RELIGIOUS REFERENCES IN SUPERMAN THE MOVIE
When Tom Mankiewicz was hired to oversee the script he threw out all of the camp elements that Mario Puzo had included in his original draft. It was decided that they would either ignore the second coming similarities or dive head first into them. He took the dive and here are some of them :
1) Jor-El (God) casts out Zod (Satan) from Krypton (Heaven)
2) The speech Jor-El gives as he and Lara say goodbye to Kal-El "...the son becomes the father and the father the so..."
3) The ship that brings Kal-El to Earth is in the form of a star (the star of Bethlehem)
4) Kal-El comes to a couple unable to have children "...how we prayed and prayed the good Lord see fit to give us a child."
5) Just as there is not much known about Jesus during his middle years Clark travels into the wilderness to find out who he really was and what he had to do.
6) "... you must live as one of them but always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be, they only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, there capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son." Need I say more?
7) Superman starts his work in his thirtieth year - the same age Jesus was when he left Nazareth to preach
There would have been more if Richard Donner could have completed his story of the fall and resurrection and his battle with evil in Superman II.