This article is about the 1999 American biographical film directed by Joe Johnston. For the memoir by Homer Hickam, see October Sky (book). For other uses, see October Sky (disambiguation).
October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys, the title of the 1998 memoir upon which the film is based. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik 1 as it crossed the "October Sky". Homer Hickam said that "Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled Rocket Boys."[6] The book was later re-released with the name in order to capitalize on interest in the film.[7][8]
In October 1957, news of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 reaches the town of Coalwood, West Virginia, where most male residents work in the coal mines. As the townspeople gather to see the satellite orbit across the sky, Homer Hickam is inspired to build his own rockets to escape the tedium of Coalwood. His family and classmates do not respond kindly, especially his father John, the mine superintendent, who wants Homer to join him in the mines.
Homer teams up with math geek Quentin Wilson, who shares an interest in aerospace engineering; with the support of friends Roy Lee Cooke and Sherman O'Dell, and their science teacher at Big Creek High School, Freida J. Riley, the four construct small rockets. When one of their rockets lands near the mine and nearly injures some workers, John angrily tells Homer not to let him catch him on company property with rockets again. The boys hike to the edge of the coal company's property, where they succeed with the help of townsfolk, including the mine's machine shop manager, Ike Bykovsky, who is punished by John for helping the boys and sent to work in the mine.
The rocket launches begin attracting townsfolk, and the local paper runs a story about the boys. Afterward, they are accused of starting a wildfire with a stray rocket and are arrested. In the aftermath, the dejected boys abandon rocketry. In a mining accident, John is injured and Bykovsky is killed, devastating Homer. He drops out of high school to work in the mine and provide for his family while his father recovers.
Homer is inspired by Miss Riley to read a book on applied rocket science, learning to calculate the trajectory of a rocket. Using this, he and Quentin locate their missing rocket and prove it could not have caused the fire. The boys present their findings to Miss Riley and the school principal, Mr. Turner, who determines that the cause was a flare from a nearby airfield. Homer tells his father he is returning to high school and no longer wants to work in the mine. The boys return to rocketry and win the school science fair. When the opportunity arises for one of them to participate in the National Science Fair in Indianapolis, they elect Homer. The miner's union goes on strike against the coal company. With the mines set to close and resenting his father's pressures, Homer storms out of the house, vowing never to return.
At the national science fair, Homer's display is well-received. Overnight, someone steals his machined rocket part model – the de Laval nozzle – and his autographed picture of Dr. Wernher von Braun. Homer makes an urgent phone call home to his mother Elsie, who implores John to end the strike so that Mr. Bolden, Bykovsky's replacement, can use the machine shop to build a replacement nozzle. John relents when Elsie, fed up with his lack of support for their son, threatens to leave him. With the town's support and replacement parts sent to Indianapolis, the boys win the top prize and Homer is bombarded with college scholarship offers.
He returns to Coalwood as a hero and visits Miss Riley, who is dying of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Preparing for the launch of their largest rocket yet, Homer asks his father to come and tells him that Von Braun is brilliant but is not his hero--implying John is his true idol. At the launch of their rocket, named for Miss Riley, almost all of Coalwood turns out to watch. John is given the honor of pushing the launch button. The Miss Riley reaches an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100m) – higher than the summit of Mount Everest. As the town looks to the skies, John puts his hand on Homer's shoulder and smiles, showing Homer that he is proud of him.
An epilogue reveals the real-life outcomes of the main characters' lives, noting that Miss Riley died, the mine closed, and all four Rocket Boys went to college, going on to successful careers, with Homer working at NASA.
Filming began on February 23, 1998, almost a year before the movie's release. Although the film takes place in West Virginia, Tennessee was the location of choice for filming in part because of the weather and area terrain. Film crews reconstructed the sites to look like the 1957 mining town setting the movie demanded. The weather of east Tennessee gave the filmmakers trouble and delayed production of the film. Cast and crew recalled the major weather shifts and tornadoes in the area during the filming months, but Joe Johnston claimed, "ultimately, the movie looks great because of it. It gave the film a much more interesting and varied look."[9][10] For the underground scenes, the crews also recreated a mine, with Johnston expressing that the mine took on a "villainous" appearance in the film, which felt ironic given its position as the town’s source of livelihood. More than 2,000 extras were used in the film. A small switching yard allowed the filmmakers and actors to film the scenes with the boys on the railroad and gave them freedom to do as they pleased, including the tearing apart of tracks. The locomotive used in the scene was Southern Railway 4501, re-lettered as Norfolk and Western No. 4501. Filming concluded on April 30, 1998.[9]
The film's star, Jake Gyllenhaal, was 17 years old during filming, the same age as Homer Hickam's character. In an interview in 2014, Natalie Canerday recalled that Gyllenhaal was tutored on set because he was still in school and taking advanced classes.[10]
Release
October Sky opened on February 19, 1999 in 1,495 theaters and had an opening weekend gross of $5,905,250. At its widest theater release, 1,702 theaters were showing the movie. The movie has had a total lifetime gross of $34,675,800 worldwide.[2]
Reception
Critical reception
October Sky received generally positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% out of 74 critics gave the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.6/10. The critic's consensus states: "Rich in sweet sincerity, intelligence, and good old-fashioned inspirational drama, October Sky is a coming-of-age story with a heart to match its Hollywood craftsmanship."[11]Metacritic gave the film a score of 71 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[12] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A" on scale of A to F.[13]
Many critics commended the movie for its focus on family values and inspirational aspects, particularly the main character's relationship with his father and the actors' performances. Roger Ebert, who gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, recognized that the film "doesn't simplify the father into a bad guy or a tyrant. He understandably wants his son to follow in his footsteps, and one of the best elements of the movie is in breaking free, he is respecting his father. This movie has deep values."[14]
James Wall of The Christian Century described the film's concentration on the father-son relationship as "at times painful to watch. There are no winners or losers when sons go their separate ways. October Sky does not illustrate good parenting; rather, it evokes the realization that since parents have only a limited vision of how to shape their children's future, the job requires a huge amount of love and a lot of divine assistance."[15]Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide claimed that the movie's highlight was the acting of Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Cooper.[16][17]
The Christian Science Monitor pointed out that some viewers may question "the movie's hero-worshiping treatment of Homer's role model, Wernher von Braun, who's depicted as an all-American icon with no acknowledgment of his earlier career in Nazi Germany."[18] During World War II, Braun was a member of the Nazi party and the Allgemeine SS. In addition, the ballistic weapons that he developed for the Nazi regime were largely constructed by concentration camp prisoners who faced inhumane conditions, with many dying due to their brutal imprisonment.[19]
The movie was praised for its portrayal of 1950s Appalachia despite several major and minor differences from the book on which it is based.
Homer Hickam is the main character's name; in the book and in real life he was nicknamed "Sonny".[23][24]
Homer Hickam Jr.'s father was not named John. This was changed in an effort to keep the audience from being confused.[24][25]
There were actually six "rocket boys" rather than the four in the movie. Some of the movie's representations of the characters are combinations of the real-life boys. Their names were: Homer Hickam Jr., Quentin Wilson, Jimmy O'Dell Carroll, Roy Lee Cooke, Billy Rose and Sherman Siers.[23][24]
The Rocket Boys did not steal railroad parts as in the film; however, they did attempt to grab a cast iron pipe under the tracks and, according to Homer's website, this almost got him killed.[23]
While the boys were accused of starting a fire, they were never detained. The police soon realized that their rockets could not have traveled over 3 miles and the boys were exonerated. Homer never had to prove their innocence, as his character did in the film.[24]
Homer never dropped out of school to work in the town's mine. He did, however, work in the mine the following summer, as described in Hickam's book Sky of Stone.[23]
Homer never met Wernher von Braun - as it turns out, von Braun was looking for the Rocket Boys' exhibit when Homer was looking for him; and they missed each other.[24]
Cultural impact
There are two annual festivals in honor of the Rocket Boys and the film. One is held in West Virginia where the real-life events depicted in the book and film took place, and the other is in Tennessee where the movie was actually shot. The Rocket Boys often visit the festival in West Virginia, which is also called the "Rocket Boys Festival", while the festival in Tennessee focuses more on the filming locations. The Tennessee festival's site claims that the festival is "a celebration of our heritage."[4][5]
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, saw a screening of October Sky in 1999. In a subsequent conversation with the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, Bezos commented that he had always wanted to start a space company. Stephenson urged him to do so. Bezos then started the private aerospace manufacturing and services company Blue Origin, and Stephenson became one of the company's early employees.[26][27]
The author of Rocket Boys claimed that the Star Trek Enterprise episode Carbon Creek was based on October Sky, and there are obvious references to the story in the episode.[28][29]
Related Research Articles
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun was a German-American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, and later a pioneer of rocket and space technology in the United States.
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945–59. Some were former members and leaders of the Nazi Party.
Willy Otto Oskar Ley was a German and American science writer and proponent of cryptozoology. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in Donnie Darko (2001).
Coalwood is an unincorporated coal town in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. The coal mine in Coalwood reached its peak in the 1950s and ceased production on October 1, 1986. As of the 1990 census—the last time the town was counted separately—the population was 900. The town is the setting of Homer Hickam's best-selling 1998 memoir Rocket Boys, as well as its 1999 film adaptation, October Sky.
Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. is an American author, Vietnam War veteran, and a former NASA engineer who trained the first Japanese astronauts. His 1998 memoir Rocket Boys was a New York Times Best Seller and was the basis for the 1999 film October Sky. Hickam's body of written work also includes several additional best-selling memoirs and novels, including the "Josh Thurlow" historical fiction novels, his 2015 best-selling Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, his Wife, and her Alligator and in 2021 the sequel to Rocket Boys titled Don't Blow Yourself Up: The Further Adventures and Travails of the Rocket Boy of October Sky. His books have been translated into many languages.
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is a museum operated by the government of Alabama, showcasing rockets, achievements, and artifacts of the U.S. space program. Sometimes billed as "Earth's largest space museum", astronaut Owen Garriott described the place as, "a great way to learn about space in a town that has embraced the space program from the very beginning."
John Peter Sarsgaard is an American actor. He studied at the Actors Studio, before rising to prominence playing atypical and sometimes villainous roles in film and television.
October Sky is the first memoir in a series of four, by American engineer Homer Hickam Jr. originally published in 1998 as Rocket Boys. Later editions were published under the title October Sky as a tie-in to the 1999 film adaptation.
Stephen Roark Gyllenhaal is an American film director and poet. He is the father of actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Caretta is an unincorporated community located in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. Caretta was named for the transposed syllables in the name of Mrs. Etta Carter, the wife of George Lafayette Carter. It is the only place in the United States with this name.
Back to the Moon is a science fiction novel and Homer Hickam's first fictional book. Published in June 1999, Hickam wrote Back to the Moon using insider information he learned from NASA.
Natalie Suzanne Canerday is an American actress.
I Aim at the Stars is a 1960 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Wernher von Braun. The film covers his life from his early days in Germany, through Peenemünde, until his work with the U.S. Army, NASA, and the American space program.
Sky of Stone is the third in a trilogy of memoirs by Homer Hickam, Jr. about his hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia, that began with October Sky.
Jake Gyllenhaal is an American actor and producer who has appeared in over 35 motion pictures, three television programs, one commercial, and four music videos. He made his film debut in 1991 with a minor role in the comedy-drama City Slickers. In 1993, he appeared in A Dangerous Woman, a motion picture adaptation directed by Gyllenhaal's father Stephen Gyllenhaal and co-written by his mother Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal that was based on the novel of the same name by Mary McGarry Morris. In the following year, he portrayed Robin Williams' son in an episode of the police procedural television series Homicide: Life on the Street; the episode was directed by his father. In 1999, Gyllenhaal starred in the Joe Johnston-directed drama October Sky; the film was received warmly by critics, and Gyllenhaal's portrayal of the NASA engineer Homer Hickam was praised.
The Coalwood Way (2000) is the second memoir in a series of three, by Homer Hickam, Jr. The Coalwood Way is a story of the Rocket Boys and Coalwood. Homer calls it an "equal," rather than a sequel because the story happens during the same timeframe as the first book. Today, it is one of the most often picked community/library reads in the United States. It is also studied in many school systems around the world. The Coalwood Way (2000) is followed by Sky of Stone (2002), and preceded by October Sky (1998).
Daniel Boyd is an American filmmaker, author, and communications professor. He currently teaches at West Virginia State University, has hosted writing workshops, and received a Fulbright Fellowship in 1998.
Gerhard Herbert Richard Reisig was a German-American engineer and rocket scientist. He worked at the Peenemünde Army Research Center during World War II and later, through Operation Paperclip, at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
↑ Davenport, Christian (2018). The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos. PublicAffairs, an imprint owned by Hachette Book Group. ISBN9781610398299.
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