I cannot accept that GFR is anything other than Random Whore....sorry Random House's attempt to cash in on the massive Godfather fanbase.

I started thinking that surely we as an online community could come up with something better...herein lies the challenge!

With all the bright, inteligent thinkers we have on this board we could produce something that would be a better fit to the current accepted GF trilogy.

My challenge to you guys is to come up with outlines for an alternative to Winegardner's monstrosity. Who knows, maybe we could put together something of a smiliar size and get it published?

In the mean time I'm off to put some concrete boot's on my copy of GFR to send it to sleep with the fishes! :p

What are ya gonna do?
Nice college boy, eh?
Don't you think that the best service we can do to this wonderful book is to restrain ourselves from writing sequels?
Seriously speaking, we can do it, but it would be difficult to come to an agreement between ourselves. For example, there are people here (Including myself) who don't seem to accept GF3 plot as something possibly surviving critics. It is too contradictory to the book and first two movies.
But even if we leave GF3 aside and write a sequel to book/gf1/gf2, there will be so much different opinions, that we shall quarrel all around, and wery soon wisiting the ruins of this board you will read:
"Wondering where all the men are gone?
They are dead in vendettas..."

Hypothetically, if we were to do this, the following decisions would have to be made:

1. Would we extend the novel, fill in the gaps between GF1 and GF2, fill in the gaps between GF2 and GF3, or extend GF3? The point is that since there is a divergence between the novel and the movie series, we would have to pick a point and stick with it.

2. We could not change anything that has already been established as publicly embraced truth. I know that I have mentioned this a billion times already - but that is a fundamental principle across many disciplines of study and life in general. What amazes me is that after the 'New Coke' effort years ago, you would think that no one would tamper with an original.

3. We would have to solicit some of our fellow board members to review the book (off-line) before trying to publish it. I think it is safe to say, that we know the God Father logic as well if not better than anyone else. Hence, if you can get the story past our peers, then it will be a good book.

4. In terms of a story architecture, what would work best is a Forest Gump approach. In other words, weave the GF story into historical events to show how the character impacted history in a subtle but effective way. GFR does some of this, but not enough to save the book as a whole.

As a personal preference, if I were to do this, I would resume the story after Michael's death, with Vincent trying to manage a family in an era of global crime. His competitors would be Russian, Asian and Latin American mobs, as well as other Italian families in the US and in Sicily - hence the concept of family takes on ethnic and geographical meanings. He would also have to deal with foreign governments demanding payment for the right to take money out of their economies or to operate within their countries. The types of criminal activity would be the staples (drugs and stolen goods) and also electronic manipulation of financial transactions and global trade markets. Vincent's challenges would be to define and maintain his familial heritage as well as his business. To the extent that Vincent demonstrates his ability to wield power internationally, both through legal and illegal means, as well as to hold on the Sicilian heritage of the Mafia (suggesting that even the Italian families would temporarily suspend their differences and support him in keeping the Mafia 'Our Thing - Cosa Nostra'), then the title would be appropriate - The God Father Returns. If the book did well, then that would be the basis for another movie (with an older Garcia) - "GF4:The GFR". In that light: (1) the book and the movie would be in synch, (2) no need to touch the original works because this would be an extention, (3) the story would be pre-approved by the Ganster BB members, and (4) current events could be used to make the book and movie believable.

As to the publicly embraced truth – if the novel is truth, and it must be, because this book is the original work, and the only made by Puso himself for sure, than the first film even contradicts some aspects of the truth. Still more does the second one. If we embrace the book, we must write the sequel to it correcting the movies in details, like the second son etc. But I agree with DonP. That there are facts embraced as truth in the second movie also. Moreover, they are really embraced by public; - the IMDB base is the best proof.
But then we must say the obvious thing, that the 3-d movie denies the publicly embraced truth – the 1 two ones. And it has much more principal inconsistencies with them than they have with the book. I can’t say that I saw as much public ready to embrace it as well. If we want to return to the publicly embraced truth, we must contradict the 3 movie and write a sequel to the 1-st two. As far as I understood from the “Spoiler Topic”, even Winegardner does it partly, writing some things that are contradictory to the GF3 plot. He simply couldn’t help it, there’s absolutely no way to reconcile the facts of those parts, no logic is able to connect them.
And not only because of the unbelievable facts, but because of want of The Godfather spirit in GF3.
We know too well how it was done. Neither Puso nor FFC ever wished to continue GF, they felt very well that it was not necessary. They hated the very thought about it. But the studio made FFC an offer he couldn’t refuse, so he and MP began to squeeze something out of themselves, and I believe that they didn’t know what they want, and didn’t care much for the result. If they thought a little more about the things they write, they might correct the most obvious faults at least. I heard or read somewhere that there were many versions, and one of the main ones was to this effect: Anthony, who is recruited by FBI, takes over the Corleone empire and throws its forces to fight some Latino-American dictator.
The GF3 plot was not a work of art, result of inspiration, achieved by suffering. It was written despite the will of authors, and only because it was inevitable for some financial reasons.
They might say Vito’s words from the book: “I’ve done my share in life, I haven’t got the heart any more. And there are some duties the best of men can’t assume.”
I want to say that there is no violation of authors’ will in ignoring GF3, because its very existence was the worst kind of such violation.
Besides, I believe that if GF2 was already more Coppola’s production, than that of Mario Puso, still more so was GF3. I think so because the didactical spirit that we could sense in GF2 already, strengthened in GF3 to become unbearably unnatural. If you read Puso’s book, you must have perceived that it is absolutely free from any moralization whatever. In many respects, it is rather cynical. Sometimes he gives us as much as ironical hint at the nature of things, but never more. He stays close to the real life, and life is rarely moralizing. It is seldom that we see the real possessors of guilty power punished or suffering in this world. No, they live long, happy, successful life and die surrounded by living children saying, “Life is so beautiful”…
Of course, it was just that Mike had to suffer. However, the way FFC chose was so artificially melodramatic, with such a forced pose of teaching and preaching masses, that it has, for me, a strong stink of bad taste, which I would never believe of FFC . He was old enough to know that real art has nothing to do with a didactical church brochure telling us “The story of a bad guy N, and how he was severely punished by God.”
So ,
My offer is this: no GF3 . If GF3-gefenders will put up personally , we may save his soul by leaving the fact of confession. But why should we ever consider leaving more?
After all, we really need not to quarrel about this.
Who says that we cannot have two different books?
The GF3-embracers may write a sequel to it, from modern history. The part of public that has no wish to embrace GF3 as truth may write a sequel to book or the 1 two parts, possibly with flashbacks, and it really has not to interfere with the rest, because we need not really to extend it so far as 1980.

Of course, everything written above is valid only if we honestly think it worth trying to write ANY sequels after two (GF3&GFR) highly unsuccessive efforts... :rolleyes:

I would definately be up for it, however some people want to see more of Vincent, and others,like me, dont.Some people would want this, some people would want that, and it would probably end up being pretty hairy, what wioth any # of diffrent authors. Right now, I'm trying to fill in the blanks for my script, but sure, we should at least try.