Francis Ford Coppola wanted to title "The Godfather Part III" as "The Death of Michael Corleone." Coppola wanted to finish the didactic tragedy that he started with the second movie. In the film, Michael attempts to redeem himself for his sins and his family sins with a deal with the Vatican. However, the novel cleverly showed that Michael cannot redeem himself through any of his own means but through the prayers of his wife Kay. The novel ended with Kay praying for Michael's soul for the death of Carlo Rizzi. The reader is left with the impression that Kay will pray for Michael's soul every day of her life and this is the only possible way for Michael to have redemption. Kay becomes in many ways like Mama Corleone, and Puzo show this in brief scene in the novel. When Kay notices that Mama Corleone goes to Mass every day, she ask her why. she answerers "I go for my husband...So he won't go down there...I say prayers for his soul every day so he go up there." Mama Corleone knows what Vito have done in his life of crime and murder, and she being a good wife pray for his soul. According to the novel, she prays for her husband soul as way to subvert his will as the Don or as a foolish attempt at lost cause. She may be in fact disrespecting him, but she is as a woman and is more intuitive than she gets credit for being the Don's wife. Kay eventually becomes this through her meeting with Tom Hagen at the end of the book that men like Michael cannot personally redeem themselves and will pay for their crimes and there only hope if at all is through prayer. Even Vito understands this, he told his oldest friend Genco on his death bed "I will have a mass said for every night and every morning. Your wife and children will pray for you." He continues to do this after his son Sonny death by burying him as a Christian. Although Vito himself is probably non-religious, his reason have show him that it rather be safe than sorry when it comes to eternity. Puzo knew that in this world of La Costa Nostra, redemption cannot be achieve through any personal effort but perhaps on the prayers for others.
This is why Puzo was against the killing of Fredo in Part II because it would damn Michael for all time, and his relationship with Kay was destroyed. Coppola took the Godfather beyond what Puzo perhaps originally wanted or intended it for the novel. Puzo involvement with the sequels became less and less. In Part II, Puzo simply took Vito's backstory in the novel and just expanded it a little in the film. As for his involvement for Part III, I am not sure what his objections were but I am sure he had some. As for the possible fourth film, Puzo in one of his last interviews primarily wanted to focus on the early years of the Corleone Family their rise to power while Coppola wanted to bring the downfall and destruction of the Family through Vincent Mancini.
Lastly, Michael's redemption and his failure to achieve it Part III makes him and his family a tragedy because Coppola bluntly made them into that while in the novel the tragedy was already there because Puzo knew the tragic reality of life and moralizing it is perhaps unnecessary.

Interesting observation when comparing the films to the novel.

Welcome to the boards.

Welcome, Diehard.

You make a few good points. Have you ever seen the Saga? There's an alternate ending to Part 1 with Kay lighting the candles for Michael's soul. Puzo loved it, Paramount and FFC thought it too preachy. For the record, I found it preachy as well.

Personally I liked it. It told me that Michael had succeeded in everything that he set out to do; defeat his enemies, avenge the deaths of his loved ones, restore the family's status in the underworld, regain it's power, and convert some little waspy well educated college girl into somewhat of an old fashioned Sicilian wife.

It completed the scene that we see at the end of GFI showing the door being closed on Kay, showing that she was now being closed out of her husbands other world. And her lighting those candles showed me that after the door was closed on her she now understood that her husband's soul was condemned and that only she could provide hope in the redemption of it.

It should have been the very ending.

I think the door shutting was more final, in terms of her being shut out as his wife, but they both work in their own way. As far as the novel, her lighting the candles was the perfect last paragraph to end with-- "She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her children, of all anger, of all rebellion, of all questions. Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, as she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone."

First of all, thanks for all of your comments. Both endings for the film and the novel work in their own separate mediums. Puzo never intended for the original novel to have a sequel, and he did not plan one when he wrote the novel. As Puzo often stated in interviews, he never really cared for the novel, and he wasn't going to franchise it out. The ending close the story of the Corleones right then and there. As for the movie, this ending would not have allow the possibility of a sequel. It wouldn't make sense of having Kay lighting candles at the end of first film with the plot of the second film. I saw the deleted ending from the first film, and it was great had Coppola decided to used it, but the film had so much positive buzz that a sequel was commissioned by Paramount before the first film was finish filming. The close door ending in the film left the possibility of a sequel because the audience assume that Michael still is in the underworld, and the deals are still being made. This is why the opening of the second film begins with the ending of the first one with Rocco honoring Michael, and the audience sees the chair. This opening scene shows that Michael hasn't left the Mafia. The film slowly descends to Michael's damnation, and his broken marriage to Kay, who leaves him, and who would never pray for him, and he is left with no hope at all. The problem with the third film that Coppola damn Michael already beyond any redemption that there no real way for him to be redeem even with a deal with the Vatican then again the third film was made to save Paramount from being sold. As for the novel, Puzo left the reader with a small chance of hope for Michael's redemption.

Well put .

Kay lighting those candles implies she would remain his wife and submit to the role of staying in the background, which would have worked fine, had it not been for the sequel buzz starting, after filming was completed on Part 1, but before it was released. I agree, they had to leave the door open for the sequel. The last look she gives Michael, before the door closes, implies that she knows she'll always be #2, if she stays the course, which by the end of Part 2, we know she didn't.