into opening the lead box with the Kryptonite.]
Edit
In the "Can you read my mind" scene where Superman is flying with Lois Lane through the clouds, we see a pigeon flying close beside them. Do pigeons fly above the clouds? [According to Encyclopedia Britannica, most pigeon species have been spotted above 2,000 feet. These could have been low-lying clouds.]
Edit Corrected by wizard_of_gore

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