Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Continuity mistake: When Superman saves the falling woman at the Great Wall, he flies in a 1 o'clock direction. A frame later he is positioned in a 12 0'clock.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Superman stops the Soviet spaceship from turning around the solar panel is facing upwards, a second later the spaceship has changed position and the panel is sideways.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: The Soviet missile has legible CCCP red letters, but in the following shot it's covered in snow, although the close-ups don't show any snow falling.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Superman is on the moon, about to cause the sun eclipse, and flies to the left, as if he were to exit the moon. In the next shot Superman is seen coming from the void towards the moon again.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Lois is packing Superman's cape and Lacy says "I had nothing to do with it", there's no continuity with the passers-by seen behind. A kid in a red t-shirt, for example, appears from nowhere.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Superman saves the girl from the Great Wall of China and starts rising, a woman with a white hat behind lifts her arm to say goodbye. In the following angle she is repeating the movement.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Before nuclear Man lands in the city, there's barely any smoke. A split second later, the close shot is completely filled with smoke. Then it disappears when we see the old lady with the yellow bag, and reappears when we go back to Nuclear Man.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: While Superman is in awe reading the "Drop dead" headline, there's a group of journalists on the background and an empty chair on the right. When Clark stands up, a man appears seated on the chair.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In order to stop the eruption, Superman flies towards a mountain. Watch the central part of it and you'll notice that the wide and close shots are of completely different mountains. The volcano also swaps from having smoke to exploding between frames.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Clark runs towards the subway train and stops. Then from a different angle he is several meters behind, running and stopping again.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: The smoke coming out of the volcano changes direction in a split second after nuclear Man enters the crater.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the quarry, Lenny parks his car to the very right of two wagons. Seconds later the car is in front of them.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When nuclear Man makes the engine of the taxi explode, there's a guy with a red jacket behind it that appears and disappears between shots.

Sacha

Plot hole: Superman traps the supervillain (whose power depends on sunlight) inside of an elevator to incapacitate him. Superman then ripped the elevator out of the building. He then plants it on the far side of the moon. Later on, sunlight starts to shine into the elevator through a slit at where the doors meet. The villain of course recharges and comes after Superman again. Now, if light could get through that crack there, then why couldn't it get through when the elevator was ripped out of the building in BROAD DAYLIGHT?

More mistakes in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Lex Luthor: Lenny, I've always considered you the Dutch Elm disease in my family tree.

More quotes from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Trivia: Christopher Reeve originally refused to return for this film as he hated "Superman III" so much. He eventually changed his mind when he was given more input in the script.

More trivia for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Question: Why is this movie so full of mistakes and plot holes? Was it created by incompetent crew?

Answer: It was made on a very low budget. Golen - Golbus productions bought the rights to Superman. They were mostly known for B-Movies with not so big name stars. It was there attempt to play with the big studios. Plus at least 45 minutes of scenes were cut out, with major subplots.

In addition to budget cuts, they kept shortening the runtime, meaning scenes needed to be cut. The comic book adaptation has the uncut scenes and makes much more sense.

Answer: It should also be noted that the film was originally slated to have a budget of $32 million, which is in roughly the same range as the budget for "Superman III" and movies like Tim Burton's original "Batman." However, shortly before shooting began, the budget was cut by nearly 50%, all the way down to $17 million. As a result, the production was very patchy and rushed. This had an adverse effect on everything.

TedStixon

More questions & answers from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.