when we are looking at NY from brooklyn, where the graves of vallon & bill are, they do a montage of nyc throughout the next century..... I AM SO GLAD THAT THEY KEPT THE WTC IN!!!

anyone else feel this way? for some reason i thought that scorsese may do "another" shot in the montage where it shows the "next" skyline...w/o the towers.

I thought it was cheesy, but not nearly as cheesy as the U2 song playing over the montage. That and the music during the first fight scene were the worst things about the film.

well, to each his own. i kinda like seeing that view over the years.

i do agree with you about the music though. my wife and i looked at each other with a "what?" expression on when the it kicked in. it seemed very out of place.

I'm glad it was kept in, but it seemed like a last ditch attempt to justify the tagline of the film.

Agreed.

I didn't mind the dissolves at all, but that U2 song was just bad. A review I read smartly asked why a song called "The Hands that Built America" is used in a film that portrays destruction and violence. Do we see any actual "building" going on?

Don't think it's literal...more symbolic

Yeah, I see that. But when the climactic scene of the film ends with the deaths of so many people, even figuratively the song just doesn't jibe. The film's mainly about the way the "honorable" tribal hierarchy of the city is torn down because of the Civil War. And what Scorsese shows us is bloodshed upon bloodshed and even greater bloodshed when the government gets involved. And the final shot of the graves laments the "honor between warriors" that supposedly disappeared after the riots. Only the closing narration suggests the path the city will follow, and even that only touches upon the city gaining an identity.

And also the song is just another in a long line of marketable end credit themes. Even though Scorsese uses quite a range of music it still felt tacked on.

remember the SEX PISTOLS's "May Way" at the end of Goodfella's?

I too thought the music in the opening fight was horrible, it through me out of the scene.

Now that was a fitting end credits song. And that is a great soundtrack which is much more enmeshed in the set period.

But the ads to Goodfellas didn't say "Featuring the Sid Vicious single 'My Way'" (although I don't think that practice was in use in 1990).

I liked the opening music though.

Why did everybody hate the opening music so much? I thought it was great and fit the opening battle scenes perfect. But each to their own I guess.

I don't think electric guitar riffs belong in period war scenes. I also thought the ending U2 song didn't fit at all.

To each his own, I loved teh opening fight music and liked the U2 song as well at the end.

Also I think they should have faded one more time and had a scene without the WTC. It would've just made sense.

I thought that the pie fight was somewhat out-of-place.

I agree with most of you about the fight music in the begining but it didnt ruin it for me I was just in a trance at all the violence going on,I also diged the ending but wished it was a diffrent song playing in the end,thats one thing missing from this flick and thats a great song that goes with the movie,overall though one of the best flicks this year.

The opening fight scene was one of my favorite things about the film. I commented to many people who had seen the film about that sequence. I loved the way he filmed it and made it all jumpy. And I thought the music worked very well with it. However, the song at the end sucked badly, but I still loved the end when it showed the city's transformation that I didn't notice the song too much. I was very moved by the pictures that the music didn't really affect me much.

I didn't really mind the beat at the end, but after that no-talent adult contemporary crap started, I got up and left.

As for the begining, the song sucked, but the build-up scene (the gang walking out of the Mission), and the photography made me forgive Scorsese's choice in music.

yes i agree that i was very kool to see that towers in the last scene , but i would have gone astep further and watched them disappear again ....to me that would have been more touching

just my 2 cents

I guess I'm the only one who thought the song at the end was "OK"

I liked it, but you might get your butt chewed off around here for admitting it.

I thought it wasn't bad... I didn't notice it that much though..