Where were the Science guys in Superman 2?

[Christopher]

FYI: Both interpretations are equally fanciful and unscientific. You can't go back in time just by going real fast.

Unless you're slingshot-ing round the sun, of course!

Well, that's actually borderline plausible, since it's not just speed, it's dealing with the spatial distortion of gravity wells. The original "slingshot effect" in Star Trek was around a "black star" (the term "black hole" was still a year away from being coined at that point), and about seven years later, physicist Frank Tipler calculated that you actually could theoretically travel back in time by traveling through the distorted spacetime around a supermassive rotating body such as a black hole. As for slingshots around the Sun seen later (in the same episode and elsewhere), those involve a starship's warp drive, and any FTL drive is potentially a time machine according to relativity.

But it's a cartoony misunderstanding of that to assume that if you just accelerate fast enough, you can exceed the speed of light and thereby go back in time. You can't get above lightspeed just by hitting the afterburners, and the time travel/"causality violation" issues in FTL travel have more to do with events after you exceed lightspeed than with going back into your own previous history. And that's leaving aside the more basic absurdity of someone with the shape and appearance of a human being having the ability to fly or accelerate without any evident form of thrust. The whole premise of Superman is pure fantasy from the start, so arguing that "he flew real fast and went back in time" is somehow more plausible than "he spun the Earth backward and made time reverse" is taking hairsplitting to a superhuman level.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Unless you're slingshot-ing round the sun, of course!

Well, that's actually borderline plausible, since it's not just speed, it's dealing with the spatial distortion of gravity wells.

You both know Orci said in his Q&A that the slingshot-ing round the sun and traveling through time trick was thrown out right.

 

[Christopher]

^Probably because it had been done before in The Voyage Home, not because of credibility issues. As I said, there's real physics backing up the basic idea. Certainly a gravity-well slingshot effect is more scientifically justifiable than "red matter," whatever the hell that's supposed to be.

 

[Saul]

That isn't what happened. He flew so fast that he flew back in time and thus it seemed as if the earth rotates backwards. He didn't actually stop the earth's rotation by flying around it.

FYI: Both interpretations are equally fanciful and unscientific. You can't go back in time just by going real fast.

Actually it's a theory that if you keeping going faster and faster towards a destination you'll actually arrive the destination before you left for it.
But more likely time will go very slowly. Impossible for man but not SuperMAN!

 

[Christopher]

Actually it's a theory that if you keeping going faster and faster towards a destination you'll actually arrive the destination before you left for it.

No, it really, really isn't. I have a physics degree. I'd know if it were.

 

[biotech]

They teach time dilation around singularities in physics degrees?

I knew I shouldn't have taken accountancy and finance!

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

No, it really, really isn't. I have a physics degree. I'd know if it were.

B-But... but the Speed Force...?

 

[davejames]

I loved seeing the superpowered Clark get his own back on the bully when I was a kid, but as a grown up it seems like a massive abuse of his powers.

Yeah if you stop and think about it, it DOES seem like kind of a petty thing for Superman to do. It's still a fun scene though.

Actually watching both the Donner and Theatrical Cuts again, the one thing that really struck me was just how young and naive Superman seems to be in this movie. I realize he's an alien and new to the ways of love, etc, but my god he sounds like such a whiny teenager when talking to his parents. It's almost... embarassing to watch.

Everyone always complains about the SR Supes, with his Lois obsession and "spying", but he really wasn't any less mature and adult than the Supes from the earlier movies honestly.

 

[Christopher]

They teach time dilation around singularities in physics degrees?

Where else would they teach it? It's physics.

Here's Frank Tipler's seminal paper on the subject (which SF author Larry Niven actually named a story after):

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v9/i8/p2203_1

Though, again, note that Star Trek used this idea seven years before Tipler published the paper.

 

[BolianAuthor]

I was watching it the other day for the first time in years and I never really caught onto it but in the scene where Zod and co arrive at the Moon the three of them begin walking on it as if there's an atmosphere equal to Earths, also Zod and Ursa speak to the astronauts and they speak back indicating they could hear them.

Is this another case of Kryptonian powers or is it considered a major goof?

Umm... the astronauts COULD hear them... yes, there is no air on the Moon, but there IS air inside the astronaut's space suits.

Even if this were still not possible, the astronauts could still have read their lips... when Ursa asks the man what he is, she was very close to his face/helmet, so he could have understood her, without much trouble.

 

[BolianAuthor]

I loved seeing the superpowered Clark get his own back on the bully when I was a kid, but as a grown up it seems like a massive abuse of his powers.

Yeah if you stop and think about it, it DOES seem like kind of a petty thing for Superman to do. It's still a fun scene though.

Actually watching both the Donner and Theatrical Cuts again, the one thing that really struck me was just how young and naive Superman seems to be in this movie. I realize he's an alien and new to the ways of love, etc, but my god he sounds like such a whiny teenager when talking to his parents. It's almost... embarassing to watch.

Everyone always complains about the SR Supes, with his Lois obsession and "spying", but he really wasn't any less mature and adult than the Supes from the earlier movies honestly.

It really wasn't that petty... if you think about it, Clark was actually acting out of fear...

Here he finally got to be with the woman he loved since coming to Metropolis, and a woman who loved and accepted him no matter what he was... Superman, or Clark. But when the bully beat him up, he saw how easily he could be hurt, and he probably felt that in some way, he would appear as less of a man to Lois, as if he'd let her down. IDK, but that's my take on it... he wanted to kind of redeem himself, I think.

And I'm probably one of the only people on this planet, who actually LOVED "Superman Returns"... it simply could not have been better, and I really don't see why people seem to feel they have to find problems with the film... it didn't do anything wrong. It was a perfect way to bring Supes back.

Regarding the Richard Donner version of the second film... I liked it, up till the ending... having Superman reverse time to before he even went to Niagara Falls with lois was so dumb... it totally threw out all the character development of the love between him and Lois, which was really not a good choice, IMO.

 

[Christopher]

Umm... the astronauts COULD hear them... yes, there is no air on the Moon, but there IS air inside the astronaut's space suits.

But if there's vacuum between the spacesuits and the Kryptonians, then no sound would travel. You don't just need air against your ears, you need air or some other medium filling the entire space between you and the thing producing the sound. Because that's what sound is -- vibrations travelling through a medium.

Even if this were still not possible, the astronauts could still have read their lips... when Ursa asks the man what he is, she was very close to his face/helmet, so he could have understood her, without much trouble.

Assuming that (a) the astronauts were trained in lip-reading, a skill which is far from universal and which is much less reliable than is generally portrayed in fiction; and (b) that these aliens from a distant planet destroyed thousands of years ago were fluent in 20th-century English.

 

[biotech]

So the sound vibrations wouldnt pass through the moons surface which they were both stood on?

Come to think of it, wasn't Ursa touching the astronaut while she was talking to him?

So the vibrations would go straight from body to body.

 

[Christopher]

So the sound vibrations wouldnt pass through the moons surface which they were both stood on?

Come to think of it, wasn't Ursa touching the astronaut while she was talking to him?

So the vibrations would go straight from body to body.

If that worked, the real astronauts on the real Moon wouldn't have needed radio. The vibrations that got through that way would be way too feeble for the human ear to detect. Most of the acoustical energy would be absorbed by the intervening material or blocked by the various interfaces between materials. Even if two astronauts brought their visors into direct contact (and this can only work with rigid surfaces that won't damp the vibrations), the most they could hear is a faint, extremely muffled voice.

Maybe elephants could communicate that way on the Moon, since they've evolved with the ability to detect ground vibrations through their big heavy feet. But in 1/6 gravity, their feet would be less firmly pressed against the ground, so their "hearing" would be impaired.

Seriously, why are you trying to defend the credibility of a scene that's obviously fantasy on every level?

 

[BolianAuthor]

these aliens from a distant planet destroyed thousands of years ago were fluent in 20th-century English.

Actually... this is one point in the film that actually CAN be defended...

We know for a FACT, that the Kryptonians did some heavy exploring in the universe, because in one of the data crystals, Jor-El makes mention of something along the lines of "all our accumulated knowledge from the 22 known galaxies", or something. This would indicate that they HAD been to Earth before, and knew of us, and our language. Why else would Jor-El send his only begotten son to Earth, out of all the other choices? The Kryptonians must have known about us.

What I would like to know, is why are YOU so bent on putting down Superman... especially any of the Christopher Reeve films? The first two films were damned fine... damned fine. Especially for their time. I'll tell you this much... I can take the first two Superman films a LOT more seriously or credibly than almost everything Marvel has spewed out recently.

 

[Christopher]

All I'm saying is that these films were made as fantasy and that there's no reason to expect any kind of scientific credibility from them. It's true that I don't care for the Reeve Superman films much, but that's not my point in this thread; I'm merely pointing out that the filmmakers chose to make these as fantasy films, that plausibility was not something they were attempting to achieve. That's not a condemnation, merely a description of the storytelling paradigm they chose, one that was consistent with the comic books of the day. So my point is not to issue a value judgment, merely to clarify what genre these films belong to. And that is a genre in which science is not a consideration, any more than it would be in Cinderella or Clash of the Titans or Toy Story. That doesn't mean those are bad films, it just means they're fantasy films.

 

[the Dagman]

Seriously, why are you trying to defend the credibility of a scene that's obviously fantasy on every level?

I thought I defended that scene quite well by stating it was done via telepathy, as it explains communication in a vacuum as well as instant understanding of alien languages. A power no kryptonian realizes they have because they have some other explanation or rationalization for being able to accomplish that same feat.

How did I come to this conclusion? A couple of decades ago I used to play a game called Champions and another called Superworld (which I was an official playtester and even got my name printed in the credits). And for fun, I would try to create replicas of comic book icons using the rules of the game. And the only really successful way of making a full powered kryptonian was realizing that quite a few of his physical powers were based in telekinesis, as well as his sensory powers having a basis in telepathy. Like, how can he hear Lois scream "Superman!" instantly, no matter where the two are on the planet? Telepathy. (I am starting to feel like Miller from Repo Man explaining that UFOs are really time machines. Hey, I don't drive either!)

Now yes, he does have enhanced hearing. That's how he hears alarms from across town. He just hasn't felt the need to fully examine the difference of what he "hears" to what he actually does hear.

 

[Christopher]

^Fine, but telepathy is another fantasy concept. My point is simply that something that's unapologetically fantasy doesn't need to be scientifically justified.