I watched Parts I and II again on AMC on Thanksgiving. One of the things that struck me what that although both movies form part of a series, they are remarkably different (for the record, I definitely prefer Part I--if I could only watch one movie for the rest of my life, it would definitely be I).

The entire feel of both films is much more different than I remembered. Not only is II much darker (except for the Vito scenes) than I, but it is far more mysterious and ambiguous. Even at the end of the film, many key questions remain unresolved. Did Fredo intentionally conspire to kill Michael? Why did Roth want Michael dead? What happened in the bar with Pentangeli--did the Rosatos really try to kill him, or was it a gigantic setup to get him to testify against Michael at the Senate hearings? How did the appearance of Pentangeli's brother at the hearings persuade him not to go through with his testimony?

The purpose of this post isn't to rehash the questions above. All have been extensively debated on these boards. Rather, it's to ask the question: Is the ambiguity of Part II (which, in my opinion, goes a little too far) by accident or design? Did Coppola and Puzo get so caught up in creating an intricate plot that they forgot to answer these questions? Or did they deliberately never answer them in order to give the viewer the same uncertainty and sense of fear that one would have being a real life participant in something like this?