Posted on 04/21/2023 10:56:37 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Sequels very seldom work. Star Wars and The Godfather are the only two I can think of that did.
While Puzo would be right, Michael was big into killing all his enemies. No matter what. Hyman Roth was dying, Michael didn’t care, he had to KILL Roth, even if it cost him one of his best soldiers. And Fredo. That’s Michael’s arc, from “we’ll be fully legitimate in 5 years” to ice cold killer even willing to assassinate his brother.
I agree with Coppola’s logic.
Fredo may have been weak and stupid—but he managed to cause a lot of damage.
Fredo knew too much and talked too much—there was no safe way to keep him around.
If there were a future major law enforcement effort against the family Fredo would have been an obvious weak leak (as just one example).
GF I was the only movie where you saw Abe Vigoda smile.
I like all three very much, having seen them all multiple times. They are distinct and different; each a film in its own right. But of course seeing the total triptych deepens the story immensely. This series will remain a masterpiece of American film literature.
I would agree; it's just that Scent of a Woman would have been pluperfect for Robert Duvall, who would have fitted the part so much better, IMHO. Duvall is even married to an accomplished tango dancer and could have done that part so well. Pacino's physical frame looked too small for that rank of officer.
Star Wars was more because the technology and effects progressed in the business imo. The Godfather? Eh....
I have a copy of the Godfather Saga, in VHS and still available on E-Bay, where both one and two were edited into one long story and had a lot of scenes in it that were not in the originals. To me that is the one to watch. Frankly I didn’t care about the history of how the Don was a kid and got to America. I liked it when it picked up with the wedding and the story from there. I have always wondered why Coppola never did a definitive DVD of the Saga, now he could incorporate Godfather III into that put on everything left out in that film, that I would buy.
Agreed with DuVall. A brilliant actor who never over does it … just plays the part as it should be played. Maybe that’s why he didn’t get that part that required some “over-acting” … which I thought Pacino pulled off very well. Cheers!
I saw it. It’s a dog. Actually, that’s an insult to dogs. Let’s say it was terrible.
I didn’t see it when it was first released to theaters. But it got a lot of negative reviews. I waited until it was released to cable tv. When it did air on cable, I watched it to see for myself what others were talking about.
I knew it was going to be as bad as they said when the very first 15 minutes of the movie, a whole 15 minutes, were nothing but flashback clips from the first 2 godfather movies.
The movie went on and on with bad scenes, bad script, etc. One scene involved a very unbelievable and typically overblown Hollywood version of a mob hit, the helicopter hit scene.
And then there was the awful nepotism casting of Coppola’s daughter in a lead role as Pacino’s daughter. Her acting was atrocious. Coppola defended his casting of her by pointing out that the originally cast Winona Ryder, a much better actress, had to drop out at the last minute because she got sick. The studio attempted to get him to cast some other female name celebrity, but in his eyes they were all too old. So, in desperation, he cast his own real life daughter.
What, in the entire acting business all over the world he couldn’t find a more capable actress of the same age? There had to be thousands who would have gladly dropped everything at the very last minute for the chance to be the female lead in a Coppola film.
Years later they re-cut and re-edited the movie for a re-release. I noticed how they cut out that first 15 minutes of flashback scenes. Which was an improvement, but too little.
What they should have done is remake the entire thing with a new script. Get rid of the helicopter hit scene, get rid of the Vatican bank story angle, don’t send Mike to Europe. Keep him in America. And recast someone else as Michael’s daughter.
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