Question: Why was Lois so uncomfortable when Clark said "Swell"? It's a word that was extremely popular in the 70s (the timeframe of this movie) and although not as common nowadays, it's still used to this day.
raywest
15th Dec 2017
Superman (1978)
3rd Jul 2013
Superman (1978)
Question: Jonathan Kent dies of a heart attack. So why does he look at his arm in shock before he collapses? What does that tell him?
5th Dec 2010
Superman (1978)
Question: One thing I don't understand about the movie is why kryptonite is so harmful (almost making him drown in a pool), yet he was born there and he didn't die. Kryptonite did come from his home planet, Krypton, right? How come he didn't die when he was born?
Answer: When Krypton exploded, the resulting debris was chemically altered through nuclear fusion, converting it into kryptonite. Bits traveled through space, some eventually ending up on Earth, where it is now lethal to anyone who was from that planet.
Pieces of Krypton that exploded in the Red Sun were made radioactive, and the Red Sun is one of the weaknesses of the Kryptonians.
I thought the Red Sun was poisonous to Kryptonians and caused the remnants of the planet Krypton to become radioactive and also absorb some of the solar energy from the Red Sun. I was under that impression, maybe I'm mistaken.
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Answer: It's not that Lois was uncomfortable with the word, she said there are very few people left who feel comfortable saying swell these days. She is basically saying there's not a lot of people left who speak like they're still living in the 50's. Swell was more popular in the 40's and 50's as slang for "excellent." In the late 70's, it wasn't really a popular slang word, or had dissolved into meaning "fine" or "ok." Today the word is used more ironically "oh, you need me to pay because your forgot your wallet, swell." It would be similar to if someone said "neat-o" unironically and the reply was "who says neat-o these days?"
Bishop73