When Sonny and Michael have their little tif when Sonny finds out that Michael enlisted....

Sonny says "your country aint your blood".... Michael says "Oh that's Pop talking" - - Michael obviously disagreed then... how about later on? and what was that all about anyway? Vito/Sonny's view on it and then Michaels?

I think Michael still would have thought along the same lines as he did when he enlisted.He was proud of the fact that he served his country.Of course Michael wanted to be like his father when he took over the family.But that dosent mean he had to agree with everything his father thought.

And while on that topic was that scene intended for part one?Or did they shoot it knowing they were going to make a squel and they wanted it at the end?

That scene was shot in PART II. Jimmy Caan was especially asked back for one day of shooting. He was also paid the same amount of money as in PART I.

The flashback was intended to underscore Michael's indepenence from--total rejection of--his family's values. Joining the Marines was his "declaration of independence." Vito considered himself to be a power unto himself. The novel states that Vito got the idea that he ran his world better than the politicians ran theirs. When men in his family joined the armed forces in WWII because they said, "America has been good to me," Vito replied, "I have been good to them."

Did Michael adopt that attitude later on? I think not. Vito accepted himself for what he was. Michael was obsessed with legitimizing himself. He reached out much more to the outside world than Vito did. They were both criminals, but Vito accepted that he played by rules that society didn't validate. Michael wanted to be "legitimate"--but by forcing society to accept that he was "legitimate" simply because his criminal behavior was, in his mind, no different than that of the pezzanovanti's of politics, the church, etc. That difference in attitude was the major reason why Vito succeeded and Michael failed.

It is another great piece of acting by Pacino....Sonny challenges him about fighting for strangers, and when pushed he is almost fearful of Sonny, yet still convinced he is right that it is a noble thing to fight for "your country."

I didnt take it as being fearful... it looked like he just wanted Sonny to back off and leave him alone.

Interstingly, in the novel, there is a passage in the part where Vito scolds Johnny Fontaine for not being a man ( more detailed than the movie).

And in that passage Vito is thinking to himself that if he had scolded any of his son's in the same manner, Sonny would have sulked for weeks and went and did something rash, Fredo would have become silent and withdrawn, and Michael would have defied him and went off and would not have been seen by the family for a while. (I'm paraphrasing here).



I think that sums up the kind of person Michael really was. A man with his own mind who would not allow anyone to dictate to him what he should do or not do with his life. A person that would try to control his own destiny and not allow anyone else to choose it for him.

Sounds like the apple really didn't fall far from the tree after all.

Good stuff... but... Michael did that anyway(joined the military).... any conversation with Vito sent him in an opposite direction.(Rebel-Rebel).... I think that AFTER he becomes head of family that Michael would have listened to ALL Vito had to say and would have taken ALL of it in some sort of "constructive" way

We're talking 'before', not after.

Actually if you read the thread I started I am refering to and "asking" about BOTH before and after. Thanks.