How come Mike, in the beginning didn't want to be in the family business? Was it his attending Dartmouth, then the Marines what changed his mind?

I think it was when he realized that people wanted his father dead at the hospital, and how they had the backing by the police to do it.

"I'm with you, pop".

The novel states that Mike was the only son who refused his father's direction. Beyond that it's not clear. The novel also states that Mike has his father's intelligence, so, unlike Fredo and Sonny,he probably saw possibilities beyond entering the family business. In addition, his experience in the War also probably inbued him with a sense of self awareness that gave him the confidence to consider a variety of life options.

It's tough to feel bad for Mike. Ya he originally wanted to be out of the criminal part of the family but I think once he decided to join it fucked him up big time lol

Michael wasn't in the family, in part, because Vito didn't want him to be (or at least said he didn't want him to be). "I never wanted this for you, Michael..." etc. The novel makes clear that Vito wanted Sonny to become a lawyer: "A lawyer with his briefcase can steal as much as 100 men with guns." But, his joining the Marines, his sitting apart from his family at Connie's wedding, and his statement (after telling her the Luca Brasi story), "It's my family, Kay, it's not me," all suggest that his not being in the family to that point was mostly his decision, not mostly Vito's.

Most people here believe that Michael's decision to rejoin the family came in the hospital when he told ailing Vito: "I'm with you now, Pop." I don't disagree. Another, later, decision point occurs in the novel when, after Apollonia's murder, he tells Don Tomassino, "Tell my father I want to be his son again."

You know, in a way, Tom is the most tragic figure in GFI&II. He wasn't born to that way of life; it wasn't in his blood. He witnessed the tragedy of his parents, yet he acquiesced to murder and mayhem as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He perverted his legal profession and everything about him in the interests of murderers (not those accused of murder either). He deliberatly cloaked the Corleones' predations upon society in a veneer of niceties.

You mean Michael?

No, the novel states that Vito wanted Sonny to be a lawyer.

SPOILER:

Clemenza learned that Sonny had taken part in some dinky, risky robbery; and as his godfather, reported it to Vito. Vito tongue-lashes Sonny. Sonny shoots back at Vito that he witnessed Vito killing Fanucci. Vito replies, "Then I can't talk to you about how you should behave. Don't you want to finish school, don't you want to become a lawyer? Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks." After Sonny says no, the Don says, "a man has but one destiny."

That passage gives a big hint about why Vito sent Tom to law school.

But it's just an example Vito gave to Sonny. It doesn't really indicate that he actually had envisioned Sonny as a lawyer.

Maybe. But he specifically chose lawyers.

Again proving how intelligent Vito truly was. He knew that at the core of all business and commerce that lawyers play a major role. Control the major players and you control the money and the direction it flows.

I know that this post takes this thread in another direction, but I never bought Sonny following Vito over the rooftops on his way to murder Fanucci. He would have only been about 5 years old at the time, hardly old enough to navigate those rooftops I think.

I think Michael, even more so than Sonny had his father's force and sense of independence. So he wanted to go his own way in life. I think he would have felt the same way if his father had been a corporate executive or bricklayer instead of a Mafia boss.

Michael's life , Michael's rules.

I agree.

I never bought that either though I'v never read the book. Great decision not to have any mention of it in the film, would have been ridiculous.

I agree with you on this. Thought the same also. If Vito murdered Fanucci in 1919, like the novel states, Sonny would have been only three, based on his birth year in the films. But in the film, we see that Michael was already born which meant Fanucci was killed in 1920. In any case, Sonny would have been too young even to remember.

But the novel doesn't give a clear birth date for Sonny. First he was about the same age as Hagen, which would mean Sonny was born around 1910. Based on this, Sonny could well have followed Vito and seen him murder Fanucci.

But Puzo was smoking pod during his writing of The Godfather, because later he states that Sonny was 16 around 1933/34 during or after the war with Maranzano. But who knows, maybe that was meant as a flashback...

Well, there are a few references, but they all differ. For one, when Vito tries to pacify NY in 1935, Sonny takes command of his own regime. He tells Mike that he made his bones when he was 19. So, doing the math, Sonny was born about 1916. That may fit in with the fact that Vito got married at 18 and Sonny was born two years later and the only date mentioned then is 1919 when it describes Vito driving the Abbandando grovery truck. Either way, Sonny would have been a small boy and couldn't have folowed his dad over the roofs.