10 Movie Scenes Everyone Skips

Though Richard Donner's 1978 Superman may seem painfully earnest to younger viewers, it's one of the most important and iconic superhero movies of all time, and remains fiercely rewatchable today.

There is a single damp squib scene, though. After Supes (Christopher Reeves) takes Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) for a heart-swelling flight over Metropolis, Lois inexplicably recites a poem, "Can You Read My Mind?"

The lyrics read as though hurriedly scrawled 15 minutes before Kidder's recording session began, with shambolic lines like, "I don't know who you are / Just a friend from another star," and "Here I am, like a kid out of school / Holding hands with a god. I'm a fool."

After the comparatively restrained sweetness of the initial flight scene, this is a few steps too far in the way of goofy sentiment, and by effectively infantilising Lois it also harmed her characterisation in the process.

Fun fact: the "poem" was originally a song written for Kidder to sing, but Donner decided he didn't like the idea and deferred to the mere spoken word instead. So, perhaps it could've been worse?

Even so, the second that Kidder's voiceover kicks in, it's time to move on.