Talk:The Godfather Part II

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Contents 1 Title 2 removed error 3 Vito's arrival to New York 4 The Celebration during Don Fannuci's Murder 5 AFI List 6 plot - ending 7 trivia 8 Synopsis/Plot rewrite 9 Language 10 Trivia Question

[edit] Title

See Talk:The Godfather Part III for discussion on the title of this article. sjorford #£@%&$?! 15:50, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] removed error

Pentagali is clearly set up by Roth. There are heavy indications that Roth is the one who engineered Pentagali's attempted murder, and that Michael trusted Pentangeli and didn't actually try to kill him until later on when Roth used him. As such, the paragraph about the 'plot hole' involving Pentangeli's murder is divined more from the fact that it's never stated explicitly who tried to kill him rather than the fact that it's not made clear.

[edit] Vito's arrival to New York

Vito, as a child, doesn't fly to America, he goes in a ship.

[edit] The Celebration during Don Fannuci's Murder

Does anyone know what the holiday that was being celebrated in the streets of Little Italy is called. Its that scene where Vito kills Don Fannuci, I was just wondering what holiday that was.

I believe it is the Feast of San Gennaro (Last Man Standing 22:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC))

• It's the San Rocco Festival. VirgilCoolerKingHilts 20:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFI List

Isn't Godfather Part II the only sequal on the AFI top 100 list?

[edit] plot - ending

Pentangeli was never murdered. He committed suicide.--Vindicta 21:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] trivia

I'm considering removing the bit where it said the reasons for Pentangeli having a change of heart during the trial is vague. There are many points in the film that stresses the reason through dialogue, and it is very obvious from the camera view of Pentangeli making a decision to change his mind.--Vindicta 21:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed the section describing David Brent. Ricky Gervais and Steve Carrell play entirely different characters: David Brent and Michael Scott, respectively. Carrell's Scott is certainly modeled after Gervai's Brent, but as The Office (US) has progressed, the two characters have diverged significantly.

Terrific. Have you made those changes on the page they belonged on? PacificBoy 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Synopsis/Plot rewrite

The wholesale rewrite of the Plot section by user Flash-Gordon was not acceptable to me, in that it substituted general description for a detailed synopsis of the plot, which, to my understanding, is the purpose of that section. I've reverted to the previous version until the purpose of having a Plot section can be discussed here and agreed on. unfutz 04:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I worked on re-writes for several synopsis (Batman (1989 film), Batman Returns, Batman Begins, Alien Vs. Predator...) and it has generally been agreed in every instance that it is not neccesary for there to be long-winded, spolier filled syopsis for films here on Wikipedia. This is an encyclopedia, not an online Sparks Notes guide, storyline sections should give concise overviews of films, not these "play by play" essays. People want a general background, not a breakdown of every scene of the film. I'm happy for my work to be edited, but this formatting is more in keeping with an encyclopedic entry. Full-bore breakdowns belong elsewhere. --Flash-Gordon 00:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

What you've provided is not a plot synopsis at all, it is a short desription of the basis for the plot. I'm reverting to the plot synopsis that existed previously, which has been worked on by a large number of contributors, until there's been a full and open discussion here, as I requested before, of which is preferred, a true re-telling of the plot of the movie, or a brief and uninformative description of the basis of the movie's plot. unfutz 05:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I have just recently finished the complete editing of the Plot section of the three films, The Godfather, and Part II and Part III. I considered that such an influential trilogy required a more delicate and extensive treatment.

If you think that the Plot section is too long, you should consider that each film is almost three hours in length, which is larger than most commercial movies. However, I think that it is long enough just to cover two complete screens. That is, in a monitor with a display resolution of 1280x1024 you should be able to read it while scrolling the screen only twice. A smaller, or not as complicated, movie could very well fit in just one screen.

You could post your comments here once you have heavily edited the Plot again, and the reasons for it. If you edit something small, correct the orthography, fix the markup or the links, or rephrase a paragraph while maintaining the same ideas and length, then there would be no need to post.

Just remember, this is NOT a forum. 15:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I incorrectly reverted an edit by The Filmaker to the synopsis, thinking that some vital information had been dropped. The Filmmaker restored it, commenting that no information was removed -- and that is correct, I was wrong. The Filmaker also comments that the synopsis needs to be shortened, and I both agree and disagree. The synopsis certainly needs to be totally rewritten for style, with compound sentences and paragraphs that hang together and are readable -- as it stands now it's a never-ending series of simple sentences that is virtually impossible to read for any length of time. Such a re-write with almost certainly be somewhat shorter, but even if it is the same length, it will seem shorter because it will be more comprehensible. On the other hand, I am very opposed to converting the synopsis into a description of the plot as was attempted earlier (see above), and would prefer to see any rewrite retain the majority of the description of the action of the film it now contains. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 07:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

According to the dictionary, a synopsis is: A brief outline or general view, as of a subject or written work; an abstract or a summary. So as you can see, the purpose of the synopsis is to describe the plot, not the artistic view. You will see with film articles, such as Revenge of the Sith and Serenity (film), that a large amount of information has been removed from the synopses. Why? Because it is not essential to understanding the plot of the film. We are not attempting to write a novelization, it is an attempt at being informative. The Filmaker 06:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid your defintion doesn't actually support your point. Let's look at the Wikitionary definition: a brief outline of something, especially of a written work; an abridgment, abstract or condensation. Yep, same thing -- not a description of something, a condensation of itm -- that means a reduction. Reader Digest Condensed Books weren't re-tellings or descriptions, they used the actual material and eliminated some to make them shorter. Here, since we're translating from one media to another, we necessarily have to describe what's happening before it can be condensed or synopsized, but the descriptions should be NPOV and neutral, and the process of synopsizing should be reductive and not descriptive.

Allow me to give you an example:

"At 5am, before the sun came up, Bob woke up. He showered and shaved and ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon toast and orage juice, then put on his best suit -- the new gray one that his mother had liked so much. In the glomming of the early morning, he got into his battered '96 Corolla hatchback, buckled up and drove to the office via the new bypass, humming along with the Beatles tunes playing on the oldies station he enjoyed listening to each morning. Entering the building where he worked without anyone seeing him, Bob quietly walked to the office of his supervisor, old Mr. Quigley, opened the door, and immediately shot his boss in the back of the head with a shotgun."

A synopsis of that passage might be "One morning, Bob shoots his boss with a shotgun." That's a abdrigement, a condensation. On the other hand, a description of the passage might be "On what seems at first like an ordinary day, Bob surpises us by shooting his boss."

You do see the difference, don't you? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 01:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but perhaps I missed construed your suggestion. I was under the impression that you were suggesting leaving in the fine details, i.e. something akin to this "On what seems at first like an ordinary day, Bob drives to work and surpises us by shooting his boss." in this case "drives to work and" is not essential to understanding the plot. And therefore should be eliminated. The Filmaker 02:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that level of detail is unimportant, unless the fact he drives to work in some way figures into the plot later on in the story. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) 03:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Language

This is in Category:Spanish-language films but Spanish isn't listed in the box. -- Beardo 05:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia Question

"De Niro auditioned for the part of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. He was instead cast as Paulie Gatto, the soldier who betrays the family. Al Pacino was working on the 1973 release Bang the Drum Slowly. Feeling that Pacino was a good fit for the part of Michael, Francis Ford Coppola traded De Niro for Pacino. Remembering his talent, Coppola brought De Niro back to play young Vito Corleone in The Godfather II"

Paulie Gatto was actually played by John Martino (according to IMDB). Was De Niro originally cast as Michael and then dropped when Coppola got his first choice of Pacino, or was De Niro actually originally cast as Gatto and was forced to decline for some other unknown reason?

I don't know that I particularly buy this story (I'd love to see a citation for it), but the way I read what's been posted, Coppola engineered a "trade", so that Pacino (who was cast in "Bang the Drum Slowly") came to "The Godfather" and De Niro (who was cast as Paulie) went to "Bang the Drum Slowly", making it necessary to cast another actor as Paulie. For both De Niro and Pacino, such a trade would have been a move upwards (for De Niro from a minor role to a major one, and for Pacino for a part in a meatier film), so it makes sense for them, but why Paramount would have agreed, or the people in charge of "Bang", I don't know. As I said, I'd like a citation. unfutz 05:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The citation has been posted, and I've slightly re-written the entry to better comport with the information in the citation. unfutz 21:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)