THAT is something you're right on the mark about! Though I don't really think about it often because there's so much else about the movie not to like.

I remember even the very first time I tried to watch GFIII on tv sometime during 1998. I was a bit thrown by the opening segment panning a very mondern Manhatten complete with World Trade Center...and a subtitle specifying that this was taking place in the 1970's.

Even though it made perfect sense, there was somehow less magic in the fact that the Corleones were now in modern times, the times I grew up in....not the 1920's, 1940's or 1950's.

THAT's IT....no magic!!!
Good a story as it might be...and for whatever reasons, GFIII is simply devoid of the magic that dominated the other two.

And now...I shall go join olivant in looking for a life.

Apple