[October Sky] is a film that is relatively in the middle in terms of rhythm and grasp of genre films. Here, I will sort out a few plot arrangements that I care about. I will not discuss the acting skills of the actors, but only as a record. The scene with the background of American football and a small town at the beginning conveys several messages to us: 1. Homer does not want to stay in the coal forest, nor does he want to mine coal 2. At present, getting scholarships through sports is the only way out 3. Homer does not Ability to get scholarships in sports So far, the goal of homer's scholarship dream is just to "get out of this bad place", and there is no internal reason.
At the same time viewers can probably get some suggestive connections from this information:
1. This place is relatively closed, and most of the young people can only choose to go to coal mining. 2. This place only rises because of coal mining, which makes us naturally think of the decline of towns caused by the depletion of coal resources. At this point, as the audience, we have probably agreed with homer's desire and are full of expectations for his next actions. The next important point is the night of witnessing the "rocket" flying over the coal forest, which is the foreshadowing of the whole provocative event. And homer's performance was quite satisfactory, showing his surprise to the Rockets, completing a subtle emotional transformation. But his subsequent announcement that he was "building a rocket" was confusing. We know that [Building a Rocket] must be the inspiring event of this movie, and the male protagonist will encounter a series of problems and difficulties around it - this is an essential routine for this type of film. But when the male protagonist said that he wanted to build a rocket, was the time ripe for this sentence?
Maybe it will be a little unreasonable based on real events, but as a film, some fine-tuning of the plot can be done. Like having the science scholarship prompt happen in that class, at least before he announces building a rocket, so that the goal of building a rocket fits with what we saw at the beginning, homer's original goal—getting a scholarship to go to college. During this process, he became more and more interested in building rockets, and the resistance he encountered became greater and greater, and finally achieved his goal, but he no longer came here just to leave the town, maybe it would be better . After that is trial and error, which perfectly fits the formula of every inspirational biographical film - try the most conservative, fail, then take bigger risks, take the pressure, and in the process we get See the true quality of the protagonist and his party. In this process, there are three places that I am more concerned about.
One: Prying the Rails This is a plot that I personally like very, very much. First of all, through the mouth of our partner, we know that this is an abandoned railway track. At this time, the audience will naturally ask a question: "What if it is not?". Then, through their efforts to pry the rails, the audience knows that it is very difficult to pry it off or put it back together, and it takes a certain amount of time. At this time, the audience's anxiety about the front increased, and they even thought: "What if they were caught on the spot? Are their actions stillborn?" Then they pried down smoothly, and the audience let go He took a breath: "Okay, it seems that I thought too much."
At this moment, suddenly they heard the sound of the train, and the audience knew that their idea had come true. At this time, they were as nervous as the protagonist and his party, but the anxiety in front of them became reality and brought some sense of accomplishment. The relationship goes on until the train turns tracks, and the audience really breathes a sigh of relief: "Oh, it's really okay this time." Because we know that if there's another wave, it's going to follow the law of diminishing returns -- it's boring.
In a few minutes of the scene we experience two emotional nuances that respond to what the audience knows about the genre—the resistance the protagonist faces must be proportional to his current willpower and abilities. If they were really caught, the film might be over, but the information we got told us again and again - there is really a train coming! This kind of ambivalence tormented the audience repeatedly, making this episode seem So bright. Two: wildfire events
This is the first time that the protagonist and his party really meet the strong resistance of the outside world. But in fact, the audience understands that this is far from the limit of resistance. The beginning of the film and the opposition of the father throughout the process imply that the final difficulty in this story is the fall of the family and the town, so in fact, the audience of this episode is Rest assured, because such resistance from external social relations is the easiest to reverse, and we just need to wait.
At the same time, he has two functions: 1. Slow down the plot for a few minutes and insert a small emotional subplot to improve the emotional side of the protagonist. 2. Bring out the plot of the accident in the coal mine, reaching the second climax of the plot.
3: Going to mining coal shows the protagonist’s last difficulty (in fact, the theft of props is not counted, that place is at most an opportunity to improve the relationship between father and son and show the character of mother), here are the things that the audience does not want to see. Key conflict: money issues.
At first homer's brother decided to go to coal mining, but was immediately opposed by homer - they needed a scholarship. At this time, the homer had to face the most difficult problem: their family needed money, and the town's coal mine resources declined, but this was their only way out. In fact, the story of the gentleman who helped him weld for the first time has already hinted at the resistance of poverty, but it has not happened directly to the protagonist.
So the protagonist decided to go to coal mining. Here is a shot of a homer standing in a mine ladder looking up at the starry sky. We all understand that this is part of the routine - his dream is above, but he has to go down. Although it is a routine, it is always very moving.
What's more surprising is that the male protagonist starts to get back on track just by talking to the teacher. Of course I understand the significance of the teacher, but it's a bit abrupt to handle the male lead's eventual transformation - like how he got started.
Maybe it would be better to join the transition after he sees the condition of Quentin's family and the personal resistance of his other partners, especially Quentin, their problems will only be more acute than homer, poverty, domestic violence, but they all go Supporting homer, they have all contributed together, and they all have ambitions to leave this town - this way his motivation is more abundant, because he realizes that in order to break through the shackles of this small town, family, and poverty, there are people who can achieve better than him. He has reached the edge of the limit, and he has not given his full strength.
In addition, what moved me even more was that when the rocket was launched for the last time, the protagonist's teacher could be seen lying on the hospital bed. This made me think the last rocket launch was so meaningful - this teacher was the one who always supported him, she said she would tell her other students, in fact, homer and everyone in the audience knew that maybe there won't be possible. The moment she saw the rocket, I thought maybe the height was enough.
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