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So Francis Ford Coppola's gone and recut The Godfather III...


Jay

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The Godfather III is a fine movie, is not a masterpiece as the first two but is not a horrible movie by any means. I'm curious to see this new editing although I'm very sceptical seeing that in the trailer he tries to hide Sofia Coppola. I'm afraid this version is made to please the people complaining about her role (which, yeah, is not great but not the biggest problem in the movie).

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6 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

I mostly found the plot incomprehensible. The first two are easy to follow.

Yes, the narration is not as clean as in the previous movies maybe because Puzo didn't write a sequel of his novel and he and Coppola wrote the script directly.

 

And also the movie has some over the top moments as the helicopter scene...

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Apart from @DrTenma, I must be the only person who is genuinely looking forward to this film.

Coppola always wanted a few extra months to fine tune the film, and to release it at Easter, 1991, but Paramount wanted a big Christmas 1990 movie, so... I hope that this is the version that he wanted to release, all along.

As for the film itself: no, it's not as good as I, or II, but it's a lot more intelligent, and thoughtful, than most people think. The visual continuity is stunning, and there's a great support cast. Yes, it might have been better with Ryder, and Duval, but we've got the film that we've got. Vincent is headstrong, like his father, and poor old Connie still thinks that Fredo drowned. Oops.

The scenes with the soon-to-be Pope, juxtaposed with Michael's confession to a dead Don Tomassino, are remarkable. No, Coppola couldn't act her way of a (very) wet paper bag, but it's Pacino's portrayal of a man who is, slowly, losing his soul, that makes III compelling.

I will definitely watch it.

 

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I think the idea is interesting - to take a film widely regarded as a failure and start from scratch with the footage to come up with something else.  Not just throwing in a few extra cutscenes on a hit film or whatever.

 

Coppola hasn't made a good movie since the 1970s though, so it'll be what it'll be.  I'm sure it'll move some copies though.

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I'm in several minds on this. On the one hand, I never asked for sequels to The Godfather to begin with, much less the meandering Part III. On the other hand, I do acknowledge there is a lot of merit to be found in it.

 

Plus, its been a while since we've seen anything out of Francis Ford Coppola and while I agree his output since the 1970s had declined rapidly in quality, by god its still Francis Ford Coppola!

 

So count me as mildly curious.

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Like I said, I didn't ask for sequels to The Godfather to begin with. So I'm not even that wild about Part II...

 

But, as you said, it has a fantastic cast; its sumptously photographed, and is conceptually quite interesting as Michael's quest for absolution.

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17 hours ago, Jay said:

The Death of Michael Corleone

 

Spoiler alert!

 

12 hours ago, Corellian2019 said:

For the record, I've never seen Part III, but a friend of mine has.

 

And you still call him a friend?!?

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8 hours ago, Thor said:

I far prefer APOCALYPSE NOW: REDUX over the original version, so this might be interesting. But I haven't seen the GODFATHER films in decades; for some reason, I've never been tempted to revisit them.

 

That reminds me I bought them on sale on blu.

 

7 hours ago, DrTenma said:

I'm afraid this version is made to please the people complaining about her role (which, yeah, is not great but not the biggest problem in the movie).

 

What's wrong with her role?

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I have zero interest in stories about bad men getting worse, which is what Part II is.

 

Of course, a lot of crime dramas are like that; and its also what Vincent's story is in Part III. Not interested.

 

The whole thing about the original The Godfather is that Michael doesn't want to be part of the family buisness: its the story of a good man being reduced to evil. A tragedy.

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Technically, Part III isn't a terribly good ending, either. A good ending to the series would have been the fall of Michael's entire organization.

 

That that little arsehole Vincent doesn't get his own comeuppance in that film is inexcusable.

 

Not that I'm calling for there to be a Godfather IV, god forbid!

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It was in talks before Puzzo died, I believe; with Coppola wanting to do just what I described as being missing from Part III.

 

I don't think it'll ever happen, and its honestly better this way. Like I said, the character went full circle within the original film, anyway.

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22 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

What's wrong with her role?

 

I misspoke: is not her role but her acting, which is subpar to say the least. For me is one of the few cases of Coppola miss-casting a young actor/actress. 

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