Continuity mistake: The aerial view of the Grand Canyon shows Ross bending over to prepare his flying vehicle. In the next shot he is up.
Continuity mistake: When Superman is getting drunk, he pours some nuts out onto the bar. When it's a close-up, the nuts are many and close together. Next shot, the nuts are more sparse and scattered.
Continuity mistake: In Ross's office, when Gus makes the liquor shelve turn around, the way his jacket is done up changes between shots.
Continuity mistake: During the junkyard fight, the sky colour keeps changing from cloudy to sunny all the time.
Continuity mistake: The diamond Superman makes by compressing a piece of coal would not be cut into a diamond shape like that, and a diamond made from a piece of coal that size wouldn't be nearly as big as it was.
Continuity mistake: From the wide shots, the black stripe on the side of the oil tanker is 12 to 15 meters wide, but on the close-up of evil Superman destroying the tanker shows it's thinned to barely a couple meters wide.
Visible crew/equipment: When bad Superman is bending the glass from the bar, watch the right side of the screen and you'll see the reflection of the cameraman slowly sneaking in.
Visible crew/equipment: When Brad opens the door to Gus, cameras and equipment are reflected in the glass.
Factual error: The supercomputer has the British spelling 'Defence' written on it, instead of the American 'Defense', even though the movie takes place in the USA.
Continuity mistake: When Clark is below the steel lid, the shadow he casts moves around depending on the shot.
Continuity mistake: After the truck falls off the bridge, before Superman arrives a red truck passes by a green one and keeps on to the other end of the bridge. When the angle changes, a split second later, the red truck is now several feet back, not running and parked next to the green truck.
Visible crew/equipment: When Superman is landing to stop the plough machine, the wires holding him are visible.
Continuity mistake: In the Olympics ceremony, the file footage shows very few people by the final steps to the cauldron. When the shot changes to the modern footage, a lot of people have suddenly appeared there, plus they change bewteen shots.
Revealing mistake: When Evil Superman blows out the acid from his hands, the tube used to throw the liquid can be seen for a brief second standing out from his finger (hard to notice but it is there).
Continuity mistake: When Ross is reading a newspaper in his office, the black paper clips move around between shots.
Continuity mistake: Before Gus gets on the skis his shoes are grey with thick black stripes. When he lands he has plain brown shoes.
Continuity mistake: When Evil Superman arrives at the oil tanker, the tower on the deck disappears in the close-up where he opens a hole in the steel.
Revealing mistake: When the two Supermen are fighting in the scrapyard: As evil Superman comes flying out of the acid with his hands cupped, look at his cape. It is wrapped around the front of his waist and legs, not flapping backwards like it would be if Supes was flying forward at speed. Evil Superman is also completely dry during this shot (NOTE: Superpowers have nothing to do with this). This reveals the fact that it was shot with Christopher Reeve (or the stuntman) falling backwards into the vat, then shown in reverse.
Continuity mistake: When Jimmy takes the picture of the Stokis, he lifts his finger from the camera and raises his head. In the following angle he repeats every movement.
Continuity mistake: The toy penguin that catches fire is already burned and damaged, when it's supposed to come brand new from the seller's stall.
Answer: There were rumors that Hackman was angry with the Salkind Brothers (the producers) for firing director Richard Donner, though Hackman later disputed saying that. His explanation, though he may have been downplaying the real reason, was that he had a number of other movie projects at the time, and he also did not wish to continually play the same villain in an ongoing movie series.
raywest ★