Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Starring: Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure
Character mistake: When the little girl is about to be blown away by the tornado she is crying terrified, but when she is swallowed by the tornado, spinning around violently, she stays totally calm, even bored. (Laserdisc and international extended editions).
Character mistake: The Daily Planet newspaper headline "New publisher for your favourite paper" has "favourite" is spelled the British English way. Since Metropolis is in the United States it should be spelled "favorite."
Plot hole: Superman traps the supervillain (whose power depends on sunlight) inside of an elevator to incapacitate him. Superman then ripped the elevator out of the building. He then plants it on the far side of the moon. Later on, sunlight starts to shine into the elevator through a slit at where the doors meet. The villain of course recharges and comes after Superman again. Now, if light could get through that crack there, then why couldn't it get through when the elevator was ripped out of the building in BROAD DAYLIGHT?
Superman: You'd risk world wide nuclear war for your own personal financial gain.
Lex Luthor: Nobody wants war. I just want to keep the threat alive.
Trivia: Near the end of the film, Superman gives a press conference in front of a bluish mirror-glass building which is meant to be the Daily Planet skyscraper in Metropolis (which we all know is New York, sort of). The shot is framed so you can only see the bottom of the building - necessary as it is only about 3 floors high, and is in fact the railway station in Milton keynes, England, about 400 yards from where I work. Even the crowd have a vaguely British look about them - presumably passers-by were recruited and stood there in their own clothes (this would matter less now - Brits look more American than they did in the Eighties).
Question: Why is this movie so full of mistakes and plot holes? Was it created by incompetent crew?
Answer: It should also be noted that the film was originally slated to have a budget of $32 million, which is in roughly the same range as the budget for "Superman III" and movies like Tim Burton's original "Batman." However, shortly before shooting began, the budget was cut by nearly 50%, all the way down to $17 million. As a result, the production was very patchy and rushed. This had an adverse effect on everything.
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Answer: It was made on a very low budget. Golen - Golbus productions bought the rights to Superman. They were mostly known for B-Movies with not so big name stars. It was there attempt to play with the big studios. Plus at least 45 minutes of scenes were cut out, with major subplots.
In addition to budget cuts, they kept shortening the runtime, meaning scenes needed to be cut. The comic book adaptation has the uncut scenes and makes much more sense.