If you read the book like I did, you probably remember that the rocket boys had another friend named Sherman. I was just wondering why they did not put him in the movie.
The real rocket boys were the following six -
Homer (Sonny) Hickam
Roy Lee Cooke
Quentin Wilson
(and here it gets sticky)
O'Dell Carroll
Sherman Siers
Billy Rose
Sherman had polio, and there is one scene where the boys are going out to their launch site and if you look closely one of the boys is limping. That, I believe was a nod to Sherman Siers. O'Dell and Sherman were sort of rolled up into the character of the one they called O'Dell in the movie. And I think the producers/writers/director sort of left Billy Rose out possibly because he joined the group in their second year.
Too bad, because I had the chance to meet and talk to Mr. Hickam and Mr. Rose in Coalwood several years ago and Mr. Rose seemed interesting enough right there to have his own character
I thought the kid who was limping was the one with the alcoholic stepdad who beat him up all the time.
shareok, again, in reality there were six Rocket Boys
The movie only showed four - two of the original six were combined into one character and another was completely omitted.
In the movie, Roy Lee's father tried to beat him up and I believe Homer's (Sonny) father stopped him. And in the movie in that one scene, it was O'Dell that was limping slightly from the car to the rocket site.
It's very hard to establish more than 2-3 "minor characters" in a 2-hour movie, especially when you have other side plots like,
1) Homer's relationship with John
2) John's role as general manager of the mine
3) Homer's girl problems
4) The union strike
5) Homer's sibling rivalry with Jim
6) Miss Riley's illness
... so if you had six "Rocket Boys" in the storyline, either the movie would have to be three hours long, or else a couple of them would be cut down to one or two lines, and spend the rest of the movie standing around.
Compositing a couple of the "Rocket Boys" gave them all a few lines to deliver.