The Godfather Collection (The Godfather / The Godfather: Part II / The Godfather: Part III)

Just as advertised great value

I had never seen in my over 40 years but had hear a lot about and many quoits I never got until now

Francis Ford Coppola and Paramount Home Entertainment held a press conference and street fair in Brooklyn, and yours truly was there! The exciting news, of course, was announcing the release of THE GODFATHER DVD COLLECTION on October 9, 2001! If the preview of the set is any indication, then I must say this will be the crown jewel in any DVD collection!The three films will only be released together in this set. The Godfather and The Godfather Part III will each be on one disc, and The Godfather Part II will take two discs. The first of the good news? Francis Coppola has recorded full-lenth audio commentaries for all three films!But wait, there's a fifth disc that will blow your socks off! Check this out -- the bonus disc contains 3+ hours worth of special features, including: > "The Godfather Family: A Look Inside" documentary > "Francis Coppola's Notebook", an inside look at taking the book to screen! > "On Location" with production designer Dean Tavoularis! > "The Godfather Behind The Scenes" 1971 featurette! > "The Cinematography of The Godfather"! > "The Music of The Godfather" -- two featurettes! > "Coppola and Puzo on Screenwriting"! > Storyboards from GF2 and GF3! > "The Corleone Family Tree" character and cast bios! > Academy Award® acceptance speeches! > Photo galleries with captions! > Theatrical trailers! > Filmmaker bios! > Corleone Family timeline, with real-life events mixed in! > Never-seen alternate opening of GF3! > And "all" of the extra footage found in the televised Godfather Saga!The picture quality looked fantastic -- Coppola's American Zoetrope did a wonderful job restoring the films! From what I could tell, the sound quality was perfect, and the on-screen menus looked great. And the DVD packaging looks very nice.All three films are in widescreen format with English 5.1 surround sound, French mono, and English subtitles.Perhaps the only "bad" news I heard was that there were no plans at this point to release the chronological version on DVD. Francis said that the films were meant to be seen with the flashbacks, and I tend to agree. The biggest plus of having The Godfather Trilogy or Epic on tape, or watching The Godfather Saga on TV, was all the extra footage included. Well, the bonus disc in The Godfather DVD Collection contains "all" of the extra footage, and even something we've never seen anywhere before: an alternate opening for The Godfather Part III. Francis didn't give a firm "no" though; he cited technical reasons for not being able to include all the extra footage on DVD: the different scenes are in various levels of production ("they weren't mixed and scored"), making it difficult to add them seemlessly with today's technology. Maybe, but they seemed to be okay in the boxed sets and on TV to me.Do yourself a favor and order the biggest DVD release of all time!

After my yearly view of these films and 6 months after buying the re-release James Bond collection it has become obvious to me that it can't be too long before a new edition of these movies comes out. The picture on all 3 Godfather movies (in this release) is so full of specks and the sound so limited, it's hard to believe Paramount won't do something about them soon. The new Bond release shows the technology is there for something so much better.About the movies themeselves, every time I watch #I, I always come up saying that has to be the best movie of all time. I don't care all that much about the Miami section of #II but when the last hour of that film comes up and Michael tells Fredo "he's not a brother, he's not a friend" and then "forgives him" at the funeral (while giving Neri the not so forgiving look) well, I'm just not so sure which ones is the best.#III is obviously not in the same league as the other II. It has plenty of sublime moments but:a) If not Winona Ryder, why did it have to be Sofia ? Why couldn't Coppola face the truth while watching the dailies ?b) Why cut Tom Hagen, my single favorite character of the first 2 movies ?c) Who can buy Michael's son going from law student to established opera singer in about 2 weeks ?Andy Garcia may be best thing in this movie but as good an actor as he is he can't possibly convince you it hurts him to dump his cousin or, for that matter, dump Bridget Fonda for his cousin.Still, the opera ending is phenomenal and Sofia's death scene incredibly powerful (thanks to Pacino, obviously). Michael Corleone's confession as well as his death scene are two of my favorite moments of the series so I can not consider #III a total waste.Motion picture history as a whole wouldn't be the same without the Corleones and forgive me for not including any "offer that can not be refused" in this review.