Sonny's and Connie's children gave FFC nothing to work with.
Eh, on the contrary, IMHO. Vincent came from nowhere _and_ one of biggest shortcomings of his character was lack of shared history with and emotional connection to the core characters.
This resulted in Coppola coming up with the ultra-lame romance with Mary to give Vincent some tie besides pure self-interest.
Ditto completely unbelievable rise of otherwise unremarkable hood to Michael's confidant and criminal heir within a few months, as well.
All things that really marred GIII, IMHO.
So Connie's grown up sons could have played a same role as Vincent in Part III.
Indeed. Particularly since there would have been a certain amount of "sibling" jealousy and conflict between them, who'd have been close to Michael because of Connie - surrogate children craving his approval, and Anthony, the beloved prodigal son who distances himself and throws it all away.
Especially because Connie was extremely close to Michael during those years so she would be a vital link between Michael and her sons. And Michael was responsible for ordering the death of their father.
Absolutely!There was such a mine of good drama there, that GIII completely wasted! For instance, it was always clear that Michael and Mary were Vincent's meal tickets. There was no good reason for him to want Michael killed (Michael was the money-maker and the one who'd have needed him long-term) or for the conspirators to trust him.
Now, Victor, after somebody told him the truth about his father's death? That would have been a completely different story.
More should have been done with Michael's children. If Mary's death was supposed to be the central tragedy, then she should have been an appealing and memorable character in her own right, one whose death was a loss beyond the mere general fact that she was young.
And no, I am not talking about the actress here, but about the role/text, both in this draft and in the film. It is utterly lame. She is a stupid bimbo.
Also, now that I have seen Scarface - talk about plagiat! Almost everything involving her is cribbed from there, only done much worse in GFIII.
Ditto Anthony. His clash with Michael should have been about something significant, not a thing that doesn't even make sense.
For instance, he could have told Michael that he was going to become an assistant DA and particularly concentrate on fighting organized crime
.
Or, publicly called the hypocrisy of naming huge charities after Vito.
Or called Michael on Fredo's murder. Etc.
And yea, Sonny's kids should have been mentioned too. In fact, even with GIII as is, I never understood why, once the thing with Duvall didn't work out, Coppola didn't replace Hagen with one of Sonny's legitimate sons as a new family lawyer and a counter-point to Vincent, rather than putting in another emotionally unconnected and completely flat figure.
Previous films perfectly interlaced human drama with criminal machinations, which made them great, in GIII it is all so separate and piece-meal...
