John and Homer Hickam never truly saw eye to eye until the end of the movie. Throughout the movie John didn’t want to accept Homer’s thoughts of rocketry and didn’t support it at all in the beginning. Homers dad wouldn’t allow any rockets on Olga property so Homer and his friends Quinten, Roy Lee and Odell had to walk eight miles to snake root, a place where rock was dumped out, to shoot off their rockets. I can understand why John wouldn’t want to allow rockets to be shot around the mines and peoples houses but I don’t think its fair that the boys had to go as far out as they did, although it did benefit them since it was more convenient.

Homer’s dad was a proud coal-miner and believed that his purpose was to become a miner in his life. Obviously John didn’t support Homer’s ideas of rocketry, but it made it even harder for Homer knowing that his dad took time to pay attention to his other son Jim. Jim was an exception to the normal expectation after high school in Coalwood. Jim was a great football player, and he received a full scholarship to college early on in the movie. John wouldn’t stand by Homer just because he didn’t believe in what he was doing, and he had no scholarship from his study with rockets to go to college. It took up until Homer actually won the National Science Fair for John to believe in his son.

Throughout the struggle that Homer went through in the movie, he became a stronger person in the end with the help of the people that believe in him. His friends and especially his teacher Ms. Riley were always there to support him even when the principal and his own dad was against what he was doing at first. It took Homer time of studying, believing and achieving his goals for other people to believe in his ideas. Homer Hickam’s strong beliefs inspired me, and I’m sure others that have seen the movie.