Gaffes

When Superman first grabs the wing of Air Force One, his "S" is backwards, revealing a flipped shot.

Superman pulls Lois out of her car and lays her on the ground with her arms pointing down and her clothes are all dirty. Yet when he screams in rage and takes off, her right arm is up by her head and her clothes are clean.

Luthor says that Krypton exploded in 1948, and that it took three years for the rocket that carried Kal-El to reach Earth, so it arrived in 1951, and he should be around three years old. Yet when Clark is in high school, it still appears to be the 1950s judging by the fashions, cars, and songs played on the radio.

When Clark and Lois are leaving the Daily Planet on Clark's first day, he tries to follow Lois into the revolving door, getting his briefcase stuck. So, he then goes into the partition behind Lois. But when they come out into the street on the other side, they exit from the same partition. They enter the door separately but exit together.

At the train station, the New Haven engine that masks Otis's entrance to Luthor's lair and the one that hits the detective Harry are the same unit, number board 5048.

The missiles fired are ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles. They would rise to a high arc into the lower atmosphere and then descend upon their targets. They wouldn't fly parallel to the terrain until they reached their targets.

Actual footage of two Minuteman I ICBM's test launch from Vandenberg AFB was used in movie. Minuteman is not capable of non-ballistic, low-altitude, cruise flight as seen in movie.

No heliport would ever have electrical cables strewn across the helipad as shown on top of the Daily Planet building.

Absolute statements about "housekeeping" issues when humans are involved are on shaky foundations. There are myriad examples throughout history of situations that "never would happen".

The recorded teachings by Jor-El in baby Superman's capsule states there are 28 known galaxies. By the 1960s, the Catalogue of Galaxies already listed 29,418 galaxies. However, it may be that when Jor-El said "known galaxies", he was referring to those which had been explored by the people of his world.

Although Kryptonite weakens Superman, there is no significant reason as to why he cannot remove the chain itself and throw it away like Ms. Teschmacher does.

Obviously, the kryptonite weakens Superman to the point that even the lead chain containing it is too heavy for him to lift.

After Air Force One is struck by lightning and her crew apparently panics, the Captain instructs one of the others to inform the ground that the president is aboard. While Air Force One only becomes identified as such when the President is aboard and the notification would not be needed, it was a life and death situation and the crew did not care about protocol at that moment.

When Clark jumps out of the Daily Planet window on hearing Luthor's ultrasound tone and changes into his Superman costume instantaneously on the way down, his legs stay clad in Clark Kent's pants. Obviously, it was not an instantaneous process.

When Superman is catching the cat burglar falling down the side of the skyscraper, his cape (also note the burglar's flashlight) is flat against his body revealing the tilt camera special effect.

When Lex Luthor and Otis are brought to prison at the end of the film, the flaps of Luthor's bald cap are clearly visible on the back of his neck (especially when he tells Otis to shut up).

As Superman is reaching out to grab the missile to hurl it into space, you can see the scaffolding used for Christopher Reeve to lie on sticking out inside his suit.

When Superman lands on a street corner to drill himself down towards Luthor's hideaway, you can clearly see that the street is not concrete, but a pad that moves when he lands on it.

The pilots and crew on Air Force One are all members of the United States Air Force but are not shown wearing uniform shirts or insignia.

Jor-El wears an alien device with an uncanny resemblance to a Rolex watch on his wrist.

The Cheerios box in Martha Kent's kitchen is a 1970s design, when this scene would be set in the 1960s.

The little girl who is audibly slapped by her mother after getting her cat returned by Superman clearly isn't, judging by her shadow on the wall of her house.

Director Richard Donner is reflected in the Daily Planet revolving door when Clark and Lois are leaving (just after the "swell" exchange).

When the planet Krypton explodes, you can clearly see folds in the cloth on the ceiling that makes up the black "space" surrounding the planet. Explosions that are supposed to take place in space are photographed from directly underneath so the sparks "fly" evenly in direction of the camera.

When the gas station explodes, as Lois escapes in her car, we can clearly see a camera sitting on the back seat.

After jumping across in front of the moving train, a reflection of the cameraman can be seen in the train windows as Clark runs home.

During the sequence of Superman's first rescue, police and fire engines are shown responding to crash scene. Shooting briefly from inside the fire truck, the camera drives past a row of four or five location crew campers.

When they do the pan shot of the town site just before the cemetery scene, on the grain elevators the logo for the "Alberta Wheat Pool" is clearly visible on the green grain elevator.

Hoover Dam sits at the head of a long, narrow canyon which ultimately leads into Lake Mohave, and does not have any towns downstream within sight of it.

It is stated that the fault that opens up where Lois and her car fall in is the San Andreas Fault. Jimmy was rescued from hanging off the crumbling Hoover Dam, and seems to walk to where Lois is pretty quickly. However the closest part of the San Andreas Fault to the Hoover Dam is around 290 miles.

When Jor-El introduces himself in the Fortress of Solitude, he explains that by this time, he will have been dead for thousands of Earth years. Yet during his teaching during Kal-El's journey to Earth from Krypton, Jor-El refers to Einstein's theory of relativity, which wasn't formulated until long after the destruction of Krypton.

The day after Lois has her interview with Superman, there is an extensive article in the newspaper. The article includes a picture of Superman. Lois didn't take any pictures, and since he was unknown before that, there wouldn't be a picture for her to include unless she took one. No explanation is given for how she got the photo.

In his double jeopardy, Lex has to have reprogrammed both of the missiles to hit two different targets, but Otis's blunder at reprogramming the first one is never actually corrected and Teschmacher reprograms the second one with a different set of numbers, indicating that this is the other missile set to a different target.

The pilot of Air Force One describes their position as "Ten miles - that's Ten-er miles" from the airport. The scriptwriters have incorrectly extended the aviation custom of pronouncing the number "nine" as "niner" to avoid possible confusion with the German word "nein", which means "no". The "er" suffix isn't added to any numbers not ending in 9. In addition, for distances of more than one digit, the digits are pronounced individually: "One-Zero Miles", not "Ten Miles".

When the commentator on the TV is reporting on the missile launch, he says that he is at the launch site at ground zero. However "ground zero" would refer to where the missile is due to land, not where it's launched from.

When the Air Force One co-pilot is reporting to the tower, he says their "height" is 6000 feet. An airman would not use that term, but would instead say their "altitude" is 6000 feet.

Lex Luthor reveals his master plan to the most powerful being on the planet BEFORE he is incapacitated by the kryptonite. That is not the actions of a genius.