And that's why I loved it, and ties into what I said in my previous post about Tony constantly watching his back.

I'm not saying he was overly paranoid at that very moment, but I think that ever since becoming boss of NJ, Tony has had to be extra careful with where he goes, what he does and what he says. Anyone can be your killer, and it can happen anywhere at anytime; Phil got executed in broad daylight in front of several witnesses. And that was part of the point of the last scene. For Tony, it could be his daughter walking through that door, or his assassin.

As for why it cut off so suddenly? I like the theory that was floated earlier in the thread, with how it ties into what Bobby said in "Soprano Home Movies" (and what was flashed back in "The Blue Comet") that when your time comes, you probably don't even see it coming, or something to that effect. And it happened not for Tony, but for the viewer. The ride is over for us, and we didn't even see it coming. I know that explanation probably won't made the ending any more acceptable, but it's one that I really like.

That I think is why everyone is so p****d off about how the finale ended. I would have stretched it out about 90 seconds, have the camera pull back from the table where Tony Soprano and his family are sitting to the outside of the diner, and keep pulling back to a full street scene. It would essentially give the ending a feel of "life goes on," and still ambiguous enough that we can argue all we want about Tony Soprano's fate. :)

Which sounds like the way NYPD Blue ended. Not that I didn't like that ending, but does seem a bit cliche for the Sopranos.

can anyone confirm that the guy in the diner with the members only jacket was Phil's nephew?
I still dont understand why everyone is guessing on how it ended. If Chase wanted it to end with Tony dead, it would have been filmed and thats how it would have ended.

This is something that has gotten totally glossed over in the discussion, but my eyes opened wide when Tony told Carm about Carlo. Isn't that the first time that he's mentioned something that truly reveals that what he does for a living is illegal? Before this, she's been the queen of denial and stayed just out of arm's reach concerning the fact that she's married to the mob. Now, she's eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

In my 40 years on this planet, I've learned a few things, and one of them is that the majority of people in anything are idiots. Why should the audience of this show be different?

Wow, so the people who didnt like it are idiots? Were we idiots when we liked it during the first 4 seasons? What an asshole attitude.

:lol:

Apparently so. :lol:

If you expected the finale to tie up loose ends and for there to NOT be any dead ends, after years of having loose ends, dead ends, and no ends, then.... yes.

Once again you smug Sopranos elitists completely miss the point. The last few years we've had to deal with your smarmy "You just want more whackings!" bullshit. Now you think we just want everything laid out nice and simple because we are so stupid and you're so smart. :rolleyes:

We don't need everything spelled out. But the episode was boring and pointless. From Junior to Janice to Meadow's stupid parking adventure, it sucked.

Why wasn't a poll opened to see how many liked or disliked?
They open polls for just about everything here!

You really want us to believe that you understand this series, yet you make a statement like that? That finale was the least boring television I've seen in ages. And every moment in every scene had an obvious, and a subtle, point.

But see it the way you want. Fine with me.

whys that so funny

On the tiny chance you are genuinely asking, the theory has been debunked about 20 times in this thread already.

Gleaned from the David Chase interview in the Star Ledger:

Why am I not surprised.
Suddenly it begins to become clearer...and obviously in Chase's mind Tony is not dead.

Another note addressing something brought up previously: The theory that the nine episodes of this season were each supposed to represent one of the nine circles of Hell from Dante's "The Divine Comedy." Told of the theory, Chase laughed and said, "No."

And if Chase read this thread, he would look at all the other strained theories based on his "masterful" ending, and he would laugh and say, "No." Because as he is quoted above, "Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there." Eight years of watching the Sopranos culminated in the revelation that Tony really likes onion rings and Journey.

I've never been a "told you so" kind of guy, but I'm starting to become that way about this Tony's death business. The guy clearly did not die, and I think the whole conversation in these 26 pages have suffered with the constant belief that he did. I love all kinds of theories, but as I've said a few times in the thread, the possibility for him getting shot at the time of the cut to black is slim to zero. Maybe a minute or two after that, but it would have been almost impossible at that very moment (from anyone that we were expecting to be gunmen anyway).

Now that Chase has revealed that a movie is possible, it confirms that he did not kill Tony. This is the way I saw it the first time, and without feeling the need to interpret the ending, I think it added to my enjoyment of the episode as a whole. I also was not waiting on anything to be tied up. The important issues that we know about from the past few seasons are more or less over. That doesn't mean that there aren't adventures left for these characters. It just means we won't be along for the ride any more. My favorite thing that David Chase did was introduce new characters and new storylines in the finale. With mostly everything that the viewer is concerned about squared away, why not get a preview of what's next for the characters we've come to love?

Ending a tremendous show like the Sopranos would be tough for Chase no matter how he did it. All the people that are slamming the show and acting like they are done with it, will be back. The story, characters, and brilliance of the show makes it legendary. I believe the final episode will eventually, even if it's years later, win over some of the people that it initially lost.

i am genuinely asking...i havent read all 17 pages

Why is it so clear that Tony's not dead? Just because Chase is open to a movie?

Watch a "Soprano" movie get made years later without Gandolfini. He'll ask for too much money and get 'whacked' in the exposition like Richard Castellano (Peter Clemenza) was for Godfather Part II.

Seriously, the quote of David Chase saying anyone that it's all there for anyone that wants to watch the ending... I honestly didn't think anyone that gave the world a masterful show like the Sopranos could be so utterly retarded. I'm not sure if he's just plain stupid or delusional because it makes some bizarre sense to him, but he has quite a bit of nerve saying "It's all there" after the shitstorm that's happened over the last 24 hours. That many people aren't missing some master vision, you just screwed up.

Fine, the show ended with them having dinner together. The problem is, the contant shots and cuts to "shady" characters makes no sense. And the 30-second fade to black? That makes absolutely no sense. No one on this planet truly gets what it meant, because there isn't enough there, hell, there isn't *anything* there to give anyone a firm ground to stand on when explaining what the hell that blackness meant. It really pisses me off Chase says "It's all there" and he doesn't need to defend or explain it any further. Honestly, if it weren't for his little comments about making a movie, I could accept, although I still wouldn't have any idea whether it happened or not, that Tony died and that's what the blackness represented. But given Chase clearly didn't kill him off with the movie plan, the blackness makes no sense. The shady characters being cut to continuously makes no sense alone and when combined with the blackness. It's all there? Get a grip on your ego and realize you really screwed the pooch with the last scene and not act like you created some masterful ending. I think he needs to go and look at the last "big" HBO show to end, Six Feet Under, and get an idea of just how horrible of an... I won't even call that an ending, because it isn't, it's just a completely nonsensical, horribly written, directed and edited scene.

Itwasacuttoblack!

Or Bobby Duvall for Godfather III.

TV Writers Were Also Watching ‘Sopranos’
 

By BILL CARTER
Published: June 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/ar...on&oref=slogin

After he completed the final episode of “The Sopranos,” David Chase told publicity executives at HBO that he was leaving for France and would not take any calls asking him to comment about the ending of his classic television series.

He also said that he had instructed all of his writers and producers to turn down any requests for information about the decisions that had gone into shaping the show’s last chapter.

The reason for his resistance became clear on Sunday night when “The Sopranos” ended, not with a moment of final summation, but with a literal blank. The reaction to the stunning last shot of an empty screen has been a mix of outrage among some fans at being left sitting on the edges of their seats, where they had been perched for much of the show’s last batch of episodes, and awe among others who have always regarded the show as the most ambitious and unconventional of television series.

Included in the latter group were many people in the same line of work as Mr. Chase, storytellers in the entertainment business.

Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of the ABC hit show “Lost,” another series whose viewers have high expectations about quality, said: “I’ve seen every episode of the series. I thought the ending was letter-perfect.”

Like millions of other viewers, Mr. Lindelof said he was initially taken aback by the quick cut to a blank screen and thought his cable had gone out at that crucial moment. He even checked his TiVo machine and saw that it was still running several minutes beyond the end. When he checked the scene again, he said, he noted “the scene cut off right as Meadow is coming through the door and right at the word ‘stop’ in the Journey song.”

He said: “My heart started beating. It had been racing throughout the last scene. Afterward I went to bed and lay next to my wife, awake, thinking about it for the next two hours. And I just thought it was great. It did everything well that ‘Godfather III’ did not do well.”

In an e-mail message sent right after the final scene, Doug Ellin, the creator of another HBO hit series, “Entourage,” said: “The show just ended, and I’m speechless. I’m sure there is going to be a lot of heated discussion, but that’s David Chase’s genius. It’s what made ‘The Sopranos’ different from anything that’s ever been on TV. It invented a whole new approach to storytelling that isn’t afraid to leave things open-ended, and now the biggest open story line in the history of television.”

For David Shore, creator of the Fox hit “House,” one of the best touches was Mr. Chase’s own refusal to discuss the ending. Mr. Shore said: “Obviously he wants us to speculate on what it all means. Obviously that’s what we’re all doing.”

David Milch, who has created highly regarded dramas like “NYPD Blue” and “Deadwood,” said: “It was a question of loyalty to viewer expectations, as against loyalty to the internal coherence of the materials. Mr. Chase’s position was loyalty to the internal dynamics of the materials and the characters.”

Comedy writers also said they were impressed with Mr. Chase’s choices. Chuck Lorre, who created and leads the CBS hit comedy “Two and a Half Men,” emerged from screening the final episode and said with a laugh, “This is what you get when you let a writer do whatever he wants.”

But he added that he was saying that with admiration. “People just finished watching that show and immediately talked about it for a half-hour,” Mr. Lorre said. “That’s just wonderful. What more could you want as a writer?”

If any shows feel special pressure from the attention “The Sopranos” finale is receiving, it is current series looking down the road at their expected finales, even if long in the future.

Tim Kring, the creator of this year’s NBC hit “Heroes,” said, “I have to admit that as soon as it ended, I immediately went there. I don’t have an ending for the series yet. I put myself years in the future thinking about what you do when you have viewers with these sorts of expectations. And I think you just have to be true to what you were originally trying to say.”

Mr. Kring said he had only come back to “The Sopranos” this season, anticipating the buildup to the ending, and he said he found “the storytelling in the finale a bit disjointed, so that you lost the cause and effect of some scenes.” But he said he admired the choices Mr. Chase had made to be true to the nature of his series. “This was a show that always did everything its own way,” Mr. Kring said.

For the producers of “Lost,” who have declared an official finale in three more seasons, the conclusion of “The Sopranos” carried special weight. “There was immediate blowback for me,” said Carlton Cuse, Mr. Lindelof’s creative partner on the show. “A sense of fear ran through my veins, thinking that we are going to be in this position,” he said, adding, “we know the end is coming in 48 short episodes.”

He had admitted to some initial frustration with the ending of “The Sopranos.” “But it settled well with me,” Mr. Cuse said. “In that blank screen, there was a certain kind of purity in the choice Chase made to make it the fulcrum of the ending.”

Mr. Lindelof said that as daunting as it is to think of the expectations of ending a popular piece of entertainment, there was also a bit of benefit. “If you feel that everybody is going to hate it anyway, no matter what you do,” he said, “there’s a certain liberation in writing it.”

And from your tone, you would DEFEND ANY ending as artistic.

Is it me or was Tony reaching for something in his pocket in the end?