The Outsiders: The Complete Novel includes a subplot that the original leaves out
If you’re like me, you love The Outsiders and can’t imagine teaching middle school ELA without it.
So many kids identify with the Tulsa, Oklahoma greasers and their struggles with socioeconomic class differences, personal identity, and family relationships.
Here’s my advice: Make sure you watch The Outsiders: The Complete Novel. It’s not always listed as being different from the original 1983 movie, but take the few extra minutes to find it.
Make sure you see the words “The Complete Novel” on the DVD jacket.
It was released in 2005 and includes twenty-two additional minutes. Those extra minutes allow room for a new beginning, and a “character-enriching” subplot that resolves at the end in a moving scene with Darry, Ponyboy, and Sodapop. The subplot reveals the Curtis brothers’ deepening relationships as their “family” survives the conflict with the Socs and the deaths of Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston.
Both movie versions will work, of course, but The Outsiders: The Complete Novel is like the title says… “more complete.”
It does contain a PG-13 rating instead of the PG original.
While it does contain brief language when Two-Bit confronts Johnny’s mother in the hospital (thereby earning the PG-13 rating), The Outsiders: The Complete Novel gives you more to discuss in class and follows the book much more completely than the original movie.