or it could be lousy film making since they loved to tell us how things mentioned later deliberately happened (e.g. Livia talks about reading how someone was killed because he was wearing a seat belt in a car accident.Sean Gigismonte is killed when he can’t get his seat belt off when he and his fellow mentally challenged friend Matt Bevilaqua try to kill Chris Moltisanti.).
There was constant iterating on a theme or expression in dialog or action on the show, but it always happened in fresh ways that avoided cliche. I would never cite anything in the show as an example of lousy film making. You cite the Sean Gismonte death, but seatbelts played an interesting role throughout. Christopher wasn't wearing a seatbelt in his accident. Tony was able to prove to Christopher that he and Adriana were sitting upright based on bruises caused by the seatbelt. Other iterations on themes sometimes bothered me. For example, after years of Tony emphasizing that Livia was in a retirement community, he does a 180 when Janice asks him to take care of Junior by paying for him to stay in Green Grove. He corrects Janice by telling her it's a nursing home. Exact opposite of his previous position. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this type of irony is exactly as it should be in the show, as it is as in real life. Time is the great equalizer. It makes hypocrites of us all.
I don't think a movie ever would have been done with Gandolfini, had he lived. There would have been no point. I am curious, though: leaving the "what happened to Tony?" debate out of it, what plot threads do you think were left dangling at the end of the finale? And which characters had an unknown fate?
What would it focus on had Tony actually lived? How he deals with Carlo flipping? Breaking in a new hierarchy? Do Janice and Dominica move in with Tony? Does Meadow become Tony's attorney? I would have watched it, but I do believe people wouldn't have enjoyed it.
Well, we know now (from Chase's own mouth) that Tony did not live, but he had lived, he likely would have gone on trial and then to jail thanks to Carlo flipping. No one that close to him had ever flipped before AND been pulled off the street (Sal and Raymond had flipped, but were both still working undercover when they died, albeit in very different ways), so Tony was going down. Meadow was still in law school, and even with a RICO trial a way's away, Tony likely would have stuck with Neil Mink since he was an experienced attorney with whom Tony had a years long business relationship. Daughter or not, Tony was too smart to go to a RICO trial with an attorney fresh out of law school.
I'm just speculating. I don't think a movie would have happened. If it did, we also don't know when it would have happened. Gandolfini died in 2013. I don't know how long law school lasts, but the show ended in 2007. Meadow may not have been his attorney, but she could have worked for Mink.
I hear ya. I think Meadow's fate had already been set in place, though, and we didn't need to see more. After years of acting out, she ultimately got engaged to someone connected to both families and opted for law over medicine because of how she always say Tony get treated by the feds. She truly was "daddy's little girl."
As I've said, I think the only compelling idea for a Sopranos sequel would be years later, for Meadow and/or AJ to attempt to bring to justice those responsible for murdering Tony. Forget about Chase. He can't do justice to the legacy of the show for whatever reason, but HBO should give him an exec producer perk and get him to sign off on Matthew Weiner working up a multiseason treatment. I think that's the only way it would get done right. It would be great to have a mystery/sleuthing arc with some nice reveals or twists that give way to courtroom drama and or mafia violence if the treatment pulled Meadow more into a life of crime than of law. She would certainly have enough motivation to go either way, and could probably command respect from the remnants of those loyal to Tony.
There was an ongoing discussion from HBO from the time the last episode aired in 2007 and when Galdolfini died in 2013. Michael Imperioli, whose character died in the series, has said he was told there "might be a flashback episode with new segments" in his podcast, but that plans for that were scuttled with Gandolfini's sudden death at the Hotel Exedra in Rome. The Biggest Unanswered Questions In The Sopranos The Sopranos: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved 15 Questions The Sopranos Never Answered For Us Sopranos Wiki page: Unknown Fates I'm sure on some level that David Chase (who is 76) is pleased that people remember his show fondly and still argue about it and are perplexed by all the plot threads left hanging, 14 years after it ended. Again, long-time DP (and sometimes director) Alik Sakharov told me that, at least in the case of the Russian in Pine Barrens, "the whole point of that was sometimes there are mysteries in life that you never find out about." I agreed, but told him it's just not satisfying to watch as television.
Eh, most of those were unresolved long before the finale. I was thinking more of what was left dangling that was presented late. Besides, who cares about Meadow's roommate? The lamp is a bad example. Meadow took it to college and it was over. There was nothing else to do with it, unless the feds wanted to try to plant another lamp, but I am guessing a judge wasn't going to okay that one again since it was a tough sell the first time. The retired police officer? What else was there? He was the man who killed Chris' dad, and Chris got revenge by killing him. Sounds like the writer of that article is looking for a lot more than is actually there in many cases. Like with Furio. He went back to Italy and that was it. Even though Tony threw it out to Carmela that he was a dead man if certain people saw him, er, no. The mob back in Italy would protect him, and Tony knew better than to start a war with Italy. He just wanted to scare Carmela with that comment. Regarding Melfi's rapist, I do think Tony would have likely done some digging and found out what had happened (I am sure he had contacts with the cops even after Makazian killed himself in S1), but that was resolved nicely with Melfi keeping her ethics and not telling him. Why would Dolan's demise been the end of the Soprano family? Yes, it is possible that Chris could have been tied to his murder, but Chris was dead 10 minutes into the next episode, so he was likely dead before the cops could have connected him to the murder. As I said, I think the writer of the article is just looking for stuff that isn't there.
The fate of Silvio is a good one. Even Little Steven says he doesn't know what happened. The aftermath of Phil Leotardo's death is a good example. The question of who killed Tony and why is a good one. And was only Tony killed, or was his entire family taken out? And who takes over after Tony? The FBI surveillance of Tony Soprano (including his office) also kind of petered out and fell apart, which was odd, as well as the truth about Agent Harris. And there are a dozen or more peripheral characters that kind of fades out, including Hesh and Irina, or Janice, the crazy sister. Note these articles are written by other people -- not me. I guarantee you, there are entire websites devoted to the loose plot threads dangling from the 86 episodes they did.
I'd argue that specific loose plot threads were generally not important to Chase and co when it came to the finale. The show comes first circle in terms of the themes and ideas he wanted to explore from the very first episode. In that sense, it's 100% satisfying and makes sense. Ideas such as "Who would want to kill Tony and why?" and "what happened to the likes of Hesh?" etc didn't really matter. I wasn't watching in real time but I find it fascinating that people seemed so hung up on the Russian's whereabouts from Pine Barrens. I mean, that wasn't the point at all. The best 'whack' on the show is the very last one in the final minutes of the show; the one that we don't even see.
Okay, but not all of the minor subplots and secondary characters needed closure to their storyline and/or arc. For example, we saw that Hesh's significant another had died and his relationship with Tony had collapsed, so there was nothing else to do with him. I don't doubt that there are tons of sites dedicated to asking these kinds of questions, and it happens when a show is that big and that popular, but most of it, in the grand scheme, is white noise.
TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz tweeted this: Spoke to David Chase about The Hollywood Reporter claiming that in a recent interview, he "settled" the end of Sopranos. He did not. He asked me to release this quote: "Everybody who believe I said Tony is dead in a Hollywood Reporter article: works for me. Now you'll stop f**king asking me."
I’m not sure why people have to have everything wrapped up in a tidy package & fully explained. Most of the complaining I see about it here are the same ones that complained constantly in the sometimes dormant Lost thread. Use your imagination.
Can you imagine Tony and his gang in 2022 Jersey and them driving electric cars " They removed the airbags "
The best whack of them all was the big surprise one: when Tony bought the farm at the end and began his next journey (or his escape from this life).
The show could not be made in the current climate. Not even Matthew Weiner could survive the metoo movement. Really sad--he wasn't even a predator and he was hugely talented. His shows resonated with me more than any others.
We know JLS and RI on not averse to cashing in on the Sopranos popularity they have never been able to recapture.