10 Movies That Relied On Deus Ex Machina

Christopher Reeve’s first Superman movie in 1978 wrote itself into a bit of a corner by making him choose which of Lex Luthor’s missiles to stop. One of the nukes is headed towards the San Andreas Fault and the other towards New Jersey. Superman manages to divert the New Jersey missile into space, but the other explodes, causing earthquakes and Lois Lane’s car falls into a crevice where she suffocates to death in a landslide.

A distraught Superman arrives too late, as he is caught up saving various people, school buses and trains. Instead of attempting CPR, he flies into space and travels several times backwards around the Earth, reversing its rotation and conveniently turning back time. He then returns to Earth, saving Lois before the earthquake happens.

Even if the lack of any scientific credibility of this feat is overlooked, the time travel trope is incredibly lazy writing to solve a problem. It also creates time paradoxes, as we are left with either the scenario that he returned to save Lois and sent all the other people that he previously saved to their doom, or there are now two Supermen in the same point of time - so he now has to go back and tell his ‘other’ self to remember to reverse time, as Lois’ death won’t happen now!