David Chase appeared on The Big Picture podcast this last Friday and he emphasized this story is NOT about Tony but about Dickie. He also said he preferred people see the movie in the theater, and not at home.
I enjoyed it just for the fact of it being more Sopranos content, and it was fun to watch these other actors do their best impression of the established actors and characters, with varying success.
That said, it was sold to me as about “Dickie and Tony,” but it was really three separate stories about Dickie, and Tony, and Harold, that occasionally intersected, and none of them was really given enough attention. Like @Zakalwe felt, it seemed like it should be the pilot for a miniseries, except they already killed off Dickie.
I have read that they purposely changed some details of things to show the fallibility of memory. One example is there were different people in the car when Tony’s father shoots Livia’s beehive then when that story was retold in the show but I think in the case of who killed Dickie, that was essentially revealing that they blamed the wrong guy. Most likely because Junior would have loved to deflect suspicion towards anyone at all.
I liked the movie. It leaves you wanting more. I would be interested in a mini series about Harold as he watches the drug trade he started and that is making him rich completely guts the city he lives in (also if the original show had not already established who was blamed for Dickie’s murder, Junior could have easily convinced everyone it was Harold).
One thing I don’t understand, why is Harold still alive? They knew where he is. They were going to hit him the next day. Why did he get a do over because Dickie died? He killed Joey Diaz. He was trying to kill all of them including Johnny Soprano. It’s not like it was just personal between him and Dickie. And they probably all assumed Harold killed Dickie. With Dickie dead it shouldn’t change a thing. They should still be going after Harold.
Two points from a lurker:
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They possibly cast Vera Farmiga due to her ability to look and sound a lot like Edie Falco/Carmella. This was subtle reinforcement for Tony’s conflicted issues with his mother, the tension between him and Carmella and also contributes to his panic attacks and a major theme of his need for Dr Melfi’s care. Well done David Chase!
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Rather than seeing Tony turning into a mobster, we see that Tony is essentially AJ
It’s good to see a nice Jersey Girl get the role. Something neither Edie Falco or Nancy Marchand were. Vera is the most famous alumna from my daughter’s high school.
I thought the accents were better in the movie than the TV show. The tv show sometimes went closer to Brooklyn accent rather than North Jersey. It might be too subtle a difference if you are from other parts of the country but it’s very noticeable to me.
I found it amusing at the time that James Gandolfini needed a dialect coach to get a Bergen County accent. James Gandolfini is from Bergen County.
I guess Tony got Chris to kill the cop for some other reason and not that he killed Dickie? That’s what it looks like to me
As this article explains David Chase didn’t know the truth when he wrote that scene in the series.
I was pretty underwhelmed. I thought Gandalfini’s son did a fine job, but the story just wasn’t that compelling.
To be honest, I didn’t follow any of the build up media hype. After watching it I was curious if David Chase was even involved with the project. I was a bit disappointed to find out that he was.
I think the movie suffered from the same problem that Kristen Wiig Ghostbusters reboot had. They tried to cram too many Easter eggs into it. Instead of letting the story unfold they had the audience searching for the next reference to the show.
I hear they cut out Tony’s little brother Jar Jar. 
I believe it:
The actor who plays the younger Uncle Junior, Corey Stoll, is a grad of Oberlin, my alma mater. He was terrific in the first season of House of Cards.
I’ve seen Corey Stoll in some bad things but I’ve never seen him be bad in anything. He makes the most out of anything he’s given.
Agreed. He was deadpan-hilarious as a young Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris, too, and made a pretty decent bad guy in Ant-Man.
We know that Dickie really really wants a son of his own, so “my wife can’t have kids” might be some exposition for explaining why Dickie has taken such an interest in a son who’s not his own.
Already explained by the fact that Tony’s father is in jail and he was asked to look out for Tony.
Except that Dickie and Tony are very close before Johnny goes into the can and just as close after Johnny gets out.
It felt like that in the show to me. Tony basically goes up to Chris and goes “By the way, here’s the guy who killed your dad and I’ve known about it for years. Go take care of it.”
I watched this last night. It definitely would’ve been better as a two-part movie or a long miniseries. The first part focusing on Dickie vs. Harold, the second focusing on Tony. It felt like a bunch of different Sopranos episodes jammed into one. If you asked what the plot of this movie was, I don’t know if I could tell you.
Also, I really hated the “ghost Chris” narration. Maybe fine as an introduction, but they needed to drop it the rest of the movie. It honestly felt like something Chris would’ve written in to Cleaver 2.
I wish I had heard that before I wasted two hours watching it. We never saw Tony in any sort of leadership role whatsoever. The trailer made a big deal of his teacher praising how smart he was, but we didn’t see any of that either, except for that tiny piece that they made for the trailer.
I suspect that the creators might have preferred to leave Tony out entirely, except that they knew that casting Michael Gandolfini was bound to draw many viewers such as myself. So they wrote just barely enough about Tony to keep their consciences okay.
This was not really a “The Sopranos” movie. They really should have titled it “The Moltisantis”. … Oh wait, they did. Count me as another moron who didn’t translate it fast enough.
The problem is though, it that it still was. I’m curious if there’s anyone out there who saw this movie without seeing The Sopranos and understood what was going on. I feel like I would’ve been lost.