'Sopranos' final season to begin April 8

aNiMaL

Taft wrote:

Any one care to comment on the fact that prior to the final scene, Tony is eating an orange with Carmella...

According to IMDB:

The presence of oranges in all three "Godfather" movies indicates that a death or a close call will soon happen.


I can't imagine that is a coincidence.

Like I just said, yes he was eating an orange but it was no where near the end of the show. It was well before Phil got whacked. So in that light, yes it could have represented a close call being we still weren't sure who was gonna get whacked, Tony or Phil. It ended up being Phil and the Tony Soprano lived on. That was his close call....he had a bullseye on the back of his head. That bullseye was removed when he had the sit down with the NY guys before they whacked Phil.

AllNiteThing

MasterFramer wrote:

Amen... didnt think Sorpranos fan boys existed till now.

Also Allnightthing, stop saying that people who think the ending was less than ok are people who like "tits and guns" It's asinine. The show is NOT as awesome as you think it is. Its a great show but its far from brilliant like you keep insisting on. Want a brilliant show? Watch The Wire.

Funny how your OPINIONS can trump my OPINIONS. :rolleyes:

Taft

aNiMaL wrote:

Like I just said, yes he was eating an orange but it was no where near the end of the show. It was well before Phil got whacked. So in that light, yes it could have represented a close call being we still weren't sure who was gonna get whacked, Tony or Phil. It ended up being Phil and the Tony Soprano lived on. That was his close call....he had a bullseye on the back of his head. That bullseye was removed when he had the sit down with the NY guys before they whacked Phil.

Cool, I wasn't sure, but was just looking for some comments. It doesn't matter anyway.

Ultimately, I think Chase deliberately packed the ending with all these clues to get people speculating about something that isn't relevant. The whole series was really about Tony's soul and whether he was capable of fundamental change and redemption, and that question was answered once and for all as "no" in the Christopher/Vegas episode. Which was the KEY episode of the entire series.

That's where he effectively died and where the audience was meant to stop caring whether he actually lived or died. The final three episodes were actually an epilogue and the final scene was just the writers having a little fun.

AllNiteThing

Even the last song fits the scene perfectly....

Working hard to get my fill,
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin' anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

i.e. there is no finality, life goes on. There is no dramatic whacking of Tony, no grand trial, no fancy bow to appease the ADD crowd. It's life as usual. It's a final homage to Tony, his life always looking over the back of his shoulder, yet at peace (temporarily) with his family. There is NO look of dread in Tony, he has a nice moment with Carm and AJ. There is no reaching for a gun. Nobody who comes into the restaurant looks menacing in the least. The ONLY indication that something could happen was the one guy going to the bathroom, in a reference to GF1. But that was all director play to make a point about this life of Tony's. No more than that.

You're all welcome to your opinion that he got shot right there, or the next day or the day after. You can think that he got indicted, went to jail. Or that everything went on, no trial, peace with NY, etc. That is the beauty of the ending. It would suck if I thought that bam, the 'blackout' :rolleyes: meant Tony got it in the back of the head. What a shitty ending to a great show. The family moment, the song, the lingering shots representing the danger of his life and the cinematic faux-suspense all worked perfectly to represent what the Sopranos has been and always will be in our minds.

Like I said before, a couple of you are searching to hard for finality and conclusion that you are missing the beauty of the scene. But, what do I know? :rolleyes:

AllNiteThing

aNiMaL wrote:

It was definitely before Phil got whacked. In fact it was when Tony first showed up at Carmella's beach house that her, Meadow and AJ were hiding out at. He was eating an orange there.

Yeah, it was there and most certainly an homage to Godfather. An orange does represent dread/death in GF, but not necessarily for the one holding an orange or wearing orange or whatever. It easily could have been about Phil, or even just the overall feeling of danger in the show.

bostonlou

anyone else think them having the sit down in a freezing cold warehouse had anything to do with something?


hell freezing over?

rrivers

AllNiteThing wrote:

i.e. there is no finality, life goes on. There is no dramatic whacking of Tony, no grand trial, no fancy bow to appease the ADD crowd.

You're all welcome to your opinion that he got shot right there, or the next day or the day after. You can think that he got indicted, went to jail. Or that everything went on, no trial, peace with NY, etc. That is the beauty of the ending. It would suck if I thought that bam, the 'blackout' :rolleyes: meant Tony got it in the back of the head. What a shitty ending to a great show. The family moment, the song, the lingering shots representing the danger of his life and the cinematic faux-suspense all worked perfectly to represent what the Sopranos has been and always will be in our minds.

Like I said before, a couple of you are searching to hard for finality and conclusion that you are missing the beauty of the scene. But, what do I know? :rolleyes:

It is impossible for you to post without being an arrogant prick, isn't it? What a gift you have.

Thinking that Tony got shot would not be a "shitty ending". What makes it Soprano-like is that it didn't end with the typical show everything. Chase sprinkled hints throughout the show, ie the going to black comment and the orange. We put it together for ourselves. That is what is artistic about it.

I don't need everything spoonfed to me, and I get the beauty of the scene. I thought it was shot very well, and I can't remember another time that I was in such a state of suspense.

Garden Dogg

rrivers wrote:

It is impossible for you to post without being an arrogant prick, isn't it? What a gift you have.

AMEN! this guy misinterpreted one of my posts and went off on me for being smug...hi, kettle...i'm black. the know-it-all arrogance and complete condescension for other peoples' views is sickening.

rrivers

Garden Dogg wrote:

AMEN! this guy misinterpreted one of my posts and went off on me for being smug...hi, kettle...i'm black. the know-it-all arrogance and complete condescension for other peoples' views is sickening.

I know! It is quite hypocritical how he applauds Chase for having an ending that leaves what happened open to interpretation, yet when someone gives an interpretation that is different from his he degrades it.

sweetpotato

fyi: the gas station where phil was popped is actually located in morris plains, nj- directly across rt 10 from a barnes & noble (which appears in the shot as well), where a good friend of mine works. he said it took them 2 days to shoot that 1 minute scene! i told him he shoulda mooned them, but he has too much class for that.

NCBRI

Did I hear correctly that Chase is out of the country on vacation for a few weeks and also asked others involved with the show not to talk about the ending?

I think there is no wrong answer/interpretation (withing reason of course ) as to the ending. I think he just wants the viewer to write their own ending. I think the end scene is just symbolic of the show as a whole. The balance of ever present danger (as someone else mentioned in another post) of a mob boss with being a regular family. That's what this show has always been about. Now you can argue about whether the threats to Tony's life in the final scene were real or percieved, but I don't think it matters. Either way, it falls in line with the show's theme.

I would be interested to see the other two endings that were shot.

Garden Dogg

NCBRI wrote:

Did I hear correctly that Chase is out of the country on vacation for a few weeks and also asked others involved with the show not to talk about the ending?

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1181623651270570.xml&coll=1

he's in france, but i didn't hear anything about him putting a gag order on the cast/crew.

aNiMaL

rrivers wrote:

It is impossible for you to post without being an arrogant prick, isn't it? What a gift you have.

Hey, there is no need for name calling. AllNite never once stooped as low as you just did. It appears as though you have the problem you accused AllNite of having. Settle down and stop attacking others.

NCBRI

Garden Dogg wrote:

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1181623651270570.xml&coll=1

he's in france, but i didn't hear anything about him putting a gag order on the cast/crew.

Good article. Yeah, I don't know about a gag order. I just heard a TV critic on the radio yesterday mention that Chase was off in France and something about asking others (maybe other writers, not sure) to let the whole thing kinda marinate with the viewers and not answer a bunch of questions about the final episode.

rrivers

aNiMaL wrote:

Hey, there is no need for name calling. AllNite never once stooped as low as you just did. It appears as though you have the problem you accused AllNite of having. Settle down and stop attacking others.

Read Allnite's posts and see who has the problem. What does it concern you anyway?

Anon

uh oh, somebody's gonna get whacked...

okay, maybe not, just seems like a silly thing to be arguing about since the only way we'll ever know what David Chase was thinking when he wrote the ending to the show is if he actually comes out and tells us, and given what I've read about him, I doubt if thats ever gonna happen.

i still think Tony died in the end, but that's just my opinion

MasterFramer

aNiMaL wrote:

Hey, there is no need for name calling. AllNite never once stooped as low as you just did. It appears as though you have the problem you accused AllNite of having. Settle down and stop attacking others.

Are you kidding me? Read back a few pages...

Bathgate66

NY Post

SOPRANOS CREATOR CUTS TO THE CHASE
hated it, wish there was more to it. blank tv was tasteless. should have another episode to clear things up as a way of saying sorry to all soprano fans for all the time and money that was spent on this show...
posted by rob torresClick here to commentJune 12, 2007 -- The Sopranos' final scene shows Tony sitting down to dinner with his family. The tension builds as the restaurant fills with suspicious characters and, suddenly, the screen cuts to black. In an interview with the Newark Star-Ledger, series creator David Chase got to the point on the lingering issues surrounding the controversial finale.

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there," Chase said of the scene.

"No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God," he added. "We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people's minds, or thinking, 'Wow, this'll [tick] them off.' People get the impression that you're trying to [mess] with them and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them."

In answer to all the speculation about what might have happened after the camera cut out, Chase stated: "Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there."

The Sopranos did draw a share of fans interested solely in seeing characters get whacked, but Chase informed the Star-Ledger that he never killed a character without first developing them.

"I'm the Number One fan of gangster movies," he says. "Martin Scorsese has no greater devotee than me. Like everyone else, I get off partly on the betrayals, the retributions, the swift justice. But what you come to realize when you do a series is you could be killing straw men all day long. Those murders only have any meaning when you've invested story in them. Otherwise, you might as well watch 'Cleaver.'"

And as for Tony, despite all the therapy, the coma and sociopathy, Chase offered the final word on his show's central character. "From my perspective, there's nothing different about Tony in this season than there ever was," he stated. "To me, that's Tony."

Now that it's all over, Chase has no regrets.

"It's been the greatest career experience of my life," he says. "There's nothing more in TV that I could say or would want to say."

Some fans assumed that the ambiguous ending was a set up for the oft-rumored "Sopranos" movie, but Chase countered the speculation.

"I don't think about [a movie] much," he says. "I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, 'Wow, that would make a great movie,' but I doubt it."




NY Daily News

No Movie

He ain't singin' 'Sopranos' film

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BY DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST

Wednesday, June 13th 2007, 4:00 AM

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Print Email Suggest a Story

'Sopranos' creator David Chase's decision to leave Tony alive left the door open for a movie, to which he said, 'I doubt it.'

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'Sopranos' MovieShould there be a 'Sopranos' movie?


Yes

No


Out of the firestorm that exploded from Sunday night's controversial finale of "The Sopranos" yesterday came the voice of the man who lit the match.

David Chase, creator of the HBO drama, told The Star-Ledger of Newark he had no intention of discussing the finale and little interest in continuing the story down the line with a movie.

Frustrating as it may sound, both those instincts are correct.

The final scene Sunday had Tony, Carmela and A.J. sitting at Holsten's in Bloomfield, N.J., munching on onion rings while the eye of a nervous camera darted around the joint. Ominous music played. An unidentified man got up from the counter. Meadow arrived, late and tense.

Then the screen went black and the eight-year, 86-episode "Sopranos" saga was over.

Asked about this scene, Chase said, "I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting or adding to what is there."

Many of the 11.9 million viewers felt no such reluctance.

Some said the ambiguous ending fit the show. A more vocal segment howled that Chase had punked out of giving this long, complex drama any resolution.

"It's like getting to the end of a book and finding the last page has been ripped out," said WFAN morning host Mike Francesa.

Francesa suggested Chase left James Gandolfini's Tony alive so he could be revived for a movie - a suggestion fueled by actor Steven Van Zandt's comment Sunday night that "who knows" what could happen down the line.

Chase told The Star-Ledger a "Sopranos" movie is unlikely, but didn't whack the notion altogether.

"I never say never," he said. "An idea could pop into my head where I would go, 'Wow, that would make a great movie.' But I doubt it. ... I think we've kind of said it and done it."

He's right.

Yes, the ending Sunday night drove you nuts. Yes, that cut-to-black felt like a cheap gimmick and yes, your instinctive response was to want more.

Well, you can't always get what you want.

Even beyond the fact this ending triggered more passionate discussion than anything on TV since the invasion of Baghdad, it was true to the show.

Chase has always made us uneasy, has never bought into good guy-bad guy justice, and laughs out loud at the idea anything in life is ever wrapped up neatly.

An e-mail came in yesterday from reader Noah Buschel suggesting Chase said in the whole last episode what he's been saying all along: that America is uncomfortably like the mob. Both deal in a currency of violence and as a result spend their lives looking over their shoulders, never sure what lies behind the simplest move or the quietest shadow.

Fun as a movie could be, it wouldn't add much to that.

dhinckley@nydailynews.com

MasterFramer

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there," Chase said of the scene.

Figures... :rolleyes: I have even less respect for him now. He talked more about a movie than he did the show...

AllNiteThing

aNiMaL wrote:

Hey, there is no need for name calling. AllNite never once stooped as low as you just did. It appears as though you have the problem you accused AllNite of having. Settle down and stop attacking others.

Thanks animal. :cool:

If they READ, they'll notice I even say that there are MANY interpretations that can be taken from the ending, it's completely open-ended in that sense, you can take what you want from it. That's what's great about it. I said that it is POSSIBLE that he could be shot, but based on all the evidence from the scene, and knowing how Chase runs the show, I just think it's a big stretch. I'll argue that you're wrong, but I'll accept that it is possible. rrivers and his buddies are the ones who can't accept any other view. Tony was shot, end of story. At least accept that there could be any number of things that happened, right?!

And I agree, some of these guys need to relax and watch their mouth. No need to be low class.