Just finished the Sopranos. It was a really good show. Great acting, great cinematography, and great dialogue. As far as TV shows go I can see why it's so highly regarded. However, as a mafia narrative, or a mob epic if you will, it falls pretty damn flat. I do not think it belongs in the same category as the Godfather, Goodfellas, Once Upon a Time in America or even the Irishman.
My main issue with the Sopranos is that it's basically a soap opera for men. The main focus on any given episode is usually how the characters feel, what they are bitching and moaning about, and who they are sleeping with. At the beginning of the show Tony says something like "I get the impression that the best is behind us", which led me to believe that the show was an examination on the decline of la Cosa Nostra. While the show does this, it can almost be seen as background noise to the other issues the show focuses on. It's not really until the last 4 or 5 episodes that this really comes into focus, and in the last episode it practically beats you over the head with the shadowy lighting and the 'totally not assassination scene'
The main problem is the criminal element is not well written nor particularly convincing. Murders are committed in broad daylight, by people showing their face, in public places in white suburban neighborhoods, and yet the perpetrators almost face no repercussions. Murder victims are barely mentioned after the episode they were murdered in. Neither the feds nor the cops seem to even give a shit that bodies are dropping in broad daylight on busy streets, and don't even give me that "Tony has cops on his payroll" shit. Having a cop on your payroll means you get intel and can get some people to look the other way on some things. That does not include spraying bullets in crowded streets in broad daylight. The effect this has is that it's hard to take Chase's portrayal of Crime in American society particularly seriously
>Ton’ goes to the hospital in an early season and gets the “go about in pity for myself” note on his hospital room board >tells everyone “AYYYYYY YAKNOWWHAT YA GO ABOUTIN PITY FUH YASELF” for the next 4 seasons
Juan Bailey
Breaking Bad is much better but I'll let you pseuds pretend it's not
Jackson White
That was season 6 numbskull
Nolan Powell
No it's not.
Cont.
The irony is that the feds focus on the one murder he actually pulls off competently. The Matt balaquaia or whatever the fuck his name is guy. That actually felt like a mob hit. Then they dig up a dead bookie from 1982 for some dumb reason. Never do they focus on the trail of missing people and bullet riddled civilians left in public places.
While Meadow and Carm being in denial of their friends and family going missing does make sense because they are basically undercover mob hoes, the same doesn't go for the friends and family of the deceased. You think Ade, who was generally a well liked person in both the civillian and crime world, would have caused a little more of an uproar after she went missing seeing as she had a well known woman beater and murderer for a boyfriend.
Then there's the kids. I know, I get it. You can't raise a normal family when you are a mob boss. I've seen the Godfather. The thing is Tony gets as close as possible. Meadow will have an independent stream of income, so she wont' become a goomar, and AJ will probably OD effectively killing any chance of succession of the Soprano bloodline, which will do the entire world a favor. Tony kind of succeeds at ending a bloody legacy. And that's really fucking boring. Why was so much show time spent on these two brats when nothing interesting really happened to them? The tension that you saw in The Godfather and The Goodfellas just isn't there, so what stopped them from compressing this into a 4 hour movie? I would love it in that format, because honestly it did very little to justify it's extremely log run time.
Bentley Richardson
Breaking Bad is good, BCS has the potential to be better but, The Sopranos is the best show ever put the television.
Lucas Jones
Lotta balls
Camden Miller
Not sure if bait or certified mongoloid
Connor Brooks
>My main issue with the Sopranos is that it's basically a soap opera for men. The main focus on any given episode is usually how the characters feel Next level filtered
Carter Baker
please list 5 murders that are committed in broad daylight, in a public place, in a white suburban neighborhood.
Aiden Baker
For real
Christian Bell
ikr what a fag
Nathaniel Cooper
how did they get away with committing so much murder?
Jace Price
Theres about an 80 point discrepancy between David Chases IQ and yours. You literally dont even know what the show or its themes are about >DUUUH ITS NOT LIKE CASINO I'd love to beat you and your brother to death with a shovel
Aiden Martin
Who's going to testify against scary mobsters?
Cameron Phillips
>TV series isn't like movies great analysis user
Jose Parker
You're what the writers of the show disdainfully referred to as a "hits and tits" fan. Basically you're a brainlet OP and the writers don't respect you
Camden Barnes
Bobby Baccalieri Philly Spoons Chucky Signore Sean Gismonte Rusty Miller Rene LeCours Gerry Torciano Phil Leotardo
Lincoln Nguyen
Why the fuck should I care if the writers respect me?
Also the Sopranos has more hits and tits than pretty much any other show. So by that metric I should like it.
Jacob Bell
How did you finish the show and not realize that it's literally an anti-mob epic? Throughout the whole show the main theme is that the American mob is in decline and that the modern generation of Cosa Nostra is incompetent and dying. Trophy wives and spoiled bratty kids is the legacy of the mob. There is literally an entire arc about Tony's crew going to Italy and embarrassing themselves infront of the Italian mafia. The Sopranos is a retaliation against the romantic mob genre. It's the anti-godfather and anti-goodfellas. David Chase specifically made this show how truly pathetic and parasitic the mob really is, and dispell the notion that it is some romantic sophisticated and powerful organization. It simply looks like you are another pleb who got filtered for not getting this.
>I came in at the end. The best is over. You're hit over the head with this theme in the pilot episode. How people don't pick up on this is astonishing. youtube.com/watch?v=0cQOej9nuho
Goodfellas does literally the same exact thing, and does it in 3 hours. I addressed this in the OP. Also it took me like 5 seconds to realize that is tony soprano talking to the therapist in that clip. He looks like a different person in the pilot.
Bentley Peterson
What OP fails to understand is The Sopranos is about one man managing his family while dealing with his family in italics
James Bennett
Goodfellas only pretends to be bashing the criminal life while glorifying it and making it look sexy.
>Clip 1 Alright a little bit of indulging, but it could also be seen as a middle aged fat fuck getting a boner for holding a gun and sucking on a cigar. >Clip 2 No cool soundtrack, no dramatic shots, just cold ugly drive-by by two fucking retards who went against their capo's command (highlighting the new generation's incompetence). >Clip 3 Spoiled brat and trophy housewife bickering about unimportant shit, while Tony is hiding in his room wanting none of that shit, pretty pathetic, nothing sexy about it.
Aaron Fisher
The cinematography is shit. It is one of the least visually interesting shows i have ever seen. Based
Oliver Thomas
CHRISTOPHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Lucas Lopez
Weak bait
Justin Nguyen
>no dramatic shots Dude literally repels a driveby in an Obama tan suit, then you see a shot of all of the shells he's expended and his empty gun as he lays on the ground. It's almost an homage to Scarface. The nigga goes out blasting. How is that not somewhat romantic?
>Spoiled brat and trophy housewife bickering about unimportant shit, while Tony is hiding in his room wanting none of that shit, pretty pathetic, nothing sexy about it. Starts with a shot of her feet, then shows her perfectly toned womanly midriff in a bikini. Ok I'm being a bit facetious here but let's not pretend that showing Tony banging literal supermodels the entire show isn't somewhat glorifying it.
Jack Foster
the only thing that i wished from the show is that melfi would actually go through mentioning that someone raped her and have tony whack the moterfucker. she almost fucking said, that would have been so nice. It would be like the meadows harassment where tony fucks the guy up
Evan White
Marone, brainless the second over here
Christian Moore
All Breaking Bad fans are certified mongoloids. It's mildly entertaining popcorn television but to them it's babbys first intro to television drama and they haven't seen anything else so they jerk each other raw over it.
Kayden Stewart
wrong
Jonathan Perry
Keep coping
Joseph Sanders
I really enjoyed BB but it's not even close to Sopranos' quality in writing, characters and casting. >pseuds Only faggots use this term.
Noah Turner
About the response I would expect from a breaking brainlet
Nathan Harris
Nah.
Kevin Roberts
>t. pleb that did not understand that episode in the slightest
Matthew Jenkins
By divorcing the clips from their context you're altering what it means. Namely the Tony bear scene. At the start of that season Tony and Carmela have split up. A bear wanders into the family backyard terrifying Carmela and AJ. Carmela reluctantly invited Tony back to the house for him to keep watch to see if the bear returns. The bear represents danger, and demonstrates why families like The Sopranos keep destructive patriarchs like Tony Soprano in because men like Tony provide security.
Henry Sullivan
The whole point was that she knew she could sic Tony on that guy like a dog if she wanted to, giving in to her darkest urges, but she decides not to. It wouldnt have made any sense for her character to so that, but seeing her struggle with it was great character development.
Brandon Martinez
OP here. I completely disagree. Melfi's decision to not collaborate with Tony Soprano was one of the highlights of the show. She was put in a position where telling Tony to go whack the guy arguably would have been the right thing to do but she still didn't do it. She knew that getting involved with someone like that would only drag her and her family down into the mud. When she realized that by giving him therapy she was indirectly helping him in his crimes, she broke it off. She is one of the few actually moral people in the show.
The second highlight of the show was Tony whacking Christopher. It had to be done. Christopher was a terrorist and a danger to everyone around him. It was a rare instance of Tony acting like an actual boss.
