Goofs for
October Sky (1999) More at IMDb Pro »

• Audio/visual unsynchronized: The shop phone is buzzing, but when Homer's mother throws it out on the ground, brass bells can be seen inside.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the movie when they show the space shuttle launch, the first shot shows a launch stack with a white painted external tank. The second shot shows a later, unpainted rust colored tank.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The boys created a remote ignition device by having a spring-loaded match rub past a match strike stip and then light the fuse. The strike strip they used was the modern "polka dot" kind. In 1957 all the strike strips were solid strips.
  
  

• Continuity: While Roy Lee is shooting at his car, a piece of grass suddenly appears in O'Dell's mouth.
  
  
• Continuity: Towards the start of the movie, Homer is walking out to his launch site with a box of rocket making "odds and ends". When he stops to talk to his three pals, the box turns 180 degrees between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: During the last launch sequence where Homer Hickam Sr. launches the "Miss Riley" Homer Hickam Jr. activates the launch box by flipping a switch on the box with one hand. In the next shot, it is apparent that he used his other hand to flip the switch.
  
  
• Continuity: After getting in a fight with O' Dell, Homer walks alone towards Snakeroot with nothing in his hands. In the next shot he is holding a bunch of boxes.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the shot where Homer first steps off the truck after returning from the Science Fair, a camera is clearly visible at the left hand side of the screen.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the auditorium scene near the end of the movie, the U.S. flags are hung incorrectly. The blue field or union should always be displayed in the upper left corner no matter if hung vertically or horizontally.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Homer's dad introduces the football recruiter, he refers to him as from the University of West Virginia. That is incorrect, the school is West Virginia University.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the workers are talking about forming a union, one extra is mouthing the lines of the character speaking as the camera zooms in.
  
  

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