First look at ‘Sopranos’ prequel…

[Cheech]

Finally got a chance to watch it. I got to say it was crap. Poorly written and poorly put together. Many of the character portrayals were bad and their back stories were totally different from what they were on the show. On top of that the woke BS was all over the place. Hard to believe the same people who made the Sopranos made this crap fest. Especially considering they had over a decade to come up with the idea.


Pogo

Oh so you don't want to be preached to about the social ills facing urban yoots when you're watching a mob Flickr?

Shoehorning this woke shit and virtue signaling in movies is ruining it. Imagine trying to make goodfellas under the current political climate. "Two fine upstanding young basketball players just borrowed my truck!"

Stacks would have killed Tommy

[Cheech]

It has 71% on Rotten Tomatoes (59% from the audience) but it looks like it lost millions, with a $50 million budget but only bringing in $13 million to date.

Thats due to hbomax having it on same time it dropped in theatres

[Pogo The Clown]

Still haven't seen Many Saints. I take Pogo's Sopranos opinions as gospel so I'm going to keep holding hold out.

Honestly you are not missing anything. As others have pointed out the movie doesn't feel anything like the Sopranos. In addition to the bad writing, poor structure and woke garbage most of the characters have had their back stories changed from what they were on the show. It's like they were making a different movie and just decided to throw in some names and references from the Sopranos to draw in fans from the show.


Pogo

[Ivan]

Stacks would have killed Tommy

Scorsese actually had a white guilt character in Gangs of New York. Completely pointless black character who is only there to prove that DiCaprio and his friends are the good, non-racist micks.

[Ivan]

I'd watch a new Sopranos series where what's left of the Family is like a John Stanfa hodgepog of misfits.

That would be fucking hilarious.

"Senior year, your honor!"

"I'm in the mafia. If you are too, tell me."

"I'm big goose now."

[Wiseguy]

Still haven't seen Many Saints. I take Pogo's Sopranos opinions as gospel so I'm going to keep holding hold out.

Honestly you are not missing anything. As others have pointed out the movie doesn't feel anything like the Sopranos. In addition to the bad writing, poor structure and woke garbage most of the characters have had their back stories changed from what they were on the show. It's like they were making a different movie and just decided to throw in some names and references from the Sopranos to draw in fans from the show.


Pogo

Sounds sloppy...like the last season of the show.

[Pogo The Clown]

For all its faults the last season is still a hundred times better than the movie. Like Snakes said several parts of it were like a low budget direct to video mob movie.


Pogo

[Nick Prango]

Really missed terry winter imo

I still say Winter was the genius behind the show. To me the first season was the worst out of all of them and that's the season Winter wasn't in on.

I still hope they pitch a prequel series though if Winter is involved like him and Chase have briefly mentioned

I agree. Season 1 doesn't hold up. Everything else does. It's like S1 of Seinfeld. The pacing is all off, it kinda wants to be a comedy. Plus...A Hit is A Hit. Season 1 is definitely tonally different from what the show became by the end. Chase wrote a lot of it under the assumption the pilot might not get picked up and had backup plans to make it into a movie. Season one had a few... Goofy things. Like tony running down that Medicare fraud guy in public. Probably had to make the first few episodes super exciting to catch a quick audience.

[Nick Prango]

I tried to watch it again recently and gave up pretty quickly. I realized it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever and wasn't worth wasting anymore time on. I agree with Cheech, it's hard to believe the same people who did the series had anything to do with the movie.

David Chase was always much more interested in the ancillary non mob story lines. Tony’s mother, the psychiatry, good and evil, heaven and hell, dream sequences etc. The mob stuff was just a vehicle to tell the story he wanted to tell. He said something like “every time I hear the complaint that there’s not enough mafia storylines, I write another 5 dream sequence episodes.”

I loved most of the non-mob storylines, but f'n hated the dream sequences. I'm already watching a fictional show, I don't need to think about dream symbolism and weird shit in Tony's subconscious that never ends up mattering.

Still haven't seen Many Saints. I take Pogo's Sopranos opinions as gospel so I'm going to keep holding hold out.

I'd watch a new Sopranos series where what's left of the Family is like a John Stanfa hodgepog of misfits. A bunch of the old guard is dead or in prison, Furio comes back from Italy to try and take over, Artie gets made and tries to throw his weight around, etc. They were always good with comedy.

Unpopular opinion. I'd still love to see a sequel depicting the New Jersey mob in the 2020s. They could show the state of the DiMeo Family, New York crime families, Lupertazzi and others now.They could bring back some of the younger guys like Little Paulie Germani, Perry Annunziata , Benny Fazio and Walden Belfiore; they're now around the age Tony was in S6. Maybe some older guys have gotten released in the years since which would be an opportunity to get veteran actors involved (Imagine Mickey Rourke, Andrew Dice Clay or Vincent Gallo as an NJ made guy who was in federal prison since 1998 and he's out now). Maybe AJ seeing Tony get killed in front of him would be enough for him to snap and get involved in crime. Maybe he could even take on the mantle as the new Chrissy character. He turns to drugs to cope with his father's death. There are already a lot of other similarities there: mental illness, pipe dreams, stupidity. Also it would probably follow the rise of Benny Fazio, criminal mastermind

[Nick Prango]

Finally got a chance to watch it. I got to say it was crap. Poorly written and poorly put together. Many of the character portrayals were bad and their back stories were totally different from what they were on the show. On top of that the woke BS was all over the place. Hard to believe the same people who made the Sopranos made this crap fest. Especially considering they had over a decade to come up with the idea.


Pogo

I totally agree. Confusing, awkward, no actual story, doesn't focus on Tony even though it is billed as his origin story. Who is who? Who is the "boss?" A gangster who wanders around alone late at night just days after surviving an attempted hit? The storyline is nonexistent. The characters in this are caricatures of the originals. To name a few: Uncle Junior is portrayed as stupid and pathetic rather than ruthless and respected. Silvio and Paulie nearly killed me with their bad portrayals.

[Wiseguy]

You guys are crazy. The first season had some wrinkles that had to be worked out but 1 through 5 were solid. It was the 6th and final season that seemed uneven and misguided; treading water in some ways, rushing in others, and just not as well thought out as the previous ones. Chase should have stuck with his original plan to do 5 seasons.

[Snakes]

I like Season 1, but they were still finding their sea legs. Season 6, part 1 was the "worst," but I loved part 2. Everything just seemed so desolate and depressing.

[Dave65827]

I for one had season 6 as my favorite season part 1 & 2. If anything I didn’t like that one episode where Tony goes to Vegas for seemingly no reason. My least favorite season would be season 1 as they where finding there legs

[Snakes]

Also, "Christopher" is worse than "A Hit is a Hit"

[Wiseguy]

Season 6 gripes just off the top of my head...

First and foremost, too many damn episodes. 21 instead of the standard 13. Great, if you have the material to make it work, but Chase & Co. didn't. It was about the HBO money. A lot of down time and treading water, as I said. Less would have been more.

It seemed like Junior shooting Tony was just an excuse for Chase to have yet another dream sequence. If I never hear the name "Kevin Finnerty" again, it will be too soon. I get diving into the psychology of it all (a major part of what the show was about) but this just seemed repetitive.

The whole gay Vito/Johnny Cakes thing. Obvious nod to D'Amato. OK. But you take up huge chunks of multiple episodes with that?

Chris' Cleaver movie. The whole thing just seemed boring and pointless.

And speaking of boring and pointless, Tony's whole Vegas...peyote..."I get it!" trip. What is that even about?

AJ's depression. OK, the kid that didn't care about anything now cares about everything. But the character development in that regard was poor and didn't make a lot of sense.

There was some good tension between Tony and Chris. The scene where they embrace at Chris' baby's ceremony is really good but his death was anticlimactic. Was it really even necessary at all? Or did Chase simply want to kill off another major character since it was near the end and it didn't matter as much?

I've mentioned before how Phil seems to let his brother being killed slide but then, for seemingly little to no reason ("Leonardo to Leotardo?") decides to play hardball with Tony. Butchie is all for going on the warpath and pushes Phil to do so but then, inexplicably, is the one wanting a truce later on. Again, not really developed well.

Tony wants Paulie to take over the Aprile crew? What crew? As a matter of fact, who of consequence was even left in the family? Pussy long dead. Furio long gone. Richie dead. Gigi dead. Ralph dead. Tony B dead. Vito dead. Eugene dead. Burt dead. Bobby dead. Ray Curto (who was informing) dead. Carlo flipped. Larry Barese flipped also? Silvio in a permanent coma. Junior senile. As far as active made guys you had, what, Tony, Paulie, and Patsy? It's why the writers had to bring in characters like Walden out of nowhere. Maybe they could make Benny and Little Paulie. LOL.


All that is not to say Season 6 didn't have it's moments. It did.

The Monopoly game from hell.

Paulie beefing with Vito over the split from the Colombian robbery, i.e. Paulie taking the exact opposite stance he did when he had the beef with Ralph over another robbery earlier in the series. Too funny.

Ben Kingsley...."FOCK!"

Phil's "pygmy thing over in Jersey" monologue.

The intricacies of beefing with NY over Barone Sanitation, dumping asbestos, etc. The kind of "inside baseball" only those who follow the mob can appreciate.

Any dialogue from Little Carmine.

Johnny Sac's beef with Rusty.

Etc.


The 5th season set things up perfectly for a normal 13 episode 6th season where they would have had enough time, but not too much, to keep the good stuff above, wrap up the NJ vs. NY war, etc.