When I saw the movie I actually liked it. I was satisfied with how they used the important stuff from the book, but when I saw the ending it diminished my opinion on this movie. If you read the book then you would know how dark and depressing it was. That is why I liked the book so much because it doesn't cheapen the story by having a happy ending. The movie had the typical Hollywood happy ending. It would be easier for me to forgive the movie if it didn't have that cheesy, happy 80's music playing at the end. If you loved the book then do yourself a favor and don't see this movie. I would only recommend seeing this if you're a big Morgan Freeman fan because his performance is pretty good and is worth seeing for his performance alone if you're a fan. I really can't blame Emilio Estevez since the studio made him change the ending and I know he wouldn't have intended to write a happy ending.

Rated R for Language,Drug Content and Some Violence.That Was Then This Is Now is a film based on the S.E Hinton novel of the same name.S.E Hinton is a great author and I have read most of her books.The Outsiders is her best book,this is her second best,rumble fish is her third best and Taming The Star Runner is her fourth best.While Rumble Fish is her third best novel, it is the greatest adaptation from the original novel to the film.It was directed by Coppola who also directed the Outsiders film.That however was not so faithful to the original novel and I did not like it very much.Now this was not directed by Coppola, it was written by Emilio Estevez who also stars in it.While its more of a faithful adaptation than outsiders, it still could have been more faithful.The movie is about a teen named Bryon and his friend Mark who lives with him after his parents killed each other.They both used to do everything together but now Bryon has a girlfriend named Cathy and Mark is jealous of her.They also need money to pay for Bryon's mothers operation so Mark starts selling drugs to hippies including Cathy's little brother M&M.The character M&M is much different in the film.In the novel he is an innocent freshman student, in this film he's basically a normal teen who makes sex remarks.Also the endings of the two differ.Anyway That Was Then This Is Now is a decent movie but not as good as the book.

This book had alot of impact on me when I read it so very long ago-the movie wasn't terrible-though I really CAN understand people feeling cheated by it. However it is nowhere as good as the book.SPOILER: The ending in the movie was widely critiscized for differing from the book-I can actually understand both sides-I cared about Mark in Hinton's book-of coarse reading it one wants a happy ending for all involved-even if thats the easy way out.Yet the movie's which ended alot more sunny then the book also felt a bit unrealistic-because I doubt, sadly it WOULD happen that way in reality-so it's like:be careful what you wish for-you just might get it. By that I mean, reading the book you weep at the ending, wishing it could be different-but then it IS different in the movie and you feel a bit cheated. Tough call to make if changing the ending was a good idea or not.But I STILL liked this movie and thought it was welldone-I'd recomend it to anyone who hasn't seen it-the story still touches you and the acting is credible.

I was born in 1970. While many movies such as Pretty In Pink, etc. were bigger hits, these movies along with a couple of others were incredibly important in what it means to be a friend, what it meant to grow up, and what it meant to grow up in the 80's. It wasn't a "great" movie, but it was a great movie for me and is a great movie about growing up, deciding what is important, forming morals. Will be on my buy list when I get a little money.