First, right off, stuff ain't real, just go with it as usual.
And second this was caused by me thinking about things in the Man of Steel thread. Here goes:
So, in Superman '78, Superman spins around the earth to make it go backwards in time. I suspect that this does a whole lot of mucking with the Earth.
The spinning backwards somehow causes time to flow backwards. This causes Lois to be unburied, her car to be back on terra firma, the dam to be unbusted, and all the water flowing back into the dam (and the earthen dam Superman built to hold back that water to be undone too), and Lois is alive! Ticked, but alive.
HOWEVER... she's in the same place the gas ran out. We do not know what happened to the train, nor the bus and the Golden Gate Bridge damage, nor the missile that went off in the first place to cause all this stuff, and the condition of the San Andreas Fault, of course. Not to mention the exploded gas station and telephone poles.
Ok, so... since Lois got to where she was, and was still there... One of two things happened.
1) Superman had to go running around YET AGAIN to deal with the dam, the train, the bus, the fault, because he obviously didn't fix the missle in the first place, or Lois wouldn't have been spooked at the gas station and gotten to where she was, only this time, instead of admiring his awesomeness in making that earthen dam (too small, by the way, but whatever) and took off at TOP speed to ensure the crack didn't even get that far, so as to save Lois.
2) The "earlier" Superman was doing all that, leaving the "now" Superman to just do one thing. Fix the crack, and then be a smart ass and say "I think it's out of gas."
Which is fine, I suppose... but why do all that when you can *get the missile in the first place?!* and make it a MUCH simpler solve?
Paradox, that'd be why.
Back up in the movie to the other missile, and where Superman had just let it go. He looks back towards the earth to see... nothing? What happened? Where's that other missile? He knew he was going to have to deal with that one, and righfully, he picked the lesser of the two to impact, because the one going to Hackensack was definitely going to kill people, the California one was going to the middle of nowhere, and he might could fix it... but... where is it? Is it a dud? He uses his supervision and sees.. himself. Grabbing the other missile. And flinging it away.
This patenly can't happen, though. Without cause, Superman doesn't go back in time to get the missile. It *has* to impact. As the Doctor says, "Fixed point in time, sorry." Soe he only sends time back around to save the Dam, and save Lois. It can be assumed that the Dam once again explodes and he has to make the earthen dam, then boogy his ass over Lois' situation.
So yeah before he gets all "not listening Dad!" and sticks his fingers in his ears going "La la la!" as he ignores the Non-Interference Rule and goes whizzing about the Earth... he's releasing the first missle, he looks back and sees the second missile impacting... runs around saving the day for everyone except Lois... and is amazingly ignorant/oblivious to the whirling vaportrail going on above him during the Saving Jimmy/dam exploding bit. Understandable given the Lois situation, but really, when flying around, you dont' see *FREAKIN WEIRD STREAKS* against the partly cloudy blue sky?! Yeah...
Well, ok, he was kinda busy. Fine. So he fling the Earth backwards in time, but JUST enough to get the dam back together, and Lois outta the ground. What happens next is he MUST do the dam bit one more time, then save Lois. Because, you know, earthquakes and stuff still happening.
How did Lois get back in the car? Was it like some weird Weekend at Bernies where she just kinda zombie hops back in it, dirt mystically fills in around her, door magically flings itself back onto the car and reattaches correctly, then gets semi-gently put back in as if someone were holding it and putting it back in the dirt filled crack in the ground?
There is *NO WAY* that happens without a Superman doing it in reverse. None. Oh, and the earthen dam? Doesn't go back up, as Superman isn't there to act upon it. So it stays on the ground. Well, at least he wouldn't have to do THAT again, but Lois is now befuddled going "how... what... what the HELL happened to the car and me?!"
Or, no she's not. She's still dead, as she couldn't have gotten uncrushed, unless Superman was there to make that happened. And all that flyin' around the Earth is for SQUAT.
And there's the rub. Superman could not, would not, have ever saved Lois. With one exception: He would have had to travel back in time and gotten Lex out of the picture before he even went to Addis Abbaba. Which he could have, but it would have WILDLY messed with Human History, and we can't have that now, can we. The extraordinary, extratemporal example of Lois notwithstanding.
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But that's just the trick of Lois not being dead being a non-thing-that-can-really-happen even in the movie. Now, let's have fun with the physics side of the whole reverse spin of the world and what it'd do to Earth.
First, the act itself would cause the stars, planets and moon to be *ever-so-slightly* misaligned. Not to mention the fledgling GPS system, and other satellites whos positions will be rather out of whack after The Event. Superman's huge desire to not let Lois be dearly departed could wind up having huge, global, economic, and yes, even deadly consequences. And that's just a relational position thing to the rest of the universe.
The next thing that'd happen? Weird tides. The moon has advanced in it's orbit by a few minutes, and so has the Earth. Remember, the SPIN on the earth's axis is only being affected, and nothing else in the universe. This would exert a different pull than normal on the waters, and could NOT be avoided. Gravity sucks after all. The rippling effect on that in only ONE direction would be rather interesting... in reverse, then back again? I shudder to think what some coastal communities would experience, and how long this would take to be completed. In the clip the North American Plate was just coming into the sun... which is another thing... it was a bright sunny day in California... and now it's in the night side? Weird....
So anyway, the Atlantic is on the bright side, as is the Indian Ocean, Africa, Asia and Europe. Possibly Austrailia, but probably getting dark there. So anyway, all of those places and oceans get some extra sun. This isn't an insignifican amount of BTUs people, nor UV light. This is going to do some damage. The 'few' minutes' is not so few. Standing around in the sun for an extra 15-20 minutes would be a problem for some people... and they're unwittingly going to do this because they themselves can't stop time, and are GOING to repeat their little bit of life. But beyond that, the Atlantic is GOING to get extra water pulled up into it. I don't know where the moon is though. That would be important. We know it's not a 1/8 or 3/8 waxing moon, or it'd be in the shot. It could be 1/4 moon, or anywhere from Full to New.
If it was from 3/8 to 5/8 (which includes Full Moon) then it would be a Bad Thing(tm) for the tides. If it were 7/8 to 1/8 (including New Moon) that's a Worse Yet Thing(tm). Anywhere in the 1/4 and 3/4 Moon is the best hopefull scenario, as that's would help to pull water away from the Sun's pull to the side. The other two enhance the tides, the Full side being less so on the Atlantic than the New side, which is going to pull the most water.
So, for the sake of this argument, the moon is at 3/4, so it's the more hopefull. The water is still going to be pulled up into the sun's side. As much as we'd like to believe that the Time Travel Trick (or T3 for short) is going to keep all the waters and people's metabolisms and sunburn protection, it's not. It will let more physical things such as the rushing river, which isn't all that affected by the sun, and the rockslide, sure, those can be moving back. But the sheer mass of the water of the ocean simply NOT going to ignore the pull, and peoples skins can't ignore the extra dosage of UV light, much as we'd like that to happen.
The ocean swells up more... and then more again as the planet reverses again... And in all this, you have rogue waves being generated by this, similar to those big wave making machines at the water parks. Someone's town is going to be nonexistent, or at the very least, a few people are gonna get swept away. Multiply this by a whole lot if the Moon is New.
That's just the ocean. The weather would be affected in some way as well, although it's possible the effects of tidal force won't be as great. Still, something to consider as a possible. No, the weather would be affected by the fact that, again, the Earth has moved forward in it's orbit by a few minutes. But it was slighly tidally locked for those few minutes due to the revese spin. This has the effect of warming that particular side of the earth by quite a lot more than just a little bit. As would the dark side also be radiating heat for a few minutes more. THAT is what will affect the weather of the planet, as the weather of Earth (and indeed, all weather in the Solar System, and the Universe) is a heat moving mechanism. The warming of the Atlantic due to the extra time under the sun (as evidenced by the clip, mind, which is already messed up) would ensure an extra hurricane or tropical storm. And a bigger one of those at that.
Oh yeah... remember what I said about the ocean tides The earth's movement... Rockies, Hawaiian islands, Himalayas, all those masses flinging themselves suddenly backwards through the air? Are we SURE the air is going with us? I bet not... it's too diffuse. Eddies and counter currents, hook patterns, tornadoes galore... all can be expected in the next couple of hours if not days. Not in the traditional places, like Kansas... but more like... Denver. Kathmandu. Kona.
Tetonic stresses beyond anything you can ever expect to believe. Destruction of cities scale the likes of which has never been seen. Cuba disappears. Kilauea, Loihi won't be the only volcanoes going in Hawaii, Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, Haleakala, Hualali, all will be active. The Panama Canal will widen itself, and the locks will never close again. That sort of thing. The Earth's Dynamo in the form of the spinning cores and mantles would be so disrupted, we will never have the Van Allen Belts during our lifetimes, and forget North and South poles,try Northwest, Southeast, Top, Bottom, Strange, Up... 8 or more matching pole systems.
Death and destruction of plant life and animal life due to increased radiation, especially at the locations where a neo-pole unluckily decided to be. Dallas and Sidney could be ghost towns because poles sprung up there, funnelling in the suns' radiation, making them uninhabitable.
All for Superman's desire to save a potiential booty call.
Way to go, Clark.
/This is a whole lotta supposition, and there's probably more, but I think I've formulated the destruction of Earth as we know it thanks to Superman's awesome studliness, don't you?
//I look forward to a rousing debate upon these small points I've brung up. Let's have fun!