criterionforum.org

Wikipedia's list of material included in this "epic" edit which is surprisingly a lot.

hearthesilence wrote:Wikipedia's list of material included in this "epic" edit which is surprisingly a lot.

Although quite a bit of the extra footage is notated as only appearing in the 7+ hour "Saga" edition. The version HBO is showing is the trimmed-down 6.4 hour "Epic" edit.

According to that wiki article, the "Saga" edition was broadcast in HD on AMC three years ago. That version must have come from the restoration, but would have been censored. The HD "Epic" version debuting (?) on HBO would not be censored.

I'd guess that it's not trimmed either, that the 7-hour runtime of the saga edition also included commercials.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:I'd guess that it's not trimmed either, that the 7-hour runtime of the saga edition also included commercials.

I wondered if that might be the case. However, if the Wiki article is to be trusted, there are numerous deleted scenes that were reinstated for the (supposedly longer) "Saga" version that were not included in the "Epic" version. Having only seen the theatrical films, I have no first hand knowledge of how these mega-edits played out.

Though 20 minutes of commercials over a 7-hour span would push the term "limited commercial interruption" to an insane degree.

I'm pondering a connection between this film and the Coppola project that followed, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

Consider the scene where Vincent and Michael discuss the former's "godfatherhood": Michael looks much like a tired vampire who considers his legacy a curse passed on to someone beloved and ignorant of the pain born of violence.

I imagine this as being symptomatic of the ideas Coppola was interested in during the early 90s and a reason why he retold the Dracula story the way he did.

"You were my horror" was a nice callback to Apocalypse Now

The only aspect of III which I liked was the character of Connie, Michael's sister. In I and II, she was against all of the violence and murder that her brother committed. In III, she became a conspirator, a kind of witch who helped Michael to commit more murders.

There really needs to be a new restoration and Blu-ray of The Godfather. I projected that tonight and it is really showing its limitations. Any dark scenes are just covered in highly digital, often coloured noise. The colour timing is also highly inconsistent from shot to shot even within the same scene. Maybe this 4k resto is just a product of its time, but it’s pretty crap.

hearthesilence wrote:Wikipedia's list of material included in this "epic" edit which is surprisingly a lot.

I guess what I describe above is the "Trilogy" cut since it includes most of the deleted scenes in the "Saga", plus the third film.

TMDaines wrote:There really needs to be a new restoration and Blu-ray of The Godfather. I projected that tonight and it is really showing its limitations. Any dark scenes are just covered in highly digital, often coloured noise. The colour timing is also highly inconsistent from shot to shot even within the same scene. Maybe this 4k resto is just a product of its time, but it’s pretty crap.

I still think the BDs on my 60" 1080p look superb. But, I can imagine the limitations past 80" or so. I can't imagine this not getting a 4K BD release.

When I last watched it on my much smaller TV, I remember wondering why some were disappointed with this disc, so I somewhat agree. I’ll see how Part 2 looks in the next couple of weeks.

Jeez I continue to think those two discs are absolutely ravishing. I've seen an IB Tech Print of Godfather 2 and think the transfer we are given is superb.

Well, I think it looks pretty crap on my 40" monitor. Definitely high time for an upgrade.

aox wrote:

TMDaines wrote:There really needs to be a new restoration and Blu-ray of The Godfather. I projected that tonight and it is really showing its limitations. Any dark scenes are just covered in highly digital, often coloured noise. The colour timing is also highly inconsistent from shot to shot even within the same scene. Maybe this 4k resto is just a product of its time, but it’s pretty crap.

I still think the BDs on my 60" 1080p look superb. But, I can imagine the limitations past 80" or so. I can't imagine this not getting a 4K BD release.

I projected Part I last night and was pretty pleased with the presentation. There are some definite limitations and high grain levels in some low-light shots, but I'm not convinced that those are not limitations of the source material. There's also a good bit of historical stock-footage that was (to me) noticeable for the first time.

I'm sure those issues could be smoothed out if you were so inclined, but I'm not sure that would make anyone happy either.

Don't forget, I believe the OCN of Godfather is long gone...so it's certainly not a perfect first gen source.

I read somewhere recently that at it's premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater, Sofia's death scene got a standing ovation

I'm certainly curious, but I wish the guy would devote his attention to making Megalopolis instead of tweaking this horrible film.
Maybe it will be a total revelation; an absolutely fantastic work like The Cotton Club Encore, but I highly doubt that. There are just
too many stupid elements in Part III to fix, and they can't make a CGI Tom Hagen to help with the characterization.

At the very least it will probably be tied in to a 4K disc release of the three films! I thought it was odd that I believe this cut premiered last year (I think?) at one of the more obscure European festivals and no one paid any attention to it.

I imagine this is well-known now, but wasn’t the original plot of III going to involved Michael going to war with Tom Hagen, but Duvall didn’t participate because of financial disputes, forcing Coppola and Puzo to rewrite the script?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Paramount went down a ton of different alleys with the 3rd one, some not including Coppola I believe. Pretty sure the whole reason Eddie Murphy made Harlem Nights is because he was in talks to play a supporting role. Stallone and Michael Mann were involved at points too, I believe.

Here's a contemporary Los Angeles Times piece on those various blind alleys. Travolta was also in the mix for a role, and while there's no mention of Mann in the article, it does say that Scorsese, Richard Brooks, and Dan Curtis (?!) were considered for the director gig, and that Michael Eisner personally suggested a storyline when Paramount first attempted to get the project off the ground in the late '70s.

I heard that they even talked up a fourth film during production, with Garcia's character in contemporary scenes during the thick of the NYC mob wars of the 80's, and potentially getting back De Niro to play a slightly older Vito. The thinking was it'd be the same sort of format of II.

Also heard that Eisner claimed he came up with the idea of Beverly Hills Cop when he was at Paramount too.

Making of the original Godfather becoming a limited series on Paramount's rebranded CBS All Access streaming service from Michael Tolkin and Albert S. Ruddy