Question: Can anybody explain why the T-Birds didn't see each other all summer? Even if Kenickie had a job, wouldn't he still be around after work?
Answer: During that time, it wasn't uncommon for people to go out of town for the whole summer. Often, it was close enough so that the father could commute on weekends while the mother and kids spent the summer at the vacation spot. Even when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's, I knew a lot of people who did it.
Question: When Superman went back in time to save Lois, doesn't that mean that the people that he had originally saved are now doomed to die?
Chosen answer: No. Because the version of him *before* he time-traveled is still out doing those things. The REAL question is, what happens to that Superman, seeing as Lois no longer dies and he has no reason to travel back in time.
Answer: There are generally two methods of time travel. Skip vs Slide. When you slide through time, you are in essence rewinding or fast forwarding a tape. Time will accelerate to the desired moment. This method, the traveler will witness the rewind and will only allow one of them to exist. When skipping, you are plucking yourself from the time stream and placing yourself in the desired moment. This method, travel is instantaneous and can allow for multiples of the traveler to exist at once. Superman rewound time. He used the slide method and went directly to Lois after doing so. This means those he previously saved...died after his reversal.
Or he could have used the skip method. Like you said, it enables a traveler to pluck themself from the time stream and placing them at the desired moment allowing for two Supermen to be able to prevent both missiles from reaching their destinations.
He couldn't have used the skip method if he rewound time.
Question: Near the end, when Dean Wormer and Mayor DePasto are in the grandstand, officially launching the parade, there is an elderly gentleman in the background (also in the grandstand, about 2 levels up, on the left side of the screen) who is making odd, excited gestures and comical facial expressions. His appearance and odd mannerisms are so striking that he draws my attention away from the dean and the mayor every time that I've seen this film, and that's a lot of times. Surely, director John Landis must have been aware of the gentleman and his antics in the background through multiple takes, so it would seem Landis intended the peculiar distraction. Who was that gentleman, and was there any significance to his appearing in the scene?
Answer: Sometimes these things get left in because it's simply the best take. (The child covering his ears before the gunshot in "North by Northwest," for example.) It could also be that John Landis cast the extra because he wanted someone with goofy expressions in the crowd. He simply could have told the extras "Ok, be excited that you're at a parade," and that's how this extra did it.
Question: Why does Leonard Nimoy have a brown piece of leather on the back of one of his hands?
Answer: On the DVD commentary, Director Phillip Kaufman explained that the leather on Nimoy's hand was the actor's idea and simply showed how kooky the character was. Fits the character well really.
Answer: Well, Danny was out of town, at the beach. It's quite possible that the rest of T-Birds didn't live close enough to each other to see each other during the summer. Also, they may have all had jobs, or been travelling with their families. It's also possible that they DID see each other, although maybe not as "T-Birds". When they saw each other on the first day of school, though, they were Seniors, and they were ready and excited to be T-Bird seniors.
BGraz
Another possible reason is that not all of them were allowed to see friends during the summer. I had a couple of classmates whose parents were strict about them focusing on schoolwork and/or getting a job. No phone calls or visiting friends on the weekends or during summer: "You can see your friends at school."
Do you really think any of the T-Birds had strict parents?
People quite often rebel against strict parents.
When they asked Kenickie where he was, he said "working, which is more than I can say for any of youse kids" suggesting that the 3 stooges (pun intended for their stupid routine that prompts Danny to tell them to "be cool") didn't work all summer. Also, Sonny needed to borrow money in the dinner until he could get his allowance.
In regards to not living close enough to each other, it is worth mentioning that having access to a vehicle was much less common compared to nowadays.
KeyZOid