The Many Saints of Newark (don't bother, it sucks)

[Malloy]

No card game, no Jackie, no Tony B, no panic attacks, barely anything from Puss, Sil, Paulie or even Tony. What the fuck was the point of any of that?

Why did we see so much fucking Harold, when it didn't even go anywhere??

Jackie is in there, I think he's one of the kids in the ice cream truck scene, maybe another. Tony B is mentioned, I believe as a tattle-tale? I don't think the problem is that we didn't get enough fan service, showing us scenes we already know a lot about (like the card game, which comes much later than this movie---Tony is in like ninth grade at the end of this movie). The problem is the fan service. I think David Chase wanted to make a movie about the riots and the growth of black organized crime in Newark but decided to make that movie in the same universe as The Sopranos so he felt the need to pepper all this other stuff in there. But there was too much pepper and the movie became over-saturated and bloated with stuff we didn't need. So much so that it pushes the actual interesting movie (blacks v Italians in Newark) completely off the map.
But the fan service stuff doesn't even make up for the lack of a coherent plot or any any character arcs because it is so bad and unnecessary. I didn't need to actually see the scene where Johhny Boy shoots Livia's hair, I got it already. And Sil is too old. Why did they do that? They must have known that Sil is already cartoonish, to ask a real actor to try to make a real character out of Sil is just cruel and unfair. Just make Sil another of the basically anonymous teen friends of Tony, like Artie Bucco and Jackie were.
And why with the narration? If you've watched the show, you know that Tony killing the son of his hero, Dickie Moltisanti, is another tragic layer to that tragic story. The narration just shoves something in my face that I already knew about.
It turns out that I have a lot of thoughts. I have a lot more than this, too. It's just a weird movie. It doesn't stand on its own if you pretend it isn't a Sopranos prequel and if you treat it as a Sopranos prequel it is phenomenally disappointing.

I agree completely with everything here

The problem wasn't "not enough stuff we recognize from The Sopranos," it was that they lacked a coherent theme, pushed too much Sopranosy stuff to the forefront, and created a weird jumbled mess of a story.

[JuanHamm]

The thing is, it really wasn't that stuffed with fan service at all. It failed as fan service and failed as a compelling stand alone story.

Fan service can be done well, too, as was the case with the deadwood movie. That movie is really nothing more than a love letter to the series and it really works.

[JuanHamm]

The Silvio thing still really bothers me. That's gotta be one of the worst performances I've ever seen.

[BurtReynolds]

[VinylGuy]

I had fun. I wish someone better than Alan Taylor was behind.

[Revelator]

I've only made it about 30 mins in so far and I pretty much hate it. Performances are not good (some terrible), it feels forced, and I don't care about the story whatsoever. Does it get better from here? BTW I'm a huge fan of the show sans season 6.

[EJ]

I didn't hate it. But, I did find it fairly pointless. Didn't really do a great job at pushing Tony towards that life.

[VinylGuy]

im not sure what everyone was expecting from the movie, and im not a Sopranos fan, hell i started s1 again recently, but this one was alright. It had some weird choices like Christopher talking from the grave, and the storytelling was pretty weird too, but overall, it was fun.

Its kinda leaving the door open for another one.

[The Argonaut]

please no

[Ello Sailor]

and im not a Sopranos fan

Veggie pls.

[VinylGuy]

well, i only saw the first 3 seasons when they premiered back in the day!

Im currently about to finish S1.

[Ello Sailor]

Well that's promising. I've been watching random scenes in HD on YouTube. The acting in these HBO classics is utterly insane.

[Bammer]

I would love to see the (don’t bother, it sucks) qualifier added to lots of thread titles around this board. Love it!

[spike]

please no

[Mecca]

please no

Yeah, that bothered me enough. Time to actually be a mod.

[wease]

im not sure what everyone was expecting from the movie, and im not a Sopranos fan, hell i started s1 again recently, but this one was alright. It had some weird choices like Christopher talking from the grave, and the storytelling was pretty weird too, but overall, it was fun.

Its kinda leaving the door open for another one.

I read today this will probably happen.

[wease]

We’re about 30 minutes from finishing it. Livia looks and sounds just like Carmela. So basically, Tony married his mother.

[Jorge]

Pretty sure they make a point of that in the show!!

[The Argonaut]

One thing I always appreciated about The Sopranos is that it had a realistic opinion about Tony. For his world, Tony is impressive. Intelligent, a natural leader. But his world is populated almost entirely by losers and idiots. That's the only reason he's able to reach the (even still, modest) heights that he reaches, running a glorified crew in Jersey. The show made it clear that if Tony had been born into a different family or had somehow been able to stick to the straight and narrow, he would have grown up to be a very happy high school football coach.

[Mecca]

Pretty sure they make a point of that in the show!!

Dr. Melfi definitely points it out.