# I watched The Godfather part III tonight **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442 "2010-07-12T20:29:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/21 "2010-07-12T22:37:01Z")
I thought it was good the first time through, but it didn’t old up when I re-watched it. Like others, I feel that the lack of key cast members returning and the horrible acting of Sofia Coppola are big factors. ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/22 "2010-07-12T23:30:42Z")
Last year, I started [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=539724) thread, in which Sofia Coppola gets a lot of the blame. Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad movie at all. Not the greatest in history, but I’ve seen far worse (as have we all, I’d wager). ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/23 "2010-07-12T23:34:27Z")
I saw it on release and all i can now remember is that there was an early Costello record played by one of the characters -?Sofia’s? - ‘Miracle Man’? ‘Welcome to the Working Week’? ‘Angels Wanna Wear my Red Shoes’ There was some gangster shit going on too, but I’m buggered if I can remember that. Big fan of the 1st 2 though. MiM ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/24 "2010-07-12T23:41:32Z")
Sofia Coppola aside, my main problem with the film is that Michael Corleone seems like an entirely different person altogether. There’s no hint of the quiet intensity and controlled power that he exudes in the first two films. And I don’t think that his getting older or having lost a lot of power reasonably explains it. I don’t know if it was Pacino or Coppola’s fault (probably both), but I will never think of GF3 Michael as the same guy. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/25 "2010-07-12T23:58:11Z")
I didn’t like it when it came out and a recent viewing confirmed that it’s basically lumpen. Even the best bit, the intercut climax, is a rehash. [QUOTE=Sampiro] … but they should have made Robert Duvall an offer he couldn’t refuse to reprise Tom Hagan. [/QUOTE] What is tantalising is the story that the original plan was for Hagen to betray Michael. The three films would thus each have climaxed with a close family member being revealed as a traitor. And surely the ending would then have been that Hagen - the ambiguous member of the family - is the one who succeeds in bringing Michael down. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/26 "2010-07-13T02:15:06Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > What is tantalising is the story that the original plan was for Hagen to betray Michael. The three films would thus each have climaxed with a close family member being revealed as a traitor. And surely the ending would then have been that Hagen - the ambiguous member of the family - is the one who succeeds in bringing Michael down. Ooh… almost wish I didn’t know that. Twixt Michael and Tom it could go either way. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/27 "2010-07-13T02:27:46Z")
I didn’t think III was horrible, but certainly 1 and 2 were head and shoulders better. GF 1 and 2 were about Michael’s rise to power (or fall from grace, same thing.) GF 3 was about his decline, and that was really the main flaw in the film (from what I can gather from what fans talk about.) Even though Sophia Coppola sucked, and Andy Garcia was not even close to Michael’s stature, there was really no good character to continue where Pacino left off (in other words, like how Pacino took over for Brando in part 1.) So, the main flaw in GF 3 was simply that there wasn’t a character as good as Michael in it. Old man Michael just wasn’t the same. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/28 "2010-07-13T02:37:30Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Here’s my specific objection: GFI and GFII each ended in the murder of one of Michael’s immediate family, on Michael’s orders: In GFI, his brother-in-law Carlo; he betrayed the family, he had to die. Tragic necessity. In GFII, his brother Fredo – he betrayed the family, he had to die. Tragic necessity. But GFIII ends with the murder of Michael’s daughter Mary **for no reason** – not because she betrayed anything, not because she had an intimate relationship with Vincent, not even because of any particular decision Michael made, but **just because she happened to be there** when the guns started shooting. It’s like, they couldn’t think of how to end it, so they just tacked on some pointless tragedy. **My comments are NOT spoilered** So if you don’t want to know what **BrainGlutton** posted, stop reading this post here. Mary was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I see this as a parallel to Michael’s first wife, who was killed accidentally by the bomb in the car. Mary had to die in order for Michael to die alone after having lived with his losses for a decade or two. But Mary, and Apollonia, were innocents. They wouldn’t have worked as betrayers, so they had to be collateral casualties. And I agree that Sofia Coppola’s acting in the film was bad. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/29 "2010-07-13T03:21:00Z")
> [@SaharaTea](#): > > Sofia Coppola aside, my main problem with the film is that Michael Corleone seems like an entirely different person altogether. There’s no hint of the quiet intensity and controlled power that he exudes in the first two films. And I don’t think that his getting older or having lost a lot of power reasonably explains it. > > I don’t know if it was Pacino or Coppola’s fault (probably both), but I will never think of GF3 Michael as the same guy. I agree. He was _talky_. Like a nag, he couldn’t shut up. And he never shot the “Michael glare” that was so effective in the first two films. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/30 "2010-07-13T03:59:45Z")
More unboxed spoilers. Coppola said he filmed with 3 with an idea for 4, in which for the first time the saga would be set in (then) modern day as the family, now headed by Vincent, has devolved into street crime and crack peddlers and shakedowns- basically none of Don Vito’s thuggish nobility, just strictly thuggery. Michael would have a cameo. (He dies at the end of GF3 but it’s never really specified when- long enough for his hair to turn white and for him to age more but it could be anywhere from 6 weeks to 20 years after his daughter’s death.) Since 3 didn’t do too well at the box office (I think it made money but was nothing like the first 2 in profits) 4 didn’t happen, though he still pipes up with “I’ve got a new idea for a Godfather pic” every once in a while. (Perhaps he’ll set it partly in modern day Vegas and half in _Deadwood_ in the late 1870s so we can have Al Swearengen advising the young Carlo Corleone before sending him back to Sicily to father Vito… makes as much sense as Altobello and the Vatican banking scandal anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/31 "2010-07-13T06:19:57Z")
> [@SaharaTea](#): > > Sofia Coppola aside, my main problem with the film is that Michael Corleone seems like an entirely different person altogether… I think that was the point. What you are seeing as a flaw, I am seeing as the crux of the movie: Michael \*had \*become a different person, as an inevitable result of the path he had chosen. And that was the purpose of the film, to explore \*why \*he had become a different person, and \*what \*the repercussions of that would be. I think people decide to hate on this movie, because it isn’t more of the same stuff that they loved in the seventies. It wasn’t \*supposed \*to be! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/32 "2010-07-13T06:27:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Vincent- I never really understood why they made him an illegitimate son of Sonny? He could as easily have been a legitimate one or a son of Connie or a nephew of Apollonia or whatever. Yeah, what ever happened to Connie’s son? (Michael’s godson, that is – the one baptized in the “Sicilian Vespers” climax in GFI.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/33 "2010-07-13T11:29:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yeah, what ever happened to Connie’s son? I 'unno. Napping with the fishes? ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/34 "2010-07-13T12:59:46Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Anthony- opera’s not like getting a band together; you don’t just decide you want to do it one day when you’re almost 30 and then almost immediately get the lead in a company that just happens to be located in the ancestral home of your mob boss father who you want no part of and not question it. I’m pretty sure that he’d been singing opera for many, many years, and that Michael had probably always looked at it as just a harmless hobby, and so was shocked and disappointed when Anthony broke the news to him that he was going to make it a career. And I don’t think he was supposed to be thirty. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/35 "2010-07-13T13:02:59Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I liked GF3 a lot. More than GF2, in fact. That’s just crazy talk. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/36 "2010-07-13T13:05:52Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > To be fair they did also bring back a couple of _minor_ characters ( Richard Bright as faithful executioner Al Neri, Franco Citti as Don Tommasino’s faithful bodyguard Calo ), which I really appreciated. Brought just a little more background continuity to the saga. Don’t forget Al Martino as Johnny Fontane! ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/37 "2010-07-13T13:14:38Z")
For the record: I liked it. I give it a good, solid B. But when the two predecessors are A+++ movies, naturally a good, solid B is gonna pale quite a bit in comparison. All in all, I think they did a pretty good job of filming a story that really just didn’t need to be told in the first place. Michael’s story should’ve ended with GF2 (which is, incidentally, my favorite movie ending _ever_). ---
**Author:** ![snoopygal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@snoopygal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoopygal)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/38 "2010-07-13T13:38:04Z")
Taken in isolation, it’s sort of ok. But as the third part of that trilogy, it’s really poor. It just doesn’t follow from the other two films. Part 2: Michael would probably rather kill Kay than let her raise his children. Part 3: ‘Oh yeah, remember how I changed my mind and let you live with your mother?’ ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/39 "2010-07-13T15:03:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yeah, what ever happened to Connie’s son? (Michael’s godson, that is – the one baptized in the “Sicilian Vespers” climax in GFI.) Wasn’t that baby Sofia Coppola? At least I think I remember hearing that once. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442/40 "2010-07-13T16:43:47Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I think that was the point. What you are seeing as a flaw, I am seeing as the crux of the movie: Michael \*had \*become a different person, as an inevitable result of the path he had chosen. And that was the purpose of the film, to explore \*why \*he had become a different person, and \*what \*the repercussions of that would be. > > I think people decide to hate on this movie, because it isn’t more of the same stuff that they loved in the seventies. It wasn’t \*supposed \*to be! That’s not what I’m saying. I expect Michael would go through changes and character development because of what’s happened to him. The problem isn’t that he’s changed. It’s that he is a completely different character altogether–in mannerisms, in the way he speaks, etc. There is no continuity in Pacino’s acting between GF II and III. It’s incredibly jarring and left me feeling like I was watching a totally different actor play Michael Corleone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-godfather-part-iii-tonight/546442.md?page=3)