I always thought Smith was dumb, not a villain. I’d’ve liked it if he said “I’ve been accused of trying to get the Federal Government to buy land that I own for my personal profit. This is untrue - I do not and have never owned the land or any share of the land in and around Willet Creek. Anyone who says I do has somehow put the land in my name without my knowledge. With that in mind, I’d like to sell any and all holdings in my name within 20 miles of Willet Creek to the Department of the Interior for the princely sum of one dollar, and if there happens to be a lawyer here with me in the Senate chamber who will be kind enough to draw up a contract to that effect, I’ll gladly sign it right here and now before any interested witnesses, and anyone who can present a deed or other document claiming that I own this property can present it and add it to the sale.”
Or, alternately, the senior senator could have pulled Smith aside and said “psst, we’ve already surveyed Willet Creek for an upcoming dam project. I get that you weren’t aware of this, but it’ll bring jobs and electricity to the area. Are there any alternative sites you’d like to check out for your National Boy’s Camp project, because I think that’s a great idea and I’ll co-sponsor it at another suitable location.”
Michael had ideals but I agree with you that he wasn’t idealistic. Actually he was a fairly pragmatic man. But at the beginning of the movie it’s established that Michael wasn’t just reluctant about becoming embroiled in the family business he had already rejected it. He joined the marines over the objections of his family and it was well known to the other families Michael wasn’t involved in the family business which made him the ideal choice to meet with McCluskey and Sollozzo and kill them both.
Right. I was over-simplifying. Let’s say that Michael at least ostensibly had high ideals. He enlisted despite the strong opposition of his family. And Vito’s plans for him were to keep him clean, so he could be eligible for politics and wield real power on behalf of the family. That got screwed up when Michael volunteered to avenge his father’s shooting.
He was also ostensibly idealistic because, like Walter White, he got involved in crime to “protect his family.” Of course, so did Vito originally. But they all got involved really because they found power and violence seductive.
I honestly don’t recall Michael Corleone ever upholding an ideal. He was wholly amoral. Even his talk about family was all bullshit.
The contrast between Vito and Michael was, basically, that. Vito Corleone was a killer and a thug, but he had principles - largely around loving and protecting his family, but he seemed relatively fair-minded in general; even in crime he believed in proportionality. Michael Corleone had no loyalty towards his family at all. It is inconceivable to think of Vito killing a brother, or even shutting out Tom Hagen.
That review was positively gentle compared to how the author/scientist Martin Gardner brutally panned Close Encounters of the Third Kind when it came out the same year. (That full review is paywalled but this link provides a taste of it.)
I actually appreciate seeing those passionate defenses of adult-oriented culture once in a while. And I don’t think that has anything at all to do with whether you’re politically “conservative” or not.
Gardner’s criticism was mainly from a scientific angle. He regarded UFOs and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence largely as a glop of pseudo-scientific woo and deeply resented CE3K for supposedly promoting such nonsense to a gullible scientifically-illiterate general public. (Keep in mind this review was written during the 70s when UFO cults and other New Age movements seemed to be springing up everywhere.) I could be wrong but I believe he had less of a problem with Star Wars since it was clearly a make-believe space fantasy along the lines of the old Flash Gordon serials and not meant to convert anybody to a universal belief system involving UFOs and aliens.
Why do you think he joined the marines even knowing it would alienate his family? He wanted to be a good American. Sonny gives him grief over how stupid it is to fight to something like your country.
In the first movie Michael only comes back to the family after the attempted assassination of his father. He jumps in with both feet after his brother’s assassination and becomes the heir apparent to the Corleone syndicate. As far as Fredo goes, his betrayal endangered not only Michael but Kay and his children. Remember, those assassins came to the family home. Likely it would have been inconceivable to Vito that one of his children would betray the family in that manner. But Fredo wasn’t a threat to him by the time Michael had him assassinated. He wasn’t doing it to protect the family he was doing it to get revenge.
I didn’t interpret it that way. I read it as “these movies appeal to an adolescent mindset.” i.e movies that glorify “bad-asses” no matter how evil and destructive they are, like Michael Corleone. Or a nobody who comes out of nowhere to save the world/universe and (inevitably) “gets the girl.”
I don’t think it’s an “adolescent mindset” to be fascinated by evil characters and their downfall. (But it would be an “adolescent mindset” to think that The Godfather “glorifies” Michael: at the end he has effectively lost his entire family, and while in control of the enterprise he is entirely alone and friendless. An adult would hardly see that as a victory.) MacBeth and Richard III also appeal because of their villainy.
There’s good and bad reasons to join the military, and even if Michael gave a good reason for joining in the film, he’s also a guy who lies pretty easily about his motivations.
That’s really reaching to try to find reasons that Michael is entirely evil. Michael received a battlefield commission to captain, was wounded in battle, and received a Silver Star for bravery, later upgraded to Navy Cross. Not exactly the record of someone who was just going through the motions to defy his family. In any case, he initially did follow Vito’s wishes not to go into the family business, going to Dartmouth instead.
In the context of the movie, Michael’s service is intended to show that he initially had some ideals. He’s a much more interesting character that way, rather than being completely evil from the beginning. His attachment to those ideals might have been superficial, but they were still there. You can try to twist that into a different interpretation, but that’s pretty clearly why Coppola included it. Michael Corleone is a much more interesting character than Pacino’s Scarface, who was a scumbag with no redeeming characteristics from the beginning.
In the book some of Don Corleone’s men want to join the military, which annoys the Don, but he can’t say no after letting Michael join.
Vito’s loyalty was to his own family, and didn’t care about his country. Whether Italy or the US, it made no difference. Michael wanted to break out of that, but when Vito was shot, he couldn’t abandon his family.
He could have said “Sorry guys, this isn’t my fight” and Sonny would have accepted it. Sonny was shocked Mike wanted to help at all. But he didn’t, and it turned out that out of the three brothers he was the best suited to fight the five families, even if it cost him his soul.
I guess Planet of the Apes , with all the merchandise created in its wake – the toys, the comic books*, the records, etc. – and its string of four movie sequels and two TV series (again, all before Star Wars) doesn’t count? The folks who made the TV documentaries about the impact of PotA certainly point it out. And Disney had been relentlessly pitching its movie tie-ins ever since it got into the movie business. When I was growing up there were game boards, comic books, playsets of all kinds liberally stamped with the logo of the latest Disney cartoon or live-action offering. Davy Crockett coonskin hats were a 1950s phenomenon.
I’m not saying that this didn’t kick into overdrive with Star Wars. It’s simply surprising that movie executives, with all of the evidence blatantly laid out before their eyes, didn’t see this, and let Lucas pick up the merchandising rights for a song. The difference is that, although Planet of the Apes was popular and successful, Star Wars was IMMENSELY popular and successful. And unexpectedly so. Noblody was poised to profit from it initially – there were no toys ready on the shelves to be bought when it came out. They had a novelization and a comic book on the shelves, and both sold out in no time. They had to go into multiple printings of both the novelization and the first issue of the Star Wars comic (an unheard-of thing).
(Marvel started publishing a magazine-sized black and white Planet of the Apes prestige comic in 1974, three years before Star Wars. It ran for 239 issues, and was joined by other magazines) Planet of the Apes (comics) - Wikipedia
That’s a very good point and there are probably lots of other non-Disney examples as well. For example, a quick search turns up tons of tacky Lone Ranger merchandise from days of yore.
There’s even a book, “Selling the Silver Bullet - The Lone Ranger and Transmedia Brand Licensing.”
Uh…what about Ben Hur? The entire oeuvre of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.? The Great Train Robbery (1903)? Hell, Gone with the Wind wasn’t advertised with posters of Scarlett O’Hara planting vegetables, but with sweeping pictures of the burning of Atlanta.
Spectacle, even as the primary purpose of a movie, is nothing new.