Haha. I am indeed a follower of the Noble Sevenfold Path (used to be the Eightfold Path until the economic downturn…)
Regarding the Sopranos final scene, I used to hate it with a passion but now I think it’s brilliant. Rarely does a TV series have the balls to say “FUCK YOU” to their fans, and the Sopranos ending was the biggest “FUCK YOU” ever to make it to TV. It’s been almost 10 years and fans are still arguing over what the ending actually means! 
The creator of the show has insisted at every turn that the ending was not meant to be a “Fuck You.” I believe him.
I don’t think it was a “fuck you” either, but somebody who ought to know (and I can’t remember just who it was) said, “Once you create something and release it to the public, it’s no longer yours and your opinion of its worth carries no more weight than the next guy’s.”
There are some creators who don’t seem to accept that bit of philosophy, but Chase is a level-headed guy and I think he does.
A well-spent five hours at Archive of American Television – David Chase would let you decide better for yourself.
Ten years?! You scared me there for a minute. According to Wikipedia the last episode aired on June 10, 2007. So more like almost seven years. Still, it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago.
Yeah, the people who really gave the finger to their audience were Cuse and Lindelof, of Lost notoriety.
Don’t let the smoke monster hear you say that.
I never even WATCHED The Sopranos, but the whole bit with the ending fascinated me. (Not my friend Alan, though. Quote: “David Chase should be beaten”.)
I’ve had my own theory on the meaning of the ending. (Actually, I think I read it somewhere else, and I agree with it.) You know the tension we were all feeling during those last few minutes? (“They keep focusing on those guys all over the bar…is one of them going to whack Tony? That guy just got up and headed to the bathroom…just like in The Godfather…is HE gonna be the one? His daughter is late getting there…is she going to be caught in the crossfire?”)
Well, that tension is what Tony is feeling every minute of his life. Knowing that anyone could be the one out to get him, knowing he probably won’t even see it coming, knowing that any given second could be his last, knowing that he could possibly endanger his loved ones as well if the bullet goes wild.
So I don’t necessarily think that Tony got whacked, and think the ending made more sense if he DIDN’T. But for the last five minutes of The Sopranos, we got to feel what it was like to be a mob boss. And that’s Tony’s life.
First I’ve read that, Hermione, but it really fits well.
True words. Imagine the Stress… and the uncertainty of it all. The inability to accept the possibility of random actions happening all around you at any given average moment in life without calculating at least one exit strategy, one armed response, or many multiples of both.
That’s brilliant; I am working my way through again, about to start season 5…I can’t wait until the last episode with this in mind.
Nicely put, Hermione. No wonder he’s stressed!
Never understood the anger over the last episode. It was just meant to give the viewer the chance to decide what happened. Very different and I liked it.
BTW if they do a prequel, I am sure somebody will whack Jar Jar. Probably young Paulie. 
I’ve watched the whole series through twice. I think the strongest argument for “Tony gets whacked” is the whole structure of the sixth season. Knowing the ending, there are so many premonitions and foreshadowings throughout the season that it hard to see it any other way. Chase is nothing if not meticulous about the structure of his shows. The sixth season is about Tony choosing between death or redemption, and making the wrong choice.
The sixth season starts out with the brilliant “Seven Souls” montage with the reading from the Egyptian Book of the Dead by William Burroughs.
I’ll spoiler the rest for those who haven’t seen the season yet.
[spoiler]
In the opening of the season, Tony is shot by Uncle Junior and hovers at death’s door for a long time. He has visions of himself in a “normal” life, and of heaven (a strange light on the horizon) and hell (a brushfire). At the end of his dream he is invited to enter a house full of dead people (Tony B., evidently his mother) but decides not to and rejoins the living.
In the first half, there are glimmers of a better Tony. He’s willing to give Vito a second chance, and in the last episode of the first half he tries to make peace with Phil Leotardo and tells him to stop and smell that roses - as Tony has learned to do after he was shot.
The second half is a downward spiral. More and more Tony is seen doing hateful things. He forces Bobby into making his first hit in revenge for Bobby beating him in a fight. His friendship with Hesh is broken over his reluctance to repay money Hesh lends him. He murders Christopher in cold blood. Tony has turned from any chance he ever had at redemption, and the end is inevitable.
While we don’t actually see Tony get shot in the last episode, we don’t see Old Yeller’s death either. IMO, The odds that Tony ends the night with a slice of cherry cheesecake are about the same that Old Yeller ends his days playing on a farm somewhere.;)[/spoiler]
David Chase had a funny comment related to the last episode.
He said “When I saw the first planet of the Apes movie, at the end I thought Oh, that planet had a statue of liberty too.”
Make of that what you will.
I think that’s a perfectly valid interpretation. There was certainly no shortage of premonitions and foreshadowing. But I would add that there was never a shortage of red herrings and misdirection in the series, either. Events would look like they were headed down one road, but wind up on another (and often with an anti-climatic result).
Sorry if you have answered this somewhere else, but were you actually a cameraman on the Sopranos? Can you tell us for how long and what that was like (as much or little detail as possible, as you think appropriate.). How much interaction did you have with the actors on the show?
I don’t think it’s a big deal if I spoil this for you, but just to be on the safe side, I’ll put the answer in a spoiler box so you can decide if you want to know.
the answer is yes and no. They don’t show up literally, but Tony and Melfi talk about them figuratively in a therapy session. Not sure what season it’s in, but Tony says “not those fuckin’ ducks again.” when Melfi and Tony were discussing a dream. (Was it the bellybutton was a screw and he unscrewed it and his dick fell out?)
I agree with some of this.
As I have gone back to re-watch the series, it is amazing to me how bad and distracting AJ is. Meadow too, for that matter. They were both very average actors who fell into the best stroke of luck on their lives to become AJ and Meadow. They don’t hold up very well at all as characters, and they are much less likable the second or third time through the series.
I don’t know if it was bad writing or bad acting (have to believe it was the acting, because the writing was top-notch.). Meadow’s has a truly odd transformation in the last season as she becomes conscious of her family’s and her father’s persecution by the government. AJ’s storyline is also tedious. He’s not believable and he’s very hard to like. And that’s over the entire length of the show.
I disagree with you about his mother, and felt like the show was never the same after she died. Chase had an original 4 year arc for the show, and the mother character was part of all four seasons. She was the only person who truly had Tony’s number. Tony didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything but himself, but he was always tortured over how his mother treated him. He never got the approval he sought. Since Olivia was supposed to be a reflection of Chase’s own mother, it would have been interesting to see how that played out.
One of the other things that bothers me on extra viewings. The Crimes that Tony and his crew commit are usually very poorly planned, and they leave evidence all over the place. Unless NJ police are completely corrupt or inept (as well as the FBI), he would have been serving multiple life sentences for racketeering, murder, and a whole host of other crimes.
Sorry to see you go, James. You were and still are one of my all-time favorite actors. You made Tony Soprano come to life before my very eyes, and I loved just about every moment.
Her name was just Livia, I think: Livia Soprano | The Sopranos Wiki | Fandom
Appropriately enough, considering the original Livia’s problematic relationship with her son the Emperor Tiberius.
Thanks, but again, we’ve just finished watching the whole series. Actually there are ducks again – in one episode some appear by his yacht. Probably not the same ones though.
Yeah, but I think that was the point. Lots of people have shit children they sort of wish they’d never had. I think it shows that even a mob boss like Tony has normal-guy family problems.
My mistake. All this time, I thought that was a shortened version of Olivia. I just learned something new about the Sopranos! Very cool.
I don’t think they were the same ducks. But it doesn’t matter. The ducks were just a metaphor for Tony’s subconscious to discover things about himself.
Did you have a single facorite episode?
My facorite all time Sopranos episode is “Pine Barrens”. I still laugh out loud when I watch that one.
I can agree with this. However, they just weren’t IMO, very good actors, definitely not on par with the rest of the entire cast.
I think the storylines were written as intended by Chase, but the execution was very week. Especially for Robert Iler, who has really stuck out to me as a very week link in the cast.
To be fair, the lengthening of the show from 4 to almost 7 years made Chase come up with ideas not originally planned. Perhaps this is why I always felt that the children were wattered down characters.
The kids who played the young Tony, Janice and the other sister were much more believable in their roles, but I realize they didn’t have a lot of screen time to become annoying or detract from the show. I just think the kid’s story lines were continually the weakest of all the characters, and I doubt that I’ll ever change my mind on that.