"October Sky" Review

October Sky

The movie October Sky, made in 1999, is the true story of a young teenager named Homer living in a small 1950’s mining town who has high hopes for his future. With the recent launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite, Homer is determined to build his own rockets with his friends and work for NASA, just like his idol Werner Von Braun. However, with a non-supportive dad and an entire community that is focused entirely on mining coal for a living, Homer has to overcome the fact that he has very little support in his endeavor. With the support of his high school teacher and his friends, Homer works towards building bigger and better rockets, with the ultimate goal of entering the local science fair and earning a scholarship for college. This movie is worth the time to see because of the attention to details in the movie, its character representation, the setting of the movie compared to the filming location, and the overall message behind the movie.

Official "October Sky" Movie Trailer


Attention to Detail 

The accuracy of the movie because of the attention to detail is a great aspect of October Sky. In particular, there is a lot of attention put towards making the rocketry aspect of the movie accurate. One such example of this is the de Laval nozzle, which is one of the key parts of Homer's rockets as well as most other rockets in general. Another accurately portrayed detail of the movie is the efforts of Miss Riley (Homer's chemistry teacher) which include giving Homer a book about rocketry as well as helping him and his friends get into the science fair. The fact that the production crew of October Sky took the effort to accurately portray this detail as well as other details about the rocketry made the movie that much more intriguing and interesting.


Character Representation

Another great characteristic of October Sky is the characters that are represented in the movie. The director was very conscious when making a decision of who to include in the movie compared to the real life story. Homer, as well as his friends who were also instrumental in the process of building and launching the rockets, are all included in the movie. Also, Miss Riley, as mentioned before, was also a very important person to Homer and his friends when they had the desire to enter the local science fair. Although there are also plenty of other characters in the movie, it was very satisfying to see these important characters be included in the movie because without them, Homer would probably not have been able to succeed in his efforts of building and launching rockets successfully.

Information About Homer Hickam

Setting

Yet another great aspect of this movie is the filming location. Even though the movie is supposed to be set in a real town called Coalwood in West Virignia, it was actually filmed at a location in Tennessee. Here, the producers constructed all of the buildings, roads, and other items that they would need. However, the best part is that the scenery and environment in Tennessee is very similar to what can be found in West Virginia. It is very pleasing to see that many aspects of the movie, especially the environment and scenery, were made to be as close to real as possible. Because of this, it almost feels as though you are part of the story and the action, which is usually a huge factor in how well an average person will rate a movie.

The Message

Finally, the overall message and purpose of the movie makes it stand apart from all others. One of the biggest messages of the movie is to always follow your dreams and do whatever it takes to achieve them. In life, this is generally one of the biggest rules that everyone should follow when they become older and begin to move into the adult world. If it weren't for dreams, there would not be much to strive for in life. The fact that October Sky heavily stresses this point makes it stand apart as a fantastic movie.

Conclusion

In summary, for many reasons, October Sky is a movie that every film lover should consider seeing if they have never seen it before. The attention to detail presented in the movie, including things such as the individual parts of a rocket and the important support characters, is on a higher level compared to other movies portraying true stories. Leading to the next point, the producers of the movie did great work when they chose what characters to portray in the movie, especially because many of them were a key part to Homer's success. Also, the setting of the movie compared to the actual filming location of the movie were very similar and as close as possible to being the exact same. Finally, the October Sky overall message of the movie is very important and it teaches a great life lesson to live by. Overall, October Sky is a very influential and outstanding movie of its time and should be considered by all film lovers looking to see a great movie from the past.