| John McClane | 03-20-04 03:07 PM |
Movie: October Sky
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This movie is based on the true story of four boys. The four boys are Quentin, Roy Lee, O’Dell and Homer Hickam Jr. they were called the “Rocket Boys”. They lived in a West Virginia town called Coalwood. The movie starts out on October 5, 1957 and Russia has just successfully launched the first man made satellite, Sputnik. The town of Coalwood didn’t care about this milestone, but one boy sees this as an opportunity for a chance at college.
Homer is one of the many unlucky coal miners’ sons whose future is already set for them. Their future is the mine, but Homer wants more, so he tries out for the school’s football team. His failure makes him realize the ever closing truth of his future. Then his popular brother, Jim, receives a football scholarship to the University of West Virginia. This news just makes the truth set in even more; he won’t be one of the lucky few to escape the death grip, the mine has on the town.
When Homer saw Sputnik his hopes were set in a new direction, the field of rocketry. His first attempt at launching a homemade rocket ended up in destroying his mother’s white picket fence. After this unsuccessful attempt at his own rocket, he tries to find out more on rocketry. He starts to look around for information, but his town is interested more in what’s beneath the Earth then what’s above it. This resulted in their goals becoming harder to accomplish and, for the moment, arriving at a dead end.
Homer then has the idea to ask Quentin, the school’s biggest nerd, for help. When Quentin joins the group their hopes ignited. Then they went to Homer’s basement and started building another rocket, following the examples in a book. A problem arises while building the rocket, welding is required. Homer doesn’t know how to weld, but he doesn’t give up. This causes him to ask one of the metal shop workers to teach him. After welding the rocket they, went to fire it off, and it went out of control towards the mine. His dad was the one to find the rocket.
John Hickam, Homer’s dad, was a very arguably man during the movie. Directly following the out of control rocket scene, John came out of his office and picked up the rocket. He then called his son a thief, and a damn menace in front of all the workers. Then he told Homer “Don't you ever let me catch you with these fool things on company property again.” Still Homer persists by walking eight miles to get off company property, but his friends disagree with his idea. Homer then went off in his own direction, but his friends caught up with him again. The mine owned all of the towns land, but it didn’t own a place called Snake Ruth this is where the “rocket boys” went.
Miss Riley, their teacher, helped them by supporting them though all their failed attempts. One of the steel workers had the idea of making the rocket longer. Quentin then said, in an intelligent way, that it was a great idea. After making the bigger rocket they decided to launch it off. When they arrive at Snake Ruth they found out that Jim had told the whole town about the test. This upset the boys because of the fact if it didn’t fly they would be the town’s laughing stock.
Homer set everything up, lit the rocket, and ran back to their block house. They all waited for the fuse to finish and then, Whoosh!! They finally had a success. The whole town cheered, including his brother.
The high school principal had the boys arrested after they had fired off their third rocket. It was believed that they started a fire that brought down a lot of forest. After this the boy’s hopes were broken down to rubble.
Homer told his dad earlier in the movie that he would never go down into the mine. The ironic part is that Homer’s dad is involved in an accident, and he must apply at the mine to keep the house. The rest of the movie is composed of a science fair, more rocket launches, and a bunch of comic relief.
When I first saw the trailer for this movie I thought to myself, what a waste of money. Then when I saw it for the first time I loved it. In the movie the “rocket boys” are going though high school. When I saw this I saw how the boys studied and everything. Then I look at the newer high school based movies and only see guys wanting to get laid. This is a great thing to show to a class of high school students. It would help them to understand that if they want to get to college, work is required.
Personally I thought it was great, except for the fact that some things were altered from the book. When ever I see a movie based on a true story, I like to see a little bit of comedy. This movie has just the right amount of comedy and it has lots of fun for people of any age. It’s also a great reason for the family to get together for the night, and set down for a good old movie. Through out the entire movie, I didn’t feel any boredom at all, like I do with some other true based movies.
Near the end, the movie gets sad, but its ending is one of the happiest I’ve every seen. Another great factor in the music it fits in nicely with the scenes. I would recommend this to families and any one who likes true stories.
This movie is primly composed of comedy and fun for the whole family. You can watch it over and over again, and not get bored, because of the comedy. I would also recommend this to be bought on DVD or VHS. If you every get the chance to watch it, you will remember it forever. It gives you inspiration not to give up in life, when it gets tough.