when i watch the ending of the godfather part 3 it saddens. why? because when i hear that cry mike lets out, and then when it shows him dancing with the three women he loved most and lost, it always hits me that he was ment for something different. i mean, obvious to anyone who has seen the trilogy, all of the pain he suffered would have been avoided had he not gone to the hospital late in gf1. and when he dies alone i see a broken down old man, alone. with no one by his side to comfort him, the way don vito had his grandchild in the movie, and in the book he had mike by his side. i cant help but feel for the character of mike. and the whole time he was just trying to protect his family. i know this is just a random post, but i mean i just wanted to share my thoughts. and i hope that anyone else can post here and describe how they felt the first time the saw the whole trilogy. how they felt when they saw mike falling to the floor and dying alone. when they realised that his life should have been totally different.

now i realise that had he made different choices there would be not gf2. so remember everything i write is hypothetical.

I'd agree with pretty much everything you've said there.

Very poignant scene in so many ways.

If you can pin an oversimplified theme to the GF Trilogy, it's "Crime Doesn't Pay." Michael became the most powerful gangster in America--probably in the world--and yet, as the last scene shows, he lost every single thing he loved.

I have always felt that Michael had one regret - the murder of Fredo. I believe that he truly felt that that was the one sin, of all the many that he had committed, that he could never be be forgiven for. I'm sure that he felt that the loss of Mary, a loss that no parent should ever suffer, was his punishment for that sin. He lost his child, just like he murdered his mother's son.

Although Vito lost Sonny, it was in the course of business. Mary was a "civilian". I know that John Gotti lost a child when he was hit by a neighbor's car (said neighbor did disappear) and have wondered if that was FFC's inspiration for Mary's death. It's interesting to watch GFII and see Mary as a child, and know that she will live such a short life.

The death of Mary, the reaction of her mother, brother, aunt, and Vinnie, and Michael's silent howl may be the most dramatic and powerful scene in cinematic history. The overwhelming pathos that Michael felt at that moment should give us all pause when we are contemplating our next behaviors. In the end, there is only what we do!

I agree with everything everyone has said,especially MrSoprano. All through GF3,I always get the felling Michael feels his lafe is wasted. He was a Dartmouth Grad, he could really have become anything.In the scene where he says "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." It really hits me that you can never go back. Michael never wanted to be involved in that, and he cvould never get out. His whole life has been lived for someone else.