Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman was the first modern superhero blockbuster, adapting the Man of Steel to film with iconic performances, groundbreaking special effects, and one of John Williams’ finest film scores. Seemingly writing itself into a corner in the third act, however, Superman resolved a shocking moment with a surprising use of Superman’s abilities which viewers question or criticize to this day.
Starring Christopher Reeve as the titular hero, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, Superman instantly became the definitive version of the classic hero’s mythos, telling a story that was simultaneously a love letter to its comic source material and an earnestly-written epic. The film was famously marketed with the tagline “You'll believe a man can fly,” and while its effects made Superman’s abilities seem more tangible than ever before, the movie’s true strength came from its sheer sincerity. Christopher Reeve is still considered by many to be the best Superman and Clark Kent, believably switching between the two personas within the same scene and skillfully imbuing his dual identity with verisimilitude.
In Superman’s action-packed finale, Lex Luthor hijacks two nuclear missiles, sending them to the United States East and West Coasts. While Superman stops the first missile and alleviates the damage from the second, he fails to save Lois Lane, prompting him, in grief-induced fury, to travel back in time and save Lois in addition to reversing the damage from the second missile. Superman’s ability to travel through time has precedent in the comics and thematic significance in the film, but some feel that the moment was abrupt and cheapened the impact of a major character’s death. Additionally, there were understandable question marks around the physical plausibility of the sequence, given its suddenness and crucial role in the narrative. However, while Superman’s use of time travel appeared to come out of nowhere in the film, it was actually a significant and deliberate choice on the parts of the character and filmmakers.
Having been released in 1978, the comics that Superman was largely based on were the Silver Age and Bronze Age issues of Action Comics and Superman. While Superman’s powers were quite tame in his earliest stories, he gradually grew in power until he could essentially invent new abilities on the fly, such as telepathy and shapeshifting. Superman’s ability to fly at relativistic speeds and travel through time appeared numerous times, particularly in the Silver Age, but his powers became far more limited following the Crisis on Infinite Earths event and subsequent continuity reboot.
While the climax may have been controversial, it did have greater narrative significance, beyond just saving Superman's love interest. Superman was instructed by Jor-El (via posthumous holograms) to never interfere with human history, but his frustration over failing to save Lois reminded him of a similar failure to save his father’s life, so he chose to follow his father’s words of encouragement, using his full power to save everyone, including the woman he loved. Superman was choosing Earth and humanity over Krypton.
While Superman’s use of time travel was a character-defining choice and nothing he hadn’t done in the comics, the moment did seem to come out of nowhere following an extremely surprising major character death. This would, understandably, feel a bit too abrupt of a way to ensure a tidy resolution, but the scene fit the tone of the film and the core of Superman’s character. 1978’s Superman was about its hero’s characterization, not his limits, and the film’s time-travel scene, while controversial, expressed his humanity as much as his abilities.
