'Sopranos' Creator Takes on Angry Fans

An interview from ''The Sopranos: The Complete Book'': ''They wanted to see his brains splattered on the wall. I thought that was disgusting, frankly,'' says David Chase of viewers unsatisfied by his ending for Tony

THE LAST SUPPER? ''Whatever else happens, people are going to have to stop and eat,'' says David Chase

EDITOR'S NOTE: Still haunted by The Sopranos' cut-to-black finale four months later? Here, in this exclusive excerpt from The Sopranos: The Complete Book (out Oct. 30), series creator David Chase opens up to interviewer Brett Martin about the choices he made for the controversial send-off.

Were you at all surprised by the reaction to the final episode?
DAVID CHASE: No. We knew there would be people who would be perplexed by it and shut their minds to it. This just felt like the right ending.

Did you expect people to be so pissed off?
We didn't expect them to be that pissed for that long. It's one thing to be deeply involved with a television show. It's another to be so involved that all you do is sit on a couch and watch it. It seemed that those people were just looking for an excuse to be pissed off. There was a war going on that week and attempted terror attacks in London. But these people were talking about onion rings.

If you were expecting plot twists like Furio coming back from Italy to whack Tony and marry Carmela, you were obviously barking up the wrong tree.
There was so much more to say than could have been conveyed by an image of Tony facedown in a bowl of onion rings with a bullet in his head. Or, on the other side, taking over the New York mob. The way I see it is that Tony Soprano had been people's alter ego. They had gleefully watched him rob, kill, pillage, lie, and cheat. They had cheered him on. And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that. They wanted ''justice.'' They wanted to see his brains splattered on the wall. I thought that was disgusting, frankly. But these people have always wanted blood. Maybe they would have been happy if Tony had killed twelve other people. Or twenty-five people. Or, who knows, if he had blown up Penn Station. The pathetic thing — to me — was how much they wanted his blood, after cheering him on for eight years.

You know there were many people who thought the end was brilliant.
Sure. But I must say that even people who liked it misinterpreted it, to a certain extent. This wasn't really about ''leaving the door open.'' There was nothing definite about what happened, but there was a clean trend on view — a definite sense of what Tony and Carmela's future looks like. Whether it happened that night or some other night doesn't really matter.

Have you heard the elaborate theories about what really happened? Like the one that says you were re-creating The Last Supper?
The interesting thing is that, if you're creative, there may be things at work that you're not even aware of: things you learned in school, patterns you've internalized. I had no intention of using The Last Supper, but who knows if, subconsciously, it just came out. If people want to sit there figuring this stuff out, I think that's just great. Most of them, most of us, should have done this kind of thing in high school English class and didn't.

Are they wasting their time? Is there a puzzle to be solved?
There are no esoteric clues in there. No Da Vinci Code. Everything that pertains to that episode was in that episode. And it was in the episode before that and the one before that and seasons before this one and so on. There had been indications of what the end is like. Remember when Jerry Toricano was killed? Silvio was not aware that the gun had been fired until after Jerry was on his way down to the floor. That's the way things happen: It's already going on by the time you even notice it.

Are you saying...?
I'm not saying anything. And I'm not trying to be coy. It's just that I think that to explain it would diminish it.

NEXT PAGE: ''Originally, I didn't want any credits at all. I just wanted the black screen to go the length of the credits — all the way to the HBO whoosh sound.''

Why do you think people are so intent on getting an answer?
DAVID CHASE: I remember I would tell my kid and her cousins bedtime stories. Sometimes I would want to get back to the grown-ups and have a drink, so I would say something like, ''And they were driving down the road and that's it. Story over.'' They would always scream, ''Wait a minute! That's no ending!'' Apparently that need for finality exists in human beings. But we're not children anymore. Especially watching a show like The Sopranos that's got sex and violence.

You've said that you knew what the final scene would be for several years before it happened. What was the seed of the idea?
As I recall, it was just that Tony and his family would be in a diner having dinner and a guy would come in. Pretty much what you saw.

So you just had to get them to the diner?
Yeah. But it's not that difficult. Whatever else happens, people are going to have to stop and eat.

Was Journey there from the beginning?
I had thought about using ''Don't Stop Believin''' a couple times over the course of the series in a background way, but I had forgotten about it until my nephew sent me a mix tape with the song on it. I knew it would be controversial, because Journey has a reputation that most people wouldn't associate with our show.

Did you consider other songs?
When we were scouting locations, I actually took several songs in the van and played them for the crew. I'd never done that before. When the Journey song came on, everybody went, ''Oh no! Jesus, David, what are you thinking?'' But then they started to say, ''You know what? This is kind of good. This is a great f---ing song!''

What about the black screen?
Originally, I didn't want any credits at all. I just wanted the black screen to go the length of the credits — all the way to the HBO whoosh sound. But the Director's Guild wouldn't give us a waiver.

Did you think of it as a prank — people thinking their TVs had gone out?
I saw some items in the press that said, ''This was a huge 'f--- you' to the audience.'' That we were s---ting in the audience's face. Why would we want to do that? Why would we entertain people for eight years only to give them the finger? We don't have contempt for the audience. In fact, I think The Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience credit for having some intelligence and attention span. We always operated as though people don't need to be spoon-fed every single thing — that their instincts and feelings and humanity will tell them what's going on.

It seems part of what upsets people is your ruthlessness. The idea that nothing ever changes or gets better.
I disagree. People have said that the Soprano family's whole life goes in the toilet in the last episode. That the parents' whole twisted lifestyle is visited on the children. And that's true — to a certain extent. But look at it: A.J.'s not going to become a citizen-soldier or join the Peace Corps to try to help the world; he'll probably be a low-level movie producer. But he's not going to be a killer like his father, is he? Meadow may not become a pediatrician or even a lawyer, but she's not going to be a housewife-whore like her mother. She'll learn to operate in the world in a way that Carmela never did. It's not ideal. It's not what the parents dreamed of. But it's better than it was. Tiny, little bits of progress — that's how it works.

Do you believe life has an arc? Or is it just a bunch of stuff that happens?
Is there a pupose, you mean? Everything I have to say about that is in the show. Go look at Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus. It's all there: Life seems to have no purpose but we have to go on behaving as thought it does. We have to go on behaving toward each other like people who would love.

So, it's still worth trying?
Of course. What else are you going to do? Watch TV?

(Interview by Brett Martin. Excerpted from The Sopranos: The Complete Book, Time Inc. Home Entertainment, out next week.)

lol seriously, though... he's awfully defensive.

and i think he KNOWS that he fucked up, no matter how much he tries to rationalize it.

I don't see any plea-copping going on. He built a perfect tension-filled scene that reflects exactly how Tony and Carmela live day-in and day-out. That kind of hell is almost worse than death.

is not an attempt to basically attack the people who questioned the ending and thus, cop a plea?

i'd say it is.

and the ending sucked... totally out of character from the rest of the series, and i feel it tainted the entire final season.

Because it's got really nothing to do with him or the Sopranos. I think he was just saying that it's amazing that people can get so enraged over a fictional story.

But I gotta say, that ending fit in with the endings of a lot of the other seasons. The family, sitting down eating together. Think about the first season when they were in Vesuvio during the thunderstorm. Or the season when they sat together listening to Uncle Jun sing. Even last "season" ended with the family together on Christmas just sitting around the tree.

The seasons very rarely end with a BANG. Those are saved for the penultimate episodes, just like this one.

that's probably one of the things that annoys me most about what Chase is saying... he's trying to suggest that if you were dissatisfied with the final episode, then it's because you're one of the bloodthirsty, superficial "who's getting wacked this week" Sopranos viewers.

me, i didn't want to see Furio or Massive Genius come back... i didn't want to see every dangling plotline neatly tied up... didn't want to see Tony dead or punished in any way.

Chase had been hinting that he was not interested in "resolving" the series and that's fine... i didn't *expect* resolution. i would have been happy if it had just been another Sopranos season that ended with them eating and fade to black.

but it's that abrupt CUT to black and the visual violence of that editing choice that makes me feel it was a "fuck you" to the audience, or a throwing up of the hands and admitting "look... i really don't know how to end this thing, so make your own ending."

furthermore, as much as he claims he was not interested in resolution, there were so many plot incidents throughout the season that awkwardly reaching for significance, or implying it (eg Tony's sudden money troubles and possible heart condition)... these elements were introduced so out-of-nowhere that i can only believe they were there to fuck with the audience and make them think that they were leading somewhere.

i think it was a lame thing to do, and it wasted a lot of time and soiled the integrity of the series.

also, he claims he didn't want to give the psychic satisfaction of "punishing" Tony, but Melfi's slightly contrived break with Tony kinda did exactly.

i could go on... i really feel like he didn't know what he was doing or where he was going. he was trying to satisfy too many people and in the end just kinda said "fuck it."


the violence of that edit

All I heard and read during that week before the final episode was people in and out of the media asking, "So, will Tony get WHACKED?!!!!! Should he get WHACKED?!!!!!! Ooo, what's gonna happen to Tony Soprano?!!!!!! Will he get shot/stabbed/die in a car crash/go to jail/turn snitch and relocate?!!!!!! What what WHAT?!!!!! And whither Carmela?! Will she get cancer and die?!!! Will she snitch on/shoot/stab Tony and end up in the witness protection program?!!!!!!"

To me, these questions and speculation all primed the pump, so to speak, and raised expectations to levels not seen for a series finale since the Seinfeld one... and we all know how THAT one turned out, lol....

But no, I hear what you're saying, and agree with you in the sense that Chase comes off as a very hostile cat... but I stand by his choice 110%...




(and a quick note to all my fans/followers, this will most likely be my final appearance in this post, so...)
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>All I heard and read during that week before the final
>episode was people in and out of the media asking, "So, will
>Tony get WHACKED?!!!!! Should he get WHACKED?!!!!!! Ooo,
>what's gonna happen to Tony Soprano?!!!!!! Will he get
>shot/stabbed/die in a car crash/go to jail/turn snitch and
>relocate?!!!!!! What what WHAT?!!!!! And whither Carmela?!
>Will she get cancer and die?!!! Will she snitch
>on/shoot/stab Tony and end up in the witness protection
>program?!!!!!!"
>
>To me, these questions and speculation all primed the pump, so
>to speak, and raised expectations to levels not seen for a
>series finale since the Seinfeld one... and we all know how
>THAT one turned out, lol....

What primed the pump was the years that he spent building Tony into a mafia figure who was public enemy #1 for the feds, and in direct opposition to the families in NY. He made a show about a mobster. It's not unreasonable for fans to expect the guy to suffer some sort of consequences for his years of lawlessness and murder.

>He made a show
>about a mobster. It's not unreasonable for fans to expect the
>guy to suffer some sort of consequences for his years of
>lawlessness and murder.

But is it unreasonable when the creative force behind the show repeatedly emphasizes in interviews leading up and during the final stretch that that's not what he's interested in?

He said repeatedly that he didn't want to finish the story with a "crime doesn't pay" lesson for his characters in order to satisfy the audience. And like it or not, he didn't.


>Chase has always said The Sopranos isn't a morality tale, and he has no interest in the tidy TV tradition of tying up all loose ends...

''There'll be people who will like the finale, and people who won't like it... But I think that if people look at what the show was, or could even watch the whole story again, they'll understand what the ending is.'' - Entertainment Weekly, April 6, 2007
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>But is it unreasonable when the creative force behind the show
>repeatedly emphasizes in interviews leading up and during the
>final stretch that that's not what he's interested in?

For me, and a lot of people, the last few seasons of that show was a failure of storytelling. And the final episode was a perfect example of that.

>He said repeatedly that he didn't want to finish the story
>with a "crime doesn't pay" lesson for his characters in order
>to satisfy the audience. And like it or not, he didn't.

Who says it had to be a "crime doesn't pay" lesson? What people were asking for was an ending, period.

>>Chase has always said The Sopranos isn't a morality tale, and
>he has no interest in the tidy TV tradition of tying up all
>loose ends...

And neither do I. But at least have the balls to see the story to some sort of finish.

but it was clear a long time ago that The Sopranos is NOT a genre piece... not the crime genre, anyway.

so i don't think that the show HAD to end with a "mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" and i don't think it necessarily would have been satisfying if it had.

BUT

they DID spend a lot of time building the RICO subplot and it would have been nice to see it go SOMEwhere. ditto the tensions with NYC.

Yes, it does. And I'm sorry, but that motherfucker's been in the game for 30+ years, I think he knows a thing or two about serving the story... or not. Bottom line is, it was his story, his vision, and has been from jump.

I'll tell y'all what. Y'all can keep arguing this until your fingers bleed. I'ma go ahead and enjoy this last DVD set, shitty non-ending and all. (I'ma also take time out to send a nasty email to Best Buy for not having enough copies of the Kubrick Collection in stock)...
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>Bottom line is, it was his
>story, his vision, and has been from jump.

The other bottom line is that once you put your art out there, the masses are free to criticize it. And lots of people found the ending to that show lacking.

And btw, once the masses exercise their right to criticize the art, then the person who created it (and was pretty clear about telling HIS story HIS way, fuck "the masses") can exercise their right to come back and tell "the masses" to go fuck themselves.

And he did. Whether you guys like it or not. Or whether you like HIM or not. He's not trying to win a popularity contest. He told a story the way he wanted to tell it. And ended it the way he wanted to end it. And was very stubborn about it.

And let me clear it up again, because I can see it coming: no, I don't want to meet/be/fuck David Chase, or work for him, or have his babies, etc. He's probably a pretty big prick, all things considered. But I'll be good and goddamned if I don't defend his right to finish his piece of art the way HE wanted to. Not you. Not "the masses." Not "the story" (more on that in a second). He ended it the way HE wanted to. It was his creation, and he earned the fucking right to end it the way he saw fit. This was the way he chose to end HIS story. Like it, or not.

All this "he owed The Story some closure" shit is bullshit, especially if he told you cats repeatedly that he wasn't going to give you guys (oops, I mean, "the STORY") the closure (in whatever form) you thought it deserved.

As if there's only one good, proper, and correct way to tell this story. FOH.

As if his decision to end the story the way he wanted to end it was somehow in logical opposition to "serving the story." I repeat, FOH.

And also, regarding this business about "he made a show about a mobster." I like how "... and his family" was conveniently left out of that sentence.

This circular pattern that we're going in is getting pretty boring, btw.



>For the moment, I'll... just say that what I personally find most surprising isn't how The Sopranos ended, but that anyone — least of all the show's supposed die-hard fans — would have expected anything different. Here is a series that, since its inception, has always taken the road less traveled, that managed to invoke a lifetime of mob-movie clichés while simultaneously transcending them. It was a meta-mob-movie in which the characters learned how to be gangsters from watching White Heat and GoodFellas and the Godfather trilogy, and in which family matters were forever intruding upon Family matters. Within the seemingly restrictive boundaries of an exhausted dramatic genre (Was it even possible to care about the petty tribulations of old-fashioned gangsters in the midst of the Enron era?), Chase managed to weave a great American epic about the burden of power, the indignity of old age, the terror of children that they will grow up to become their parents, and, of course, the inability of modern medicine to cure all that ails us (especially existential crises). And yet, people expected Chase to end things...how exactly? With the funeral of Tony Soprano? With Carmela and the kids joining the Federal Witness Protection program? With Artie Bucco deciding to sell the Vesuvio and the whole cast gathering together to sing "Auld Lang Syne"?

No matter what Chase did, of course, it was never going to be to everyone's liking. What he did do, however, strikes me as one of the boldest strokes in a series that was never short on radical gestures. Contrary to the abrupt plug-pulling that some have accused it of being, the final scene of the final Sopranos was in fact a carefully plotted and ingeniously executed distillation of Chase's three greatest themes: work, death and blood ties. Nothing hasty or unplanned about it. We are, as at the end of so many episodes, gathered for a Sopranos family dinner...

You can call that a cop-out if you so desire, but to my mind the failing of the final Sopranos isn't Chase's — it's the audience's. Reading those Monday-morning reports of disgruntled viewers assailing cable operators with reports of service outages, I was reminded of something the director David Lynch said to me last fall... "Some people really like to know what everything is," he said of viewers ruffled by his own penchant for loose ends and elliptical narratives. "I don't know how they go through life, because life has so many things that are abstract, but they do, and they just like to know — they've got that kind of mind, or being." The comparison is apt, I think, because outside of Lynch, Chase is one of the few contemporary American filmmakers to have actively embraced surrealism and abstract expressionism as part of his aesthetic...

What the reaction to The Sopranos finale rather dishearteningly proves is that many in the show's audience really were watching every week to see who might get whacked next instead of, you know, how David Chase would further push the aesthetic envelope of dramatic television storytelling. It also says something larger (and even more disheartening) about a culture that has been conditioned... to believe that proper stories have distinct beginnings, middles and ends and that anything which departs from this formula is, for lack of a better word, wrong. It says something about an audience that prefers a passive form of spectatorship to an active one, that wishes to sit back and be told exactly how to think and feel at every given moment — an attitude, I would argue, too often carried forth from the cinema or the TV room into the voting booth. And it says something about people who long for closure in things — like human relationships — that are by their very nature forever in flux. As David Chase applied the final strokes to his masterful canvas, it became clear that he had created a Jackson Pollack in a world that prefers Norman Rockwells.

- Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly, June 12, 2007
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especially this part...

>It also says something larger (and even more disheartening) about a culture that has been conditioned... to believe that proper stories have distinct beginnings, middles and ends and that anything which departs from this formula is, for lack of a better word, wrong. It says something about an audience that prefers a passive form of spectatorship to an active one, that wishes to sit back and be told exactly how to think and feel at every given moment — an attitude, I would argue, too often carried forth from the cinema or the TV room into the voting booth.<

when people are so thrown by the ending, to the point where believe it denegrates the entire series, this statement definately holds truth. think about how people react to unconventional storytelling in films like memento, eternal sunshine, blue velvet, what have you. i know a girl who told me when she saw eternal sunshine, she walked out after the first 15 minutes. i think doing something different is challenging to the audience and they either accept it or remain trapped in their expectations. you can HATE the ending if you want, but it should never be because you think it was "supposed" to be something else. the word "supposed" should not be in an artist's vocabulary. guidelines and conventions become crippling and force you into doing things that have already been done.

Do you really think that he was just out of ideas and copped out on the ending?



I know you like the Wire better but how would you describe your Sopranos fandom? Appoinment TV? Fan of the first couple of seasons? Never thought it was as good as it was hyped up to be?

>I know you like the Wire better but how would you describe
>your Sopranos fandom? Appoinment TV? Fan of the first couple
>of seasons? Never thought it was as good as it was hyped up to
>be?

I loved it for a few seasons. I thought it slipped, but was still really good for a few seasons. And I watched the last season looking at my watch waiting for it to end.

Okay, I don't think Chase was responding to people like you with this though. I think he was responding to the HORDES of others who were calling for Tony to either die, go to jail, end up in Witness protection, take over the NY mob, watch his kids get popped, etc.

Your beef is with the edit of how they finished the scene. I personally thought it was great, because there's no denouement--instead, you're stuck with that feeling of anxiety and that's where you stay. You the viewer don't get to see the conclusion.

>Your beef is with the edit of how they finished the scene. I
>personally thought it was great, because there's no
>denouement--instead, you're stuck with that feeling of anxiety
>and that's where you stay. You the viewer don't get to see the
>conclusion.

The Sopranos is not a "thriller"... i think we established that a few seasons ago.

and in any case, that suspense was unearned... with how many episodes of the final season wasted teasing the audience with all sorts of bullshit red herrings and then stuff "starts happening" only in the last three episodes and it is resolved too fast and unconvincingly?

it was like a Bendis comic.

when was this?

there were many moments when Tony would stop and grab his chest a little and Carm or someone would be like "are you alright?" and he'd be like "it's just gas."

except that the way these moments were framed gave them a certain significance... sure, i guess they were just red herrings meant to tie into all the talk about Tony's ballooning weight to give the viewers the expectations that Tone would have a heart attack or something.

but Chase CAN'T say he wasn't teasing and jerking us around with all those false leads.

I'm sure there's some residual discomfort from that, even after his successful recovery

he was having a conversation about it with someone. i forget who

i never looked at the scene like that, but it kind of points to the absurdity of their lives. that they live in these two worlds, one normal and average, and the other tense and explosive. both kind of meshing and running into each other at odd and sometimes inopportune times.

good look.

...he really is far up his own ass here. And copping lots of pleas. I found the "there was a terror attack in London and people were worried about what happened to Tony" particularly lame.

Maybe he should've taken that week off and think of a better ending lol

"And I knew exactly what the fuck I was doing. And if you don't like it, tough shit."




("On a related note, Sopranos, Season 6 Part 2 on DVD in stores October 23... cop that, son!")
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n/m

*carries lawnmower to trunk of cadillac*


i'm just gon start slappin motherfuckers on sight.

and I wasn't surprised by the ending, but he's on some bullshit and I'm gonna have to go ahead and say that except for Christopher's storyline and the fact that I'd watch Gandolfini eat onion rings for 60 minutes and be entertained-- that seasons 5 and 6, with exceptions, were below average.

I say he's on some bullshit by refusing to give folks--his loyal fans--some legitimate sense of closure.

I don't want to hear that dude is an artist b/c the show (my fave of all time) could only cop that plea the first 3 seasons.

Let me stop, because I love the show--season 6 PT.2 already shipped from Amazon-- and would've watched it forever, but Chase is an arrogant asshole who I believe ran out of ideas.

what would have been legitimate closure to you?


the thing i've been realizing as i've been rewatching the series is unlike any other show, it never packages one single message or life statement in any episode or season in a traditional right/wrong sense. every time i feel like it's trying to make some kind of important over arching life statement, they abandon it. there's so many messages, the viewer can gather whatever they want. shit happens, parallels are drawn, stuff haunts them, it's basically like watching life. some stuff comes back to bite tony in the ass, but 90% of it doesn't. save him getting shot buy uncle junior, nothing bad really happens to him. there's never been any sense of justice or resolution really, outside of tony's pathology or rationalization. i don't think the way it ended was that much of a departure


i agree that season 6 was not on par with the others, although i found season 5 to be pretty engaging.




i'm just gon start slappin motherfuckers on sight.

>what would have been legitimate closure to you?
>
>
>the thing i've been realizing as i've been rewatching the
>series is unlike any other show, it never packages one single
>message or life statement in any episode or season in a
>traditional right/wrong sense. every time i feel like it's
>trying to make some kind of important over arching life
>statement, they abandon it. there's so many messages, the
>viewer can gather whatever they want. shit happens, parallels
>are drawn, stuff haunts them, it's basically like watching
>life. some stuff comes back to bite tony in the ass, but 90%
>of it doesn't. save him getting shot buy uncle junior, nothing
>bad really happens to him. there's never been any sense of
>justice or resolution really, outside of tony's pathology or
>rationalization. i don't think the way it ended was that much
>of a departure
>

Everything you said is true and makes sense. But, regardless of Chase's desire to make each episode a mini-movie, this show was on for 6 seasons and 8 years.

I didn't care about the Russian or Furio coming back or the fact that these dudes kill many people with that shit rarely being investigated...or any of the other story holes

What I did want to see was what happened to Tony. Not his family...to him.

Again, I wasn't surprised by the ending of the show. The shit, however, was a story, whether Chase wanted it to be or not, and stories need closure.

i would say that looking at the sopranos and trying to contextualize it in the terms of traditional storytelling/tv shows, then yes, it would call for a conclusion, but...

1) it's not like any other show. you even said the thing about chase trying to make each ep a "mini-movie." i don't know whether he's ever said that himself, but that's the tradition they followed. under the premise of a mafia show, they forced themselves in the context of some of the greatest films ever, along with using actors from these films throughout. yeah, it's a show, but it benefits from fitting into both genres (you can compare tony just as much to archie bunker as to deniro)

2) tony always makes it. he always survived. whenever he came close to death, with the exception of the uncle junior thing, he usually gets out without a scratch. that's why i rooted for him, even though he was a sociopathic murderer. you know he's eventually not gonna make it, but to show that is totally inconsistent with the show, because like i said, the show is all him getting away and coming out on top. i see it as a kind of commentary on all people we view as real life villains (corporates, corrupt government, wealthy elite fatcats) when the most frustrating thing about them is, like tony, they never seem to have this great fall we're taught they should have. they beat the rap. they get outta jail. they keep winning. it's not satisfying, but it's honest or at least an attempt to tell a different side of the same story. it makes you confront your own expectations and why you have them. the fact that we're still talking about it speaks to how effective it was (or uneffective, but you at least gotta concede that it's something that will resonate for years to come)


really what does seeing "what happens to tony" do to give it closure? just because its not your own type of closure, in the context of your own expectations doesn't mean he copped out or just didn't know what to do. i'd rather not look at it like that. but i also believe that chase doesn't own a monopoly on what the show means. but love it or hate it, we're still talking about it.


i'm just gon start slappin motherfuckers on sight.

David Chase is that dude, man.

great interview, and i agree with him 100%

It was one of, if not THEE, biggest TV show in history, and if it was a TV show, it had the responsibility of a TV, so to speak (that's just opening up a can of worms for all type of debates).

People wanted closure.

Chase is copping pleas, because he is accusing people of wanting Tony dead, indicted, or whatever, but this is what he capitalized off of. the show was built on all of this: "Who's gonna get whacked?!?". They guy made a mobb show, a good one, and now he wants to cop-out at the end and not take responsibility for it. He wants to make it the NJ Waltons now. "Why can't they just eat? People gotta eat!" WTF?

He created the biggest show ever, based on the mafia, and at the end..."They're regular people! What more could you expect?". That guy got 5 pleas for a dollar at Walgreens lol

He's the creator of the show, he can do what he wants...I can live with that. He built up his nut all these years, let him drizzle it out how he wants it.

I wanted closure, and alot of other people wanted it. Not Tony get killed or arrested...if he wanted to end it like "This cycle is just going to go on and on", that's fine, but do it better than this.

>Chase is copping pleas, because he is accusing people of
>wanting Tony dead, indicted, or whatever, but this is what he
>capitalized off of. the show was built on all of this: "Who's
>gonna get whacked?!?". They guy made a mobb show, a good one,
>and now he wants to cop-out at the end and not take
>responsibility for it. He wants to make it the NJ Waltons now.
>"Why can't they just eat? People gotta eat!" WTF?
>
>He created the biggest show ever, based on the mafia, and at
>the end..."They're regular people! What more could you
>expect?". That guy got 5 pleas for a dollar at Walgreens lol
>

it was never really a "mobb show", though. That was really 1/3 of the story, at best. Tony could have been a carpet salesman, and the same stresses with his family, his work, etc., the average working dude in life has when it gets down to it.

Chase has always been defensive about the show and the criticism about "why isn't more blood and guts", "its been 2 episodes and nobody has been whacked yet???".

But when you think about, was the show really about people getting whacked 24/7?

The show was mainly about relationships, family, the working relationships, the compelxities, problems, and strife that arises from these things. That goes on in everyday life. The mobb sh*t was really a backstory. Just look at Chase's nutty ass dream sequences? That aint of the ordinary.

The ending was unexpected, yet expected if you followed the show really.



>He's the creator of the show, he can do what he wants...I can
>live with that. He built up his nut all these years, let him
>drizzle it out how he wants it.
>
>I wanted closure, and alot of other people wanted it. Not Tony
>get killed or arrested...if he wanted to end it like "This
>cycle is just going to go on and on", that's fine, but do it
>better than this.

He did right, because you and others are frustrated by the ending. That was the only way he could have ended it. There is no such thing as the perfect ending. Sopranos is loved by many for a whole host of reasons. One contigent will be satified, another won't, another will be livid,etc. Its just how it is.


This show has become lot of people's life. And the whole irony of it is like what Bobby said when you get whacked "you don't even hear it, it all goes black". The audience's life with the show died. And thats what exactly happened. Instead of whacking Tony, Chase whacked the audience. The audience got clipped (no pun intended).

>This show has become lot of people's life. And the whole irony
>of it is like what Bobby said when you get whacked "you don't
>even hear it, it all goes black". The audience's life with the
>show died. And thats what exactly happened. Instead of
>whacking Tony, Chase whacked the audience. The audience got
>clipped (no pun intended).
>

What you say makes sense.

I def. wasn't saying I expected, or even wanted anyone to be whacked, but let's pull no punches, it was a mobb show. If Tony was a carpet salesman, 7% of the fans would've still tuned in, maybe, for 2 seasons.

Hell, if Tony was a pro ballplayer, and the movie was about family stresses revolving around professional sports, it still wouldn't of had the fanfare. America (I can't speak for anywhere else) loves the mobb...it fantisizes about it, and glorifies it. I'll go as far as to say several of the characters were mobb charactures.

I'll agree in saying it wasn't a "thriller" series, or as much as a "crime drama", but it was definately a mobb show...the nicknames, the whackings, in all their "fuh'gettaboutit" glory.

Tony wants to sit at a table with his family, cool...no problem with that. It still could've been done better, IMO.

>In fact, I think The
>Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience
>credit for having some intelligence and attention span.

and LOL @ these

>DAVID CHASE: I remember I would tell my kid and her cousins
>bedtime stories. Sometimes I would want to get back to the
>grown-ups and have a drink, so I would say something like,
>''And they were driving down the road and that's it. Story
>over.'' They would always scream, ''Wait a minute! That's no
>ending!''


>Meadow may not become a pediatrician or even a lawyer, but
>she's not going to be a housewife-whore like her mother.

Actually there's stuff in this interview I wholeheartedly agree with, but there's more I disagree with or find just plain dumb.


It seemed that those people were just looking
>for an excuse to be pissed off. There was a war going on that
>week and attempted terror attacks in London. But these people
>were talking about onion rings.

Did he actually just say that? He needs better writers to punch up his interviews for him.

>The way I see it is that Tony Soprano had been
>people's alter ego. They had gleefully watched him rob, kill,
>pillage, lie, and cheat. They had cheered him on. And then,
>all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that.
>They wanted ''justice.'' They wanted to see his brains
>splattered on the wall. I thought that was disgusting,
>frankly. But these people have always wanted blood. Maybe they
>would have been happy if Tony had killed twelve other people.
>Or twenty-five people. Or, who knows, if he had blown up Penn
>Station. The pathetic thing — to me — was how much they wanted
>his blood, after cheering him on for eight years.

I agree partially with this in that Tony Soprano was America's collective "dark side", the guy we all deep down would like to live like. I found it oddly perverse that people who loyally tuned in through several years and had an affection for the character now felt the show wouldn't be complete without comeuppance. People were looking for some sort of virtual punishment for their years of indulging in their darker fantasies, and Tony just HAD to die for that to happen. The world wouldn't make sense if he just got to go on living...

But I think Chase is full of horseshit acting like he was shocked people would act like that. He did everything in his power in the last season to make Tony more despicable, more detestable and ugly, than he ever would have dreamed of doing before. If the T we saw in that last season had been written that way from the beginning, the show wouldn't have lasted two seasons.


>Sure. But I must say that even people who liked it
>misinterpreted it, to a certain extent. This wasn't really
>about ''leaving the door open.'' There was nothing definite
>about what happened, but there was a clean trend on view — a
>definite sense of what Tony and Carmela's future looks like.
>Whether it happened that night or some other night doesn't
>really matter.

Oh David...you're so smart! Even the people who like you don't understand you! Yet you understand every single opinion that could be held about your ending! And can someone explain to me, the dense fan who actually liked the ending, what the hell those last two sentences mean?

>
> Why do you think people are so intent on getting an answer?
>DAVID CHASE: I remember I would tell my kid and her cousins
>bedtime stories. Sometimes I would want to get back to the
>grown-ups and have a drink, so I would say something like,
>''And they were driving down the road and that's it. Story
>over.'' They would always scream, ''Wait a minute! That's no
>ending!''

So things don't need to be wrapped up or resolved in life....eeexceeeeept for Hunter Scangarelo's storyline. Which apparently involved "Hunter" aka "Rockey Dennis" receiving extensive plastic surgery some where along the line.


>
>Did you think of it as a prank — people thinking their TVs had
>gone out?
>I saw some items in the press that said, ''This was a huge
>'f--- you' to the audience.'' That we were s---ting in the
>audience's face. Why would we want to do that? Why would we
>entertain people for eight years only to give them the finger?

This sounds reasonable, and I would totally find him credible if he only didn't say shit like this:
"Originally, I didn't want any credits at all. I just wanted the black screen to go the length of the credits — all the way to the HBO whoosh sound."

Yep...nothing quite says "entertaining the people" like several minutes of a soundless black screen.


>We don't have contempt for the audience.

BULL and SHIT!!! Note that he's using the royal "We" here. LYING too!!

In fact, I think The
>Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience
>credit for having some intelligence and attention span.

SHENANIGANS!! I call shenanigans!!!" Season 6" shenanigans. I also call BULL and I also call SHIT!!!


>Meadow may not become a pediatrician or even a lawyer, but
>she's not going to be a housewife-whore like her mother.

??Huh?!?! $50 to anyone who predicted David Chase would use that turn of phrase to describe Carmela.

>Sure. But I must say that even people who liked it
>misinterpreted it, to a certain extent. This wasn't really
>about ''leaving the door open.'' There was nothing definite
>about what happened, but there was a clean trend on view — a
>definite sense of what Tony and Carmela's future looks like.
>Whether it happened that night or some other night doesn't
>really matter.

Oh David...you're so smart! Even the people who like you don't understand you! Yet you understand every single opinion that could be held about your ending! And can someone explain to me, the dense fan who actually liked the ending, what the hell those last two sentences mean?

^^^i think the clean trend he's talkin about is tony sitting with his eyes on the door. that last scene, we see what tony sees, and what he will always see, looking at everybody walking in, sizing them up, anticipating his next eventual confrontation with his own mortality, while carmela, always conveniently oblivious, would never see it coming (her back to the door) he's gonna get got sooner or later. everybody in that life does. tony's no different.


i'm just gon start slappin motherfuckers on sight.

thanks

agreed on the london attack reference (which was just lame), and chase going out of his way to make tony a much bigger asshole.

i was also surprised at the carmela comments. i mean, she was always a flawed, hypocritical character, who could generally be 'bought'(so to speak), but i never had the impression he had that kind of contempt for her.

that said, i still have zero problem with the ending.

btw, was tony's personal body count 12?

>
>i was also surprised at the carmela comments. i mean, she was
>always a flawed, hypocritical character, who could generally
>be 'bought'(so to speak), but i never had the impression he
>had that kind of contempt for her.

Yeah, the summing up of the #2 character of such a compelling series as "housewife/whore" is weird.


>
>that said, i still have zero problem with the ending.

Me neither. I loved it.


>
>btw, was tony's personal body count 12?


Ooooooh...good question. i'll get back to you after I've contemplated it. YOU HEAR THAT YOU FUCKERS??!? THIS ONE IS MINE!!

YOU NO ANSWER QUESTION!!!

>Yeah, the summing up of the #2 character of such a compelling
>series as "housewife/whore" is weird.

even that Mr. Weggler had her pegged.

There really wasn't anything commendable about Carmela.

She was no different than Tony. When she tried to "care" for someone, it was because of her own selfish needs, not that well-being of the other person.

She was just like Tony. She wanted to control, manipulate and dominate everything. Tony wouldn't let her, but she fought him tooth and nail for control. She controlled their son. She tried to conrol their Daugher's choice of where to go to college. She had that Spec House. She only accpeted Tony back because of the money, and got $600,000+ for him to come back into the marriage.

Carmela was a narcissistic, money-grubbing, whore.

her finger nails said it all.

Bake a pie and make a passive-agressive threat.

That cunt got on my bad side after that.

mainly it's because its the first time i saw her do anything like that. just the way she's like "thanks for this"

I was more pissed at things like how she bought a new porsche, and rubbed it in a broke jeanie sack's face.

or treating her friend charmaine like a servant (though carm got her ass handed to her for that one)

>Bake a pie and make a passive-agressive threat.
>
>That cunt got on my bad side after that.

You decide now that you're gonna tell people there's more important things in the world to concern themselves with?

No shit asshole, most people I know that follow any particular show or other form of entertainment recognize it for what it is......entertainment.

And if you're talented/lucky enough to create something that people actually invest their time in, then it's more than a little intellectually dishonest to tell people that there's more important things to worry about at the end of the run when you've reaped the benefits financially and artistically for multiple years off that investment of time.

Especially when you sound like a hit dog hollerin' because it wasn't as well-received as your ass thought it should have been.

Whatever. Wasn't the first and won't be the last time someone creates something that entertains me but comes off like an asshole in an interview or even a face-to-face encounter.

I still loved The Sopranos, I even still liked the ending to a degree......but Chase is on some dickhead shit with a lot of these comments, particularly the one everyone is rightfully tearing apart in here.

Orfeo already said it all... but come on. No need for the hostility, Chase.

But for a guy who was supposedly going to let the ending speak for itself, he won't shut the hell up.

Be Easy. The who love it, loved it. Those who didn't, won't. Everybody watched. Move on now.


----------------------------
"No really Nate, I don't think you're a gimmick. You deserved to win that Slam Dunk contest. Keep practicing and maybe next year it won't take you fifteen attempts to throw one down. Who's my little man?"

"he talkin about London?"

Would he have had more "credibility" had he said "there's cats in Katrina without homes, and you mofos..." ?

I mean, honestly.
______________________________________________________________________
I have no remorse
So check me out in The Source

when you're being asked about your television series. i doubt it would make any difference if it were katrina, darfur, iraq, or whatever. there's always something going on. it's like saying how can we be posting about this when there was a bombing in pakistan last week? he just comes off salty, and defensive as hell in this interview... and to a degree i understand his frustration, but it doesn't mean he's above being called on saying some dumb shit.

i loved the ending, and i would never let a shitty interview ruin my enjoyment of the show, but he does look kinda bad in this one.

>"he talkin about London?"
>
>Would he have had more "credibility" had he said "there's cats
>in Katrina without homes, and you mofos..." ?

>there's always something going on.


>he just comes off salty, and
>defensive as hell in this interview... and to a degree i
>understand his frustration, but it doesn't mean he's above
>being called on saying some dumb shit.

I don't disagree, but mofos in here are acting like: a. they're SHOCKED SHOCKED SHOCKED! that he would say this shit (Chase hasn't come off as a very nice person since about the start of season 3); and b. him saying "there's a war in London!" was the most evil thing he could have said.

His choice of words may have been bullshit, and it's cool to call him on it, but some of these cats are going 6-extra with it. That's all I'm saying.
______________________________________________________________________
I have no remorse
So check me out in The Source

Bombastic said it much better than I could, in much prettier and clearer language than I could, and succeeded in summing up what was my immediate reaction to that statement. Reading that response is like reading a fart. I swear my nose crinkles up and my eyes water.

When David Chase hits his knees tonight, he should thank his walking upright God for every single person who chose to (entertain/amuse/distract/stupefy/torture) themselves by following The Sopranos these howevermany years. His story telling was oftentimes astonishingly compelling and light years ahead of anything else around, and it was also oftentimes, mostly in the last two seasons, lazily misguided and stultifyingly thin.

You know I've felt since about 6 episodes into Season 6 that david Chase holds the audience in contempt. In my opinion, he is offended that people would dwayne(©Tony Soprano) to question his choices of how the show wrapped up. It is also my opinion that he is not handling the criticism very well at all, and statements equalling up to "Don't watch me...watch the BBC" are the puddin's proof.

That's why I am not watching the re-runs on A&E, and whereever else.

>>"Don't watch me...watch
>the BBC" are the puddin's proof.

this is the life tony chose

he chose for his and his familys lives to be in peril 24/7/365

weather he dies or not in that moment is irrelavent

THAT is the point

FREE CHAI VANG!

YOU'VE READ MY FILE NIGGA (c) Jack 'Mufuckin' Bauer



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

i mean, its the most appropriate ending i could ask 4 considering the show

i think some sort of dramatic culmination would have felt out of place

i mean even the music, i just think the whole thing summed up the crux of the show nicely, or as nicely as id want it to be

this might sound like convinient plea copping bs, but i honestly cant picture how else it could have ended

it's just where the story leaves off. why does everything have to be cut and dried?

Nothing happens. Accomplishes nothing. There are scenes or mentions of Chris, Paulie, Syl, Janice, Junior, Melfi, Carm, Meadow, AJ with Tony and yet they are almost all throwaways. I understand the "that's how their lives are" thing and I respect the tremendous amount of craftsmanship and restraint that went into the show but come on... The Sopranos is great for making one line or one moment resonate and that was completely missing from the show's final ep. A shame...

The jump cut was rough too...

>Nothing happens. Accomplishes nothing.

They foreshadow it twice. I think he even says "I can't eat onions. I could have a total relapse"

"But these people were talking about onion rings"

in the context of the london comment especially; he basically says we're all assholes for watching the show when there is a war going on. how dare we be so caught up in such trivial things!

hey, david, guess what? "these" poeple happen to be the people who loved, supported, and helped make your show a success, you fucking moron. its as if he thinks we are all intillectual and moral degenerates for watching the show. meanwhile he enjoys the fruits of that veiwership.

"They had gleefully watched him rob, kill, pillage, lie, and cheat. They had cheered him on. And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that. They wanted ''justice.'' They wanted to see his brains splattered on the wall. I thought that was disgusting, frankly. But these people have always wanted blood."

another insult. well, its a mobster drama. this was his character, his baby, and while we cheered, he cashed in. we're disgusting, but this shit came from his mind, not ours. and who wanted to see him get murked anyways? i know i didn't. i just wanted to see an actual ending, not the bullshit pseudo philisophical copout he gave us. but it's his baby, his story, he ended it how he wanted and tahts his right. its also our right to think for ourselves and feel how we want to feel about it. but this brings us to the next point, and this is where i feel he whips it out and grabs our face as fans of the show:

"Apparently that need for finality exists in human beings. But we're not children anymore."

whoa! you kiddin me? serious? like that? i get his stance on the whole thing philisophically, and i still think its a copout-but whatever. he didn't see the need for finality. fine. he equates this most basic human quality with a child like mentality. yes, david-surprise! humans do have a basic need for closure.

with relationships, especially. we develop a "relationship" of sorts with all sorts of things. people, sports teams, family, objects of romantic affection, and characters in all forms of media, especially those of the serial variety.

it's why people cried when magic johnson got aids- a "real" person who we all loved and admired. it's why final fantasy fans are STILL pissed to this day, due to the brutal murder of aeris and we fiend for anything cloud or sepiroth related. we bugged the fuck out when syril got teh lethal injection (or was it the chair?).

and that is at least one hallmark of a great show/game/movie/book- when the people en masse become attached to the point where they actually give a rats ass about what happens to the characters.

if this guy didn't shit on us with his wack ass ending, he certainly did so with his dumb ass comments in this article.

time to move on.

u want it to be one way but it's the other way

and those comments about how there's a war going on and attacks in london and people talking about onion rings really pissed me off because television is supposed to be the escape from having to talk and deal about that kind of stuff. he's really insulting the intelligence of the fans that have been down with him since day one.

according to one stanley marsh, this was actually his acceptance speech for his "Biggest Douche In The Universe" award.

marsh also mentioned that John Edward took his life shortly after this stunning upset; Edward had been the winner 4 years running, and friends said he appeared visably distraught after the awards ceremony.