I watched the 1978 film last night for the first time since I was a kid, and perhaps I am just spectacularly dense, but the ending makes no sense. The earthquake happens. Lois Lane gets trapped in her car and crushed to death. Superman finds her body, and grieving he flies into space and turns the world backwards on it's axis, effectively turning back time to before the earthquake happened. In fact you see the effects of the earthquake in reverse, like Lois's car jumping out of the big ravine, the ground closing up again and the dam rebuilding itself.
So howcome when Supes flies back down to Earth, Lois and Jimmy both remember the Earthquake happening? Lois remember the gas station blowing up, and Jimmy says "you picked me up and dropped me in the middle of nowhere in the middle of an earthquake" - but as time was reversed he should have ended up back on the dam and had no memory of Superman being there. And as the time went back to before the missile hit the fault line, when he turned back time the missile should have been back in the sky again. Plus, if he was standing chatting up Lois Lane, there would have to be another Superman stopping the missile that was going to New Jersey.
It makes no sense.
