Dogmatic

Start saving those pennies kiddies! Due Nov. 11, just in time for the holiday gift season, it weighs in at 10 pounds, with 86 episodes on 28 DVDs(!!!) Three CDs of soundtrack music. And two discs of bonus material, including 16 “lost” scenes, an interview of creator David Chase by Alec Baldwin, roundtable discussions with writers and stars and Sopranos spoofs from ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Mad TV’. There’s also a panel discussion from the Paley Center for Media among “Whacked Sopranos” actors reflecting on their regrettable but necessary exits.

But it won’t come cheap: The suggested list price is $399.99US, $100 more than the complete ‘Sex and the City’.

“It’s really the biggest DVD gift set we have released to date, and that means both physically and metaphorically,” says Sofia Chang, the channel’s senior VP of DVD marketing. HBO is promising a huge marketing push for the release.

“We put a lot of work into it,” creator David Chase tells USA TODAY. He conducted interviews for the extras early this year, about seven months after the surprising (and anticlimactic) finale aired on HBO.

Chase discusses with Baldwin his childhood, his early career and the show’s history. And there’s much discussion about the controversial final episode, which ended abruptly, midscene, as the Soprano family enjoyed a quiet meal in a diner.

Scenes rescued from the editing-room floor include Tony kissing Dr. Melfi in her office; Big Pussy being interrogated after a drug arrest; and Meadow visiting her ailing grandmother, Livia, in the hospital, where Janice falsely claims Tony tried to kill Livia, instead of the other way around.

Chase says he was surprised when he looked back how few filmed scenes he had left. He says most were cut because they “in some way emotionally hold up the show or derail it” or were “overexplaining” things when viewers “have an instinctive sense of what’s going on.”

Now Sopranos fans can only dream of a movie, given the box-office success of Sex and Chase’s recently signed deal with Paramount Pictures, run by Sopranos producer Brad Grey.

“I’m not anxious to do one; I’m not looking to do one,” Chase says. Never mind that star James Gandolfini has said he has moved on from Tony. “What I really don’t want to give is the impression I’m being coy.” The finale “makes it problematic to continue the story; I’m not interested in going forward.” So any movie would go backward, set midway through the series’ run.

“If something great came along, we might consider doing it,” Chase says. “But we don’t have people in rooms trying to come up with ideas.”

Continue reading ‘The Ultimate Sopranos’

Tony Soprano… is dead.

Why? Because…

i) First episode of this season Bobby says you don’t hear it when you’re shot.

ii) Second to last episode of this season, Tony flashes to Bobby saying you don’t hear it when you’re shot.

iii) The entire story arc was about Tony - when Tony’s gone, the arc is done.

iv) In the diner, every time someone walked through the door, the perspective changed to Tony’s as he looked up

v) After the last bell jingle, just as the perspective changed to Tony’s everything went black and silent - as though the person whose perspective we were to shift to was no longer alive

vi) The cat was a reminder that Tony killed Chris, and had Adriana killed. The cat was a reminder that Tony’s a bad guy - who has it coming.

vii) There was so much symmetry between Phil’s execution in front of his family and Tony’s last moments

viii) We all know how much Godfather III ruined the Godfather movies. I think the focus on Meadow was a reference to the Godfather. David Chase didn’t end it the way Godfather III ended. This time the boss gets killed.

ix) Every other episode ended in music during the credits. This one had no music because Tony’s dead.

x) Episode titles have always meant something. This episode’s title referred to Bobby’s gift of the gun to Tony. When he gave it to him he made the comment about how everything would just go silent when you were shot.

xi) The ending was so incredibly brilliant. We all felt what it was like to be Tony in those final five minutes. We all felt nervous, anxious, just as he must have felt. After being absorbed into Tony’s experience, we were left with silence and blackness like death because…

Tony Soprano… is dead.

Having invested so many years in watching the Sopranos, I am filled with sadness that the show is now down to one final episode. There can be no doubt, that the Sopranos is one of the finest television programs ever created. Watching the second last episode tonight has left me in a veritable state of shock. The overwhelming sense of foreboding and tension that preempts next week’s final episode - is simply breathtaking. And here we are on the throes of the final curtain being drawn. The ultimate showdown between the New York and New Jersey families is finally upon us. Leotardo’s NYC crew certainly has the upper hand. With a successful hit on Bobby Bacala and the severe injuring of Soprano’s lieutenant Silvio Dante - the New Jersey crew is not only weakened, but in hiding. Soprano has pulled in his closest soldiers… but is everything what it seems? Will Soprano’s ultimate betrayal come in the form of the enigmatic Paulie Wallnuts?

In all my years of watching and being able to comprehend what is television, I have never felt such foreboding and tension generated by a tv show. Simply put, this is television at it’s finest!