Fortunately, Lex lives in Metropolis, not NYC!
And, of course, you already made that point. DUH!
- How does Superman cause the earth to rotate backwards?
Superman doesn’t cause the earth to spin backwards, he travels backwards in time; the backwards rotation of the earth is how it would look if you reversed the flow of time.
- Why doesn’t California fall into the ocean?
California doesn’t fall into the ocean because Superman dives into the earth and repairs the fault.
- Why doesn’t he go stop the missles when he goes back?
He doesn’t need to. He stopped the Hackensack missle and repaired the damage caused by the California one before he went back. While he’s saving Lois, there’s another Superman (actually him before traveling back in time) out fixing the fault, and saving the people threatened by the destruction.
The actual plot hole is why doesn’t the fissure open up under Lois’s car? We know from Jimmy’s report that the damn collapsed, and Lois talks about the exploding gas station, so the West missle hit and caused the earthquakes, but no fissure opens under Lois’s car. We might assume that Supes did something off screen to prevent this, but by not explaining this inconsistency, a plot hole is left.
I think the current fan rationale is that Superman didn’t rotate the EARTH, he just flew AROUND the Earth, and only traveled back in time HIMSELF.
Not that the movie made it very clear. Or even meant to say it in the first place.
Where does Superman get his hair cut?
I, a Superman fan since 1975 or so, feel ashamed for making the gaffe in the first place.
Getting back to Indy(
) I would like to point out that even in 1936 Tanis was NOT a lost city. I don’t have the exact date for its excavation on hand but by about '36 the British had made the Egyptian desert look like swiss cheese from all the digging!
I went into archaeology, well I was already planning on it when the movie came out, but to my sadness discovered I am not tempermentally suited to field work. 
That’s just … inconceivable
Well… um. The Superman thing.
At the time Lex gives away his plan to nuke California and Hackensack, Supes doesn’t have the Kryptonite chain around his neck, right? The entire Evil Plot has not come to fruition; Luthor only guesses that Superman will try to discover the launch codes; he only hopes that Superman will investigate the lead-lined safe wherein the Kryptonite pendant lies; and Luthor hasn’t exactly got the bell on the cat, yet, has he? The Kryptonite is only a backup plan, a mere possibility.
He does say confidently that Superman cannot stop both missiles, so even if Luthor mis-calculated (and Supes flew off instantly to catch the first missile), Superman would presumably only catch the first one. We can guess that he would catch the closest one first, so we can also guess that Metropolis is closer to Hackensack than it is to California. If Metropolis and NYC are the same place, great; Luthor is putting Superman in the position of saving Metropolis to guarantee his (Luthor’s) California real estate dreams.
However, Superman does fall for the lead-lined safe bit, so both missles are assured to hit. The question is, why didn’t Luthor send Miss Tessmacher to save Superman in the pool in order to assist Superman with saving Hackensack and, presumably, Luthor’s lair itself? Or did he? And if he did – he could have picked Hackensack on purpose, could he have not? – then why does he seem surprised when the missiles change course?
He’s just too evil for his own good, that’s why. I guess. Or something.
FISH
Maybe if he’d used some sort of 1920’s style death ray…
About this whole business of the Hovitos, etc. This has always bothered me. Indy, his assistant and some others hike to the temple, the locals see the statue and run off, Indy and his assitant go through the temple, grab the golden head, the assistant gets killed, Indy then bumps into Belloq, manages to escape, and runs to the river where some guy in a two seater plane is waiting? Huh? How did Indy’s assistant get there then? Did they strap him onto one of the floats/wings? Why the heck, if the plane was so close, did they bother with hiring the locals pack all their stuff up with them? And for that matter, how in the hell did they get all their stuff there (including mules) in such a small plane?
Fish: You assume that Metropolis is on the East Coast. Although it’s location has never been established with any certainty, it’s generally thought to be somewhere in the Midwest (it’s the nearest big city to Smallville, which is in Kansas). This would mean that the missles are going in opposite directions from Metropolis. Luthor doesn’t need Superman to stop the missles to save his lair because they aren’t coming anywhere near it.
Yup. I rememer learning in my youth that Metropolis was a stand-in for Chicago.
Wow. You learn something new every day, I guess. Someone on the SDMB once said that Metropolis was in Deleware.
When Supes and Lois are having their stupid flight around Metropolis and she is thinking that lame poem, they go by the Statue of Liberty.
Arguably they may have detoured to NYC at some stage, but I think it fair to say that in the movie (which is what we’re talking about) Metropolis and NYC are interchangeably the same city.
Supercuts! Duh!
Not your favourite scene, I gather.
Guanolad: Or in this universe the Statue of Liberty isn’t in New York.
Well, the flying around is okay. That poem can’t be ignored, though. I’m surprised Richard Donner doesn’t mention how horrible it is on the commentary.
All righty, I just finished watching the DVD of “Temple of Doom”. Might as well add my comments to this thread rather than starting another one, right?
First off, what the hell is a voodoo doll doing in India?
Second, there’s that whole “ripping the heart out of the chest” bit. Now, I can accept within the constraints of this movie that Mola Ram really did have that power (hey, if the Shankara stones can glow when they are put together, Mola Ram can remove somebody’s beating heart, OK?) And when he used his power against the first sacrifice and later tried to use it against Indy, it seemed real enough. But when Willy was being sacrificed, Mola Ram just waved his hands in front of her, made a grabbing motion, and then just held up his empty hand for a moment, and that was it. WTF??? I suppose it’s possible that the whole ripping the heart out bit was an illusion to begin with, but then why did Indy feal pain when Mola Ram tried the trick on him later?
Third, why the hell did the Maharaja use a voodoo doll against Indy? Yeah, I know I mentioned this before, but it really bugged me. Was there some sort of unstated Haitian influence at work here, or what?
Barry
“Can You Read My Mind” is by far the worst part of the movie. I still cannot understand why they kept this segment in the movie while cutting the danger room sequence when Superman is attacking Lex’s lair. After drilling through the pavement, Supes passes through a series of rooms where he’s shot with machine guns, frozen, and torched. These scenes were restored for the numerous tv showings in the 80’s, but not on the dvd, and I think they would have been a much better use of screen time than the flying scene.