October Sky

October Sky
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joe Johnston
Screenplay by	Lewis Colick
Based on	October Sky by Homer Hickam
Produced by	Charles Gordon Larry J. Franco
Starring	Jake Gyllenhaal Chris Cooper Chris Owen Laura Dern
Cinematography	Fred Murphy
Edited by	Robert Dalva
Music by	Mark Isham
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	February 19, 1999 (1999-02-19) (United States)
Running time	107 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$25 million[2]
Box office	$34.7 million[2]

October Sky is a 1999 American biographical drama film directed by Joe Johnston, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Chris Owen, and Laura Dern. The screenplay by Lewis Colick, based on the memoir of the same name, tells the true story of Homer H. Hickam Jr., a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 to take up rocketry against his father's wishes and eventually became a NASA engineer.

October Sky is based on the lives of four young men who grew up in Coalwood, West Virginia.^[3] Principal photography took place in rural East Tennessee, including Oliver Springs, Harriman and Kingston in Morgan and Roane counties. The film was a moderate box office success and received very positive critical reception. It continues to be celebrated in the regions of its setting and filming.^[4][5]

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 Homer Hickam in the mining community of Coalwood, West Virginia, who is inspired to build his own rockets despite the skepticism of his friends and family, especially his father; John Hickam, who strictly wanted Homer to work 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 Freida J. Riley, they construct small rockets. When one of their rockets lands near John's office and nearly injures some workers, John reprimands Homer not to build rockets on his property again. The boys hike to the edge of the coal company's property, where they succeed with the help of the 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. However, the boys abandon rocketry after they are accused by the police of starting a wildfire with a stray rocket and are arrested. 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 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 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 (9,100 m) – 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 film's release. Although it 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 in East Tennessee gave the filmmakers trouble and delayed the 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 the 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]

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 film. It had a total lifetime gross of $34,675,800 worldwide.^[2]

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 film 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]

October Sky won three awards, including: the OCIC Award for Joe Johnston at the Ajijic International Film Festival 1999,^[20] the Critics' Choice Movie Awards for Best Family Film in 2000,^[21] and the Humanitas Prize 1999 for Featured Film Category.^[22]

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 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]

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]

Wikiquote has quotations related to October Sky.

• Homer Hickam's Official Website
• Information and Photos of Filming Locations
• Photo gallery from the filming of October Sky in East Tennessee
• October Sky at IMDb
• October Sky at the TCM Movie Database
• October Sky at Box Office Mojo
• October Sky at The Numbers