Inside the Outsiders

1044 Words3 Pages

I had a lot of doubts about the Outsiders movie. I didn’t think that the cold, stark setting of Hinton’s book would translate well into a family or teen film, especially if the director, Francis Ford Coppola, made a bunch of story and plot changes. But overall, when I watched it I did enjoy it, partly because I liked the story of the book and had few if any changes with that area. The entire premises of the book and the movie revolves around the Greasers and the Socs, two rival groups that fight over personal pride and bitterness between social classes. The story is shown through the eyes of Ponyboy Curtis (played by C. Thomas Howell), who is caught between the onslaught of Greasers vs. Socs, being a Greaser himself, and through his eyes we see the world of slums, violence, loss of childhood innocence, and survival. So much detail is put into both the movie and book’s plot that it is hard not to instantly get immersed. However, one of the first things I noticed in the movie that I think should’ve been included is that Sandy, Soda’s (played by Rob Lowe), girlfriend, was not included in the filming of the movie, instead given a very short mention by Soda in the beginning of the film, just thrown in there, along with the other miniscule details that circulated throughout the main funnel of the plot. This completely took me by surprise, because Sandy was a very influential character and helped drive the plot of the Outsiders book at a more stable pace than the movie managed to pull off.
First off, in the book, every character had their own personalities and a very vividly presented character bio. The best part of the book was that even side characters, such as Cherry Valance, (Diane Lane), and Randy Adderson, (Darren Dalton), help...

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...e actual story than many other side characters had. Go see the movie if you want to, but you’re better off reading the book first, as it doesn’t open up nearly as well as the book does. You’ll end up scratching your head through the one hour thirty minutes that this movie runs as it haphazardly and painstakingly shoves as many details as possible into the short amount of time it has. Still, the compelling charm of the original story and Kathleen Rowell’s screenplay makes this movie a must-see for fans of The Outsiders book is the production’s saving grace, as these aspects are undeniably well polished and marinated with perfection. Hopefully the movie can be remade again to incorporate all that has been mentioned, to continue to add onto the legacy of S.E. Hinton’s masterpiece and entertain people with a genuine, organic, and intriguing tale of the struggle of life.

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