MovieChat Forums > October Sky (1999) Discussion > Here is my problem or question...

Here is my problem or question...

posted 16 years ago by calbruin2
12 replies | jump to latest

Here is my problem or puzzlement.

A major theme of the movie is the future of most males lives in this town is eventual work in the coal mine.
Even the high school principal admonishes the teacher that her task is to educate not give false hope; maybe one may get out on a football scholarship.

The notion that the only escape is via a football (or some such athletic) scholarship.

So, what about Quentin Wilson's future?

I do now know if there was an actual Quentin, certainly there were nerds during then, 1957, so Quentin is a real possible person.
But if he was a nerd/rocket scientist -- what was his future??
Was he expected to eventually work in the coal mine like any other hick-town male?

Did Quentin have another future, say the one who can escape the town via academic scholarship?

[–] Dreamkatcher22 16 years ago

I seemed to me that academic scholarships were few and far between. The only one they spoke of was the one that was awarded to the winner of the Science Fair. Quentin himself says that the fair is "rigged" and that only kids from Welch (sp?) win. It seems that at that time Quentin was aware of the possibility of getting a scholarship and getting out of Coalwood, but also knew that the chances were low.

[–] funstuf 16 years ago

did you watch the whole movie?
Yes he was real, he became a chemical engineer!
no he did not work in the coal mine
next time don't turn it off until the end of the actual movie and try watching the credits!!!!

[–] estcst-3 16 years ago

I think more the question was what would be the future of a kid in a coal town who wasn't up to the physical task of using a shovel all day...

As the son of a coal miner who has never weighed more than 140 pounds and is about 5' 8", I can say that there are plenty of places in the mines for smaller guys. Mining, even in the time frame of this film, was not all pick and shovel. There are plenty of strong-back jobs, sure, but there is tons of rooms for guys who are good working on more complex tasks. We even seen in the film that they had mining engineers, machinists and other equipment operators. Not to mention that as a mining town every job in the town was filled by the company. That means the guy working the store, whoever goes around fixing up the company housing, so on and so forth were filled by the mine.

Quinton would have found a place. Potentially as an engineer.

Going back a posting, I find the idea that just because you shovel coal or spin a wrench that you're a hick is repulsive. It says a lot about the person when they think that those who work with their bodies somehow can't have a brilliant mind at the same time. "hick-town male" indeed.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] mhlong 15 years ago

I agree with your assessment of the how the characters in the movie were portrayed. Except, movies are not real life and aren't even close. The real issue with Quentin was that as less economically advantaged as many people were depicted, he came from a quite poor family. I don't know about the scene in the movie where Homer goes to his house and finds him studying in the ONE room with his brothers/sisters asleep on the floor, but I do remember from the books, that Quentin asked Homer not to tell the others about his living conditions.

In real life, I think Quentin knew where his future could lay and was doing what he could to try to get out of there. But as others have said, he might have fit into some other jobs in the town.

Oh, yeah, the rocket work gave all the boys a dream to pursue and showed them how hard work would help accomplish the dream. In real life, I don't they all got 'scholarships' directly from winning the award. They all went to college but found many different ways to acoomplish it, like they learned from their rocket building days.

[–] YourAgent 15 years ago

http://www.homerhickam.com/coalwood/quentin.shtml

I met Cinderella once... she's actually a bitch.

[–] zeta1983-1 15 years ago

Thank you for posting that link, I found it very interesting.

[–] MuchToBeGratefulFor 14 years ago

That link IS very interesting. One thing I learned is that they have an annual October Sky festival in Coalwood. You can also read up on the people depicted in the movie, such as all the Rocket Boys and Miss Riley.

You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] jaystarstar 14 years ago

Funny thing is, in the epilogue film clips/ still photos, Quentin actually looks fairly handsome (in fact, somewhat resembling Gyllenhaal) while it's HOMER who looked like a geek -- wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses, buck-toothed, etc etc.

Of course they wanted to make the rugged handsome kid the star of the movie while the geeky kid in horn-rimmed glasses was the "nerd."

[–] Mixalidis 12 years ago

Yeah, so typical.

[–] Rad_Robot_V 13 years ago

A lot of math and science (geology, mechanics, chemistry) goes into mining, actually.