October Sky Blog

Recently I viewed the film October Sky. This movie was a heart felt film that included many concepts of life.
October Sky is about a young boy named Homer who dreams of building rockets and exploring the vast unknowns of space. One of his inspirations was The Sputnik and the Russians. These were his inspirations because no one dreamed to go into outer space and everyone thought that it was dangerous. Exploring space was completely unheard of and many thought that it could be life threatening too. Unlike them, The Sputnik (a famous spaceship) and the Russians, proved that their beliefs were far different. This was Homer's drive to keep moving forward and to keep him believing that anything is possible.
During this movie, it also showed Homer's family. Homer's dad works at a coal mine and it is a very dangerous job. The dust from the coal can clog your lungs and can make you extremely ill. Also, there is always the possibility that the ceiling can fall on top of you, since it is made of rock. Homer's dad expects that he takes on his job after him, but Homer does not want to take over his dad's job since he is interested in rockets. This does not please his father, but it did not stop Homer. Homer experimented with building rockets with his three close friends throughout a period of time and tried different ways to make the rocket go farther then the previous ones they had tried. As they were doing this one day, one of the rockets went in a different direction and Homer's father yelled at him for the mishap and how it landed near the coalmine.
Soon after all the experimenting and finding a working rocket formula, Homer entered a science fair. There he showed his rocket as an exhibit and won first prize. He was even awarded a scholarship, which were very important (as they still are now) in the 1950's. Along with that Homer and one of his buddies used calculus and magnificent math equations to prove that his rocket did not land where his dad said it did, and that it actually landed in a stream. Something that looked like a rocket landed near the coalmine instead. This proved that Homer was serious about his rocket building and did not want his dad to think that it was just a silly thing to do.
October Sky, also included Character Education traits like cooperation, assertion, respect, empathy, and self-control. Cooperation was shown when the boys were making the rockets together. This trait was necessary to get to their goal because without it nothing could have ever happened. Assertion was shown when Homer's mother stood up to her husband and told him to bring a new rocket piece to Homer when one of his was stolen. She was very brave to do this and I was glad that she stood up for herself and spoke the truth to her husband about how he needed to take interest in their sons hobby. Respect was also shown and not shown in the movie. It wasn't shown when Homer's father did not have respect for his rocket building, and Homer's father showed respect to Homer when he worked in the mines for a couple of days when he was ill. This made him happy because mining is a job he does, and he liked that Homer was taking after him. Empathy is yet another characteristic shown in this film. Homer feels sorry for his teacher Mrs. Riley when she was sick in bed. This means that he knows how she feels even though he did not go through it. Lastly, self- control was shown. Homer was surprisingly calm when his dad yelled at him for shooting a rocket near the mines. He maintained a good attitude and did not yell or fight back.
Overall, October Sky is a great movie that is inspirational and proves that you can accomplish anything you want if you truly try.