Originally posted by Don Pope:
yea, its a too confusing plot, i understand it alittle better, thanks to everyones theories. 
Your right turnbull, where did altobello come from? why does he want micheal dead? and if he was such a long time family friend he should have been in part 1 or 2 atleast. Well, it's the same thing as what happened between 1 and 2 - where did Hyman Roth and Pentangeli come from?
Roth had to be written in because Moe Greene had been killed off in GF I. Roth was mentioned in passing in the GF novel but was not a major character - in the GF II movie he becomes a kingpin.
Pentangeli was written in, because Clemenza was written out. That was one disconcerting thing about GF II, all the talk from Michael "I was so happy this house never went to strangers," blah blah, well if Pentangeli was such a great friend and all that, how come he wasn't at Connie's wedding or Vito's funeral, huh?
That's one structural shortcoming of the way FFC and Puzo wrote the GF episodes - at the end of each episode, almost all the Corleone nemeses have been killed off, so in any succeeding episode you have to introduce a whole new cast of characters.
