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The Sopranos Ends With a ...
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jun 11, 2007 09:14 AM
from the quick-complain-in-the-forums dept.
from the quick-complain-in-the-forums dept.
If you still have your copy sitting unwatched on your Tivo, I'd suggest that you stop reading before you are spoiled. The show is done at last and apparently fans are freaking out over the bizarre ending. At my house, we thought at first that the DVR crashed until the credits appeared in silence. Personally I thought that a show known for such excess tried to take an artful bow: It didn't work for me, but I get it at least. Anyway, I had a number of Sopranos submissions this morning and figured I'd just post this comment to give people who were interested in discussing the end of the show a nice place to discuss before they cancel their HBO.
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He's dead, Jim (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He's dead, Jim (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
mmhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess their main objective was to leave question, but leave everyone realizing that he's got to spend the rest of his life in anxiety, wondering if he's going to get shot at any time.
Re:mmhm... (Score:5, Funny)
If Schrödinger wrote the script, all you had to do is open your TiVo box to know.
Parent
Re:mmhm... (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for the suggestion!
(Spoilers below):
Tony makes a loud buzzing noise and catches fire. My house burns down. Damn, an interactive show finale! Great job, HBO!
Parent
Re:mmhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I unapologetically believe that you are an arrogant snob.
Sad-ending vs happy-ending, or realistic-ending vs fantastic-ending, is just a matter of taste, not a matter of maturity.
Intelligent dialogue might be more "grown up" than fart jokes, but only someone who wants to gaze down his nose at anyone with different tastes would say tragedy is more grown-up than comedy.
Parent
The Sopranos (Score:5, Insightful)
Last night, it was very easy for me to accept the ending of the series finale. Because I wasn't addicted to the show. Logically, not all mob stories end in a Scarface-like explosion where everyone dies
I kept waiting for an assassin to pop out & kill Tony for the last half of the show. But, I didn't have a reason why that should have happened. Am I so trained by movies & books on endings that I can't accept one without a climax? My roommate new it was coming because he kept looking at his watch and saying stuff like "ok, shit better start happening because they've only got like 15 minutes." But you know, you're at the mercy of the writers and creaters of the show.
It was unorthodoxed for it to end that way. I'm reminded of the utter ripoff I felt when I saw the last episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. But that was due to funding, I think this was the idea of the minds behind the show. Good for them. I like seeing deviations from normality when I don't have to suffer from it.
In the end, there were a lot of things that weren't wrapped up and I think that's the big problem a lot of fans are having to deal with. I think the reason so many fans are going to feel this is that the show started off as a badass mob series that attracted viewers of a certain nature who enjoy living a vicarious life of crime. Unfortunately, the ending just wasn't juicy enough to satiate that kind of appetite and I think that's why you'll hear so much about this. Personally, I liked it although I recognize that too many questions were left unanswered, too many futures were left uncertain & too many problems were left unresolved.
But, hey, that's life, isn't it?
Re:The Sopranos (Score:5, Insightful)
This show started off as a show about a mobster who's mother had driven him to panic attacks.
It was not really until the actress playing Livia Soprano died that the show really took its turn into
badass mob series. It was the quirk of a mobster in therapy that drew me to the show. It made for
interesting drama.
Unfortunately, the ending just wasn't juicy enough to satiate that kind of appetite and I think that's why you'll hear so much about this. Personally, I liked it although I recognize that too many questions were left unanswered, too many futures were left uncertain & too many problems were left unresolved.
You have to give credit where its due. They sure as hell created massive tension in the last 5 minutes with all the cuts between the family at the table, the guy at the counter, meadow trying to parallel park, the other customers in the diner. The cut to black left me sitting in my dark living room, with my heart racing. It was a great ending. Life is tense. Life goes on. Life sucks, then you die. Shit happens. Shit fails to happen. Resolution is for the lucky.
That was significantly better than a climactic gun fight, a last second hit, a wake-up from a dream, or, heaven help us, an animal-house-style what-happens-to-the-characters montage.
Go black. Never go back.
Ciao Tony Soprano. Thanks. It was fun while it lasted.
Parent
So it ended... (Score:5, Funny)
Not just because the ending sucked but because there's nothing else I watch on those channels.
But that episode really sucked. I get it, "You won't know it's coming. Everything will just go black."
I don't care.
Besides I really wanted to see Meadow and AJ beheaded. There I said it. I can't take it back. It's out there.
Re:So it ended... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:So it ended... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Popular online explanation (excuse) (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, this is like theold days... (Score:5, Funny)
He's dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Earlier in the episode, he was eating an orange, which is a reference to the Godfather files that has been made before in the series. They signify death, don't they?
I thought it was an excellent episode. It would be so cliche if they just showed him getting his head blown off, or even ended with a black screen and gunshot. If you pay attention, you pretty much know what happened. But you have to think about it.
Re:He's dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Sounds like.... (Score:5, Funny)
Big Pussy and the Zombie Mafia (Score:5, Funny)
Made the viewer feel like Tony... (Score:5, Insightful)
But then I realized we were looking at every action around him as a source of danger... Expecting anything to happen. And for that short few minutes we knew what it was like to be Tony. Could be the FBI waiting to grab you, could be some hired killers edging their way toward your table and entire family, the whole damn place could explode, etc...
No nice tidy bow wrapped ending for us or Tony, just another rev of the same wheel.
...a cop out (Score:5, Insightful)
Like that Beatles song (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Soprano's and tech? (Score:5, Informative)
Why did you post story X?
Slashdot is many things to many people. Some people think it's a Linux site. To others, it's a geek hangout. I've always worked very hard to make sure that Slashdot matches up with my interests and the interests of my authors. We think we're pretty typical Slashdot readers... but that does mean that occasionally one of us might post something that you think is inappropriate. You might be interested in my Omelette rant.
Personally, I have a pet peeve when people post comments saying things like "That's not News For Nerds!" and "That's not Stuff that Matters!" Slashdot has been running for almost 5 years, and over that time, I have always been the final decision maker on what ends up on the homepage. It turns out that a lot of people agree with me: Linux, Legos, Penguins, Sci (both real and fiction). If you've been reading Slashdot, you know what the subjects commonly are, but we might deviate occasionally. It's just more fun that way. Variety Is The Spice Of Life and all that, right? We've been running Slashdot for a long time, and if we occasionally want to post something that someone doesn't think is right for Slashdot, well, we're the ones who get to make the call. It's the mix of stories that makes Slashdot the fun place that it is.
Parent
Re:Soprano's and tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally haven't watched a single episode of the Soprano's. But, I came in here to read the comments because enough people have talked about the show over the years, and the build up to the final episode, that I was interested in hearing how it ended (especially in light of CmdrTaco's description of it).
Parent
Re:Soprano's and tech? (Score:5, Funny)
In which case you're absolutely at the right site.
Parent
Re:Question for older fanboys (Score:5, Insightful)
This probably reads like a troll, but I'm genuinely interested, because I so don't get it. Think of it as a personal failing on my part, and point out the cultural riches I'm missing out on.
Mobsters were simply the latest flavor of the generation. Before the mobster fascination we had cowboys and gunfighters. Before that we had romantic notions of pirate kings and exotic foreign lands. If you think the mobsters are bad, you don't even want to read about what hardcore pirates were like. The level of violence and brutality is sickening to see described in words on paper, I cannot even imagine what it looked like in person. And somehow, despite all that, we see pirates celebrated as shady but with hearts of gold.
But here's the funny part. What do you call a truly successful pirate or mobster? Your majesty. Seriously. Where do you think the ruling houses and nobles came from? Sure, ten generations down the line the House of Someguy is represented by some effete twit but I guarantee you the original Someguy was a badass you did not want to cross. And the best mobsters were the ones who figured out how to operate with the law on their side. Robber-baron was not a title of pressroom hyperbole. Where did Daddy Kennedy make his money? Rum-running. How did George W. Bush's grandpappy get rich? Doing business with the Nazis.
We don't see movies made about average joes living contented lives. We never read about the farmboy who stayed home, obeyed his fathers wishes and took over the farm. We read about his brother, the one who ran away to join the Navy, who decided to fight in some noble war in some far-flung land. We read about the man with the ambition to do something great, no matter how much blood was needed to grease the wheels. It is spectacle, it is horror, and it is a dreadful fascination, and newspapermen will continue to make money feeding that curiosity.
Parent
huh? (Score:5, Informative)
huh?
If it's a plain ol' DVD, that will play back in any regular ol' DVD player, then there's no DRM. There's encryption, sure, but the CSS encryption was cracked completely. Done. They *could* encrypt the thing better, but then it won't play back on DVD players - it's no longer a DVD.
Now perhaps you actually meant it'll only be available on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, and by some magic way the HD-DVD version won't be 'cracked' almost instantly (as the keys have been found for HD-DVD perpetually).. or, knowing that HD-DVD's only protection is swiss cheese, only go with Blu-Ray and its additional protection layer.
Or maybe it is a DVD - but a data DVD, and you can only play it back on a special HBO set top box media center thingamajig?
Anyway.. if it comes out on DVD at all, it'll be ripped in no time.
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Other than that, I fully agree with what you're saying - production companies are exploiting the Regular > Special Edition > Collector's Edition > Director's Cut > Director's Cut Collector's Edition > etc. thing up the wazoo. I wish it would stop - but it's a moneymaker, so I doubt it will. As you said - it's just business.. but it's pretty dirty business.
I don't mind the model in general - I don't mind paying extra for additional content if that's what I want to see. What I do mind is if you have e.g. a Special Edition which has bonus features A, B, C and a Collector's Edition which has bonus features B, C, D, and a Director's Cut which has features B, D, E and F You'd have to buy all three to get the full extras. That's just lame.
Parent