Plenty of genre fiction employs hand-waving pseudo-science to move the plot along. The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. Radiation in Marvel Comics. The Force. They’re dodges of Clarke’s Third Law, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. They’re fantasy masquerading as science fiction. But they all work because, for the sake of the story, we want them to work. It’s not suspension of disbelief; it’s an active engagement in believing.
But there’s one science-y plot trick that’s always bugged me.
It’s the end of Richard Donner’s
Superman. I shouldn’t have to give a spoiler warning for a movie that’s coming up on 40 years old, but: warning, I am about to spoil the end of
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