Good point, and maybe that was part of the problem w/ GFIII - FFC overreached in extending the Corleone Family scope & influence. From NYC to Nevada is one thing but Italy & the Vatican? I suppose it was part of the 'full cycle' aspect, his father having been born there...but maybe a bit much with all the 'personal' family stuff going on. And not enough time to really develop the story.

Apple

Well at least when the Godfather franchise jumped th shark the Corleones didn't go to Hawaii.

I don't think that the size of the Corleone empire is really important in whether or not GFIII is a good film.
In GFII the Corleones were an absurdly big enterprise. Even in GF Vito had enormous powers in almost any branch of the US society.
GF3 could have been great. The pope, Michael's family, Sicily, old man Michael, new Mafia Dons, etc.
But they messed it up from the start. In defense of the actors: The script was lousy, I think they just didn't know what to do about it.

Yes, well, fourth Saturday in a row ive decided to stay home, & why not?
What am i gonna do? Y'know, i worked from from midnight to 10am today, got home, showered had a feed and thought, hmmm. Why not? My girlfriend started groaning & walked away rolling her eyes. She's decided to go to her sister's linen party after all. Sweet.

You know, you guys had me pretty shaken for a bit. Were my beer-gog's really on that tight? i thought, and Do i really just have a drinking problem? and such. Anyway, why not? At about 2pm i put on One. This time, no devil brew. Maybe some smokables. Cough.

One, just awesome, from wedding to closing doors. I basically cannot respect a persons opinion if they do not at least appreciate the Godfather's quality.

Two. Of course. Two. Two. Apple's quote was very succint:
And 3...
Sorry. I still <3 it. Sure, its all a little unnessecary, and the fact that it takes itself so seriously now, so much more pretentious than the quiet dignity of the first & dark progression of the second, that could be off putting, if you were not comfortable with your gangsters being so lofty & Shakesperian.

But i love the first 40 minutes. Is something wrong with me?
Really. I still hold that larger then life was the natural progression.
Why not ear-biting & helicoptors? Father/son assasins and poison canolli's? Surprisingly enough, stone sober i still enjoyed it. I at least didn't cry this time.


I disagree, my man. Respectfully, of course. After all these years, finally, finally, in his mind at least, Michael is going to rise above his "mafia hood" roots, he's finally making the transition he's always wanted, into "legitimacy". But of course it's all gonna blow up in his face. He's killed too many times, made too many enemies. Its a fitting post-script, a "whatever happened to".
As you could probably imagine, i like Vincent. The illegitimate son of Sonny & the broad he was doin' at his sisters wedding. His Dad all over.
A natural hood, he wants nothing more then to live up to the legendary reputation of his father & grandfather. He's been slugging away, sticking to the rackets. Michael offered him real work; he turned it down. He needs to live the life. Finally, after all the time spent in the background, his Uncle Mike is taking notice of him.
And with Connie, i dont see her as getting involved with the "mafia" as such, but rather involved in working to support her blood nephew. In no small way did she push for Vincent to be accepted.
So, um, hence a poison canolli. Cough.


Totally.


Good point. But i dont think it suffered all that much, as it really served to seperate from the "old days", which were long gone. New times, higher stakes.

Really, i love it because it ended the saga of Michael Corleone. These three films contain the life story of this man. From "birth", to an old man's death

I should point out at this time that i also regard the first (last, whatever, Eps.4, 5 & 6) Star Wars Trilogy, Bad Lieutenant (the '92 Harvey Keitel one) Natural Born Killers & Big Trouble in Little China, for example, as classics. (serious. stop laughing. i said stop it )

Now GF1 & 2 are for me up there with Raging Bull, A Clockwork Orange, The Usual Suspects & Chinatown (though that does NOT make it allright to get young girls drunk & sodomize them. Asshole Polanski. They should've sodomized him. Let him get drunk first. Asshole.)

Sorry about that.

Anyway, GF3? Somewhere in between those two groups for me. Not the worlds greatest movie, but leaps & bounds beyond the average fare.

Thank you, ladies & gents, for your arguments. I have to go now. My girlfriend brought home some Mezcal. Mmmm. Scorpion. Crunchy

Wow. Way to kill the thread Mickey.
Anyway, i know i meant to say "from Bonasera's meeting to closed doors" & most of you are probably disgusted, but the fact is it had been about 10 or 11 hours earlier & things slip your mind when you go without sleep. Shut up.
Still... i am embarrassed.

True, true, Sophia Coppola was a poor choice & a weak point amongst an otherwise strong cast, BUT... let go of that & dont see her as a bad actor, but rather as a badly naive & awkward teen. Thats why she's so earnest, so wide eyed & stitled, she's learning how "big" the world is, she's in love with her cousin & finding out about her father & his world, and it all scare's & arrouses her a little, leaves her a little awed & lost for words, a little stiff & stilted around her family.

Alright, i know that's ridiculous. Sorry. Luckily Pacino is good enough for the both of them.

My friend, I must disagree. I care about the characters. Im happy to see what's happened to Michael, nearly 30 years later. It his "almost" redemption. I like Vincent. Sure, he's got much to learn, but you could imagine him growing in to a more serious role. Sophia is definitely ridiculously naive, which does a little for my pardoning some bad acting (read above) And as for Anthony, well singing is pretty far removed from his father's business yeah? Which is what Anthony wants at his father's chagrin, innit? And of course, it sets up the crescendo at the end, with Anthony onstage singin Opera while all these murderous plots unfold.

Aha. Good points. While i agree that many characters are more like carictures, i can see that as an extension of what Michaels world has become. Fontaine is a has-been, but after all these years, he's still showing his support for the family. As far as Hagen's son, it shows us that even though Tom is long dead, Michael & the Corleone's are still a very big part in the lives of hid children.

I agree & i dont agree. I shall expound below.

They did fall a little short of what he seems to be aiming for, but not by all that much. Of course its pretentious, Michael & his cronies standing in the shadows..."this Pope has powerful friends. We may not be able to save him..." Of course its ridiculous. Now the first bunch of times i watched that, i would roll my eyes (like i would at other parts of the script) & wish they'd either left it out or worded it better. Over time though, the overly-serious-bordering-on-cheesy script came to seem fitting to the circumstances. Michael definitly falls short of the quiet eloquence & wisdom his father's speech but he definitly tries.

I thought nearly 3 hours was ample time; and in a way it left plenty to be resolved & explored in a GFIV. (yeah, i said it)

I do love this movie. I have to admit it has many faults, but it outshines many others in most regards.

Anyway,

Wooo. That Mezcal some nasty stuff. I cant even smell it now without dry-retching. Scorpion. (shudder)

Well, after reading about your love for GF 3, I was going to ask what drugs you were taking, but now I know. Thanks for sharing .

Are you counting George Hamilton among that otherwise strong cast?


I'm afraid he is not...if he were, we not continue be so focused on HER casting & performance all these years later.







Whereas in GF and (especially) GFII one can find something new to enjoy and appreciate with almost every viewing...

If you needed to watch the movie a 'bunch of times' before ceasing to roll your eyes & finding some kind of explanation for the pretentious, ridiculous, bordering-on-cheesy script, then that's a problem right there.

Again, while your unshakable love and increasingly enthusiastic defense of GFIII (with or without the Mezcal) continues to be admirable, and while it is certainly not the 'worst' move ever made (that would be 'Titanic')...

For all the reasons you mention above, this film can NOT be defined as a 'classic'.

Apple

Actually, as I've said before, I think Titanic is an excellent movie, even with it's flaws. It's not on the AFI's list (second edition) of 100 best American movies for nothing (Titanic is #83 on the list).

I personally don't mind GF3. Like many have stated numerous times, it's nothing in comparison to the first two classics, But I don't think it deserves the hate it gets. But I must say, that diabetic stroke scene where he's falling all over the place screaming about the thunder outside...man that scene makes me cringe!!

Well, I think it starts even earlier. The scene where Michael, Anthony and Kay discuss their relationship and Anthony's future is like a soap opera scene - a long, empty discussion. In GF, every single sentence is meaningful and causes an effect.
GF3 pretends to be meaningful.

Danito, regardless of its length, it's not empty. Many of us wondered about Mike's relationship with his children once they were old enough to understand who and what he was and how he attempted to estrange them from their mother. In that scene we learned the answer regarding Anthony.

The only thing I didn't like about the scene is when a petulant Anthony tells Michael "No" to the idea of law school.
Kate then says something to the effect that the "No" was something that would have come out of Michael's mouth when he was that age. In fact when Michael said NO to his father's entreaties to come and work for him, he didn't need his mommie
there to intercede.

DT, Kay's reference to No ("Well, that he got from you. That "no.")
was from GFI when she asked Michael if Connie's statement's about Carlo were true and Michael said No.

We may have learned the answer, but Danito hit the nail on the head. It pretends to be meaningful.

Much of the movie, if it doesn't actually pretend, tries too hard to be meaningful. Sometimes with very tedious, tounge-in-cheek and throwaway dialogue that is nothing more than that 'wink & nod' to fans of the original two.

Apple

I don't think so. The "No." To which you refer was a blatant lie. The "No." Anthony says is in defiance of his father, just as Michael defied his father.

Empty is the wrong word. I mean, it's bad writing in terms of efficiency. In GF and GF2 FFC and Puzo gave them less words and trusted in their acting.
Here it's badabeep-badabaap-badaboop.

Michael: Oh, God - You hate me, you hate me.
Kay: No, I don’t hate you. I dread you.
Michael: I did what I could Kay.

or
Michael: Every family has bad memories.
Anthony: I will always be your son. But I will never have anything to do with your business.
Michael: Anthony, finish the Law degree.
Anthony: No.

Sounds like a Dynasty-soap dialogues to me. Not that there's no information in it. But they tell us everything, even what we see.

I fight a losing battle.

I still however maintain, that whatever it's (many) faults, its a film much better then the majority. Its in both a class above & a class below, if you know what i mean.

Agreed Apple. That whole line from Neri "he's waiting in the lobby". I was like, "really????" Can we use a new phrase FCC?

Watching the GF 1 outakes, is seems that Jack Woltz was the original "Polanski"...

But what's the point of making such a character (who is ridiculously stupid and naive besides) _the_ central sacrifice in a tragedy? Sophia here or there, the character as written just wasn't compelling, her death wasn't much of a loss to the viewer. Not to mention that her story is just halfheartedly cribbed from Tony Montana's sister in Scarface. Meh.
Conflict over Anthony's career and interaction with Kay is also really absurd and vapid.
Vincent is a completely unbelievable, cardboard character who comes from nowhere.
Michael's failed redemption? What redemption? He didn't even try, he was just foolish and wishy-washy.

And yet it was not because the themes were uninteresting - on the contrary, there was so much (wasted) dramatic potential in the exploration of interaction of normal, decent people with a beloved person, who is, well, a monster. How does one cope? How do you call them to account? How does one deal with all that dark heritage, without succumbing to it? Etc.

Michael's Moses complex and view of himself as a victim of circumstances would have also been fascinating to explore, particularly if he had a real emotional connection to his criminal apprentice and sense of failure re: not being able to steer him towards respectability.

In fact, it would have been nice to see some evidence that Michael had indeed been a "good man" once. The theme of GF1 is supposed to be his fall from grace, but there is little indication that he ever had it in the first place.

Criminal plot also doesn't hang together at all, IMHO, and it's resolution made zero sense.

Nor do I see the need to have Michael "slipping", like Vito supposedly was.
Michael was clever and deadly in the previous installments, yes, but he was also lucky.
IMHO, it would have been much more powerful if in GF3 he was more cunning and subtle than ever, and almost won, but in the end luck simply wasn't with him this time.

Michael's death was also completely OoT, IMHO. He wasn't a kind of person to vegetate in despair for decades and in Sicily, of all places.
If he had been really completely shattered by the events, he would have killed himself, IMHO.

Nah, I can't agree that the film was even good. Without established iconic figures and public's emotional attachment to them, it would have been deservedly considered mediocre and forgotten by now.

I never had the stomach to sit through the end of II, much less enjoy it. For that reason, I ended up preferring III as the definitive ending to the series itself. For me it would be I, III, II in that order.

I enjoy flawed sequels that are still pretty good, even when they aren't as great as the originals or the first sequel...Godfather III, Terminator 3 and Salvation, Prometheus...

I always enjoy an opportunity to delve back into a familiar world and revisit characters that I enjoy watching. GF3 is no different. The first time I watched the trilogy, I cried my eyes out after III ended. It probably had the biggest impact on me and made me go back to watch the first 2 movies again since III was the one that brought it home for me.

If I am a father and GF 1 and 2 are my perfect, straight-A kids, GF3 is my reject kid, close to failing out of school, and it gets more of my attention and affection, that it probably deserves.

The biggest flaw in the Mary character was a combination of bad writing, nepotism and poor acting. The bottom line is the movie fails when Mary is killed because the viewers never felt all that much affection for her.

The character was a shallow, spoiled and temperamental daughter. We clearly see how much Michael loved her, but it is not possible to believe Vincent fell for her as hard as he did, and when she died we did not share the pain of her family and of Vincent.

I've never agreed with characterizations of Mary as yours. She played the part that was written for her and from my experience typifies what a young woman on the brink of adulthood would be like in many instances. We don't see or hear enough of her to know if she was shallow or not, I don't see or hear any instances of her spoiling, and who among us is not tempermental (if you stated that as an indictment of her). As uncomfortable as the potentially incestuous relationship between her and Vincent is, I can see Vincent falling for her if only that she is the scion of one of the most powerful men in the world (as hard as he did is, of course, subjective).

I totally agree. The failure of the Mary character to seem real lessened the drama and the impact of her killing.

As I've posted before, when I saw GFIII in the theatres, by the end of the movie people were laughing out loud whenever Sofia delivered a line. Sort of spoiled the mood.

Let me start off by saying that i know GF3 is not as good as the first 2.

In saying that....

I still like it. I find it completed the trilogy very nicely. I know alot of people bag on George Hamilton, but let's be honest, he's barely in the movie. I can think of two scenes he's in, that's it. I'm not touching Sophia, because that horse has been beaten to death. Without the third we wouldn't have gotten the wonder performance by Andy Garcia. Vincent Mancini was a great character, full of passion and aggression. I love the scene where Michael transfers power over to Vinny.

I agree. III was good enough, especially the final scenes. As I've posted before, the silent scream and Michael's death alone and unloved is the ultimate pathos.

There's not much that can be done, except for FFC to re-edit the film. I'm sure he can make a better film of it if he really wants to.

But whether you like it or not, Part III is a reality and part of the storyline.

The script was definitely lousy.

The silent scream n GF3 gets me every time. The last five minutes of the film is a perfect ending to the trilogy.

For me GF 3 is not a classic,but a good film and ending to the saga and i can look past the poor script and average acting because it's the GF, i just wished Puzo and Coppollo would have spent more time writing the script before making the film..