I enjoyed reading Ricardo’s ideas for a Godfather IV script. It has been a while since Ricardo posted the first two acts, promising us more (at least 3 new ones). I was wondering if the story would ever be finished...

I’m still hoping it will be finished, and I had a few comments.

The general idea for a GF4 story was to put the life of Sonny Corleone against that of his (illegal) son Vincent, so a GF4 movie would contain both modern-time scenes as old-time scenes.

Now if Ricardo’s plan was to center the upcoming acts of the old-story around a young Sonny, I wonder if he used his birthyear of the novel (1910) or the film (1916)? I guess the second one, since it's an idea for a movie-sequel, not a novel-sequel? In the movie Sonny's 6 years younger then Tom.

Also, I wondered if he was planning to include a modern-time story with Vincent.

As being a movie like GF2, you can think of an short Sicily-related beginning, starting the modern-story where GF3 ended: with the Death of Michael Corleone, to mark once again the end of the Michael-story in the movie Franchise. This would bring all of the (living) family members from America to Sicily one last time. The entire, not too long, scene would end with a shot of Vincent, with the text on screen: [Vincent Corleone, 1997], then fading into an image of a young Sonny at his parents 15th Wedding Anniversary (where your story begins) saying [his father Santino, 1927].... this is a similar beginning to Part II. From there you can start on the movie with storylines in the 1920's en 1930's and in the 1990's and 2000's.

On one of the other threads on the Bulletin Board, it was suggested that Michael's son Anthony could emerge from a good-boy to a ruthless-killer like his father, now wanting to avenge his sister's death. Wether this should happen after the 1997 funeral of his father, (not wanting his father to see him as a murderer) or after the 1980 shooting in Palermo of his sister, I don't know.
But it is an interesting feature, and could end up in a fight over control of the Family between Vincent and Anthony, for a plot for the modern-story.
Also, there should be a lot of new characters to make the modern-story spectacular and interesting. Maybe a comeback of the Tattaglia family, or the Ciccio family: a lost grandson or whatever.
In GF2, there was about twice as much footage of the modern, 50's story then the old story. In this movie, it should be the other way around I guess, so that the Vincent character and his story is much shorter then the already appreciated Young Sonny story in the 20's and 30's.

Personally, I think the ending of the old-story should be around 1935. In the novel, at the period after the war in 1945, it is repeatedly said the last big gang-war was ten years ago, with the Corleone's as the winners. It would be, probably, the first happy-end to a Godfather film, leading into a ten-year period of wealth. Since Sonny is only 19 by then (Vincent already is much older in 1997), I wonder what can be done about that. I don't know. It would definitely interfear with the book if the old story would go on in the second half of the 1930's.

I hope the story will be finished, both the old story as a new modern one.