In my last post, “How Superman's Father Saved the World,” I wrote:
“On a more intimate level, every time he saves the world, Superman also redeems the tragic death of his father in particular. The scientist father could not save his world from dying of “old age,” but he did save his “infant son” who would grow up to renew and save another world. In this way, Superman’s father is a redeemer, too.”
I was discussing the first telling of Superman’s origin story in his comic book debut written by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. But this interpretation is even more applicable to the story as it was told in the Superman movie of 1978.
The Siegel/Shuster panel doesn’t say anything about Superman’s father trying to save the world where Superman was born. But in the movie, Jor-El (played with magnificent gravitas by Marlon Brando) tells Krypton’s ruling council that “we must evacuate this planet immediately” because, according to his data, “This planet will explode within thirty days.” The council refuses to heed his warning, and so Krypton’s civilization is consumed by a seismic cataclysm which culminates in the explosion of the planet.
But Jor-El’s foresight was not completely in vain. He saved his infant son from the apocalypse by shipping him to Earth. There, in the movie’s climax, Jor-El’s son would save a large portion of his adopted world (the west coast of California) from its own seismic cataclysm: one set off by the villainous Lex Luthor.
Thus the father redeemed his own tragedy by setting his son up to succeed where he could not.