Re: Superman Returns - big spoiler and incredibly anal observations

Peter Bruells wrote:

Superman giving it escape veocity by pushing it, thereby experiencing
the equal force (actio/reaction) which pushed him backwards towards
Earth.

Escape velocity usually puts things into orbit and needs to be at an angle. In this case they were going straight up (as witnessed by the fact Superman fell back down into Metropolis.) To get away from Earth's gravitational pull that way you'd have to pass the Lagrange point where Earth's gravitational pull is cancelled out by some other object (say, the Sun.)

So either (a) Superman flew 1.6 million miles or (b) dumped it on the moon or (c) pushed the rock so hard that he threw it past the Lagrange point against the pull of gravity, it would have fallen back to earth.


No, but they were apparently in free fall. You don't have to be in
orbit to experience free-fall. Just jump out of a plane or book a seat
on the "Vomit comet".

But the weightless moment co-incided with entering orbit. When they were actually in free fall, on the way down, they weren't weightless.

By the way, I think this was easily the best superhero film I've ever seen. The more I think about it as a movie, the more I think it was a work of genius. My comments should be read in that context.
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