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CSotD: Leave the light saber …

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Mike Peterson Published: January 20, 2011 1 minute 4 comments

There are so many reasons to adore today's Rhymes With Orange that I hardly know where to start.

But start here: If you don't get an extra laugh out of the Don's name, you have violated the instructions. You forgot the cannoli.

The cat, mind you, is a James Bond convention rather than a Godfather or Star Wars thing, which adds yet another touchstone. But in the world of "one of these things is not like the other," the cat does not belong because, after having been run into the ground with horrible sequels, the Bond films have been resuscitated, unlike either of the other two franchises.

But, between the two others, there is this critical distinction: Coppola  somehow managed to hack his way through "Godfather III" without ever seeing that it should never, ever, ever have been released. "Godfather III" may be the worst movie of all time, not based on its specific lack of quality but based on the promise of its parentage.

Since the triumph of "The Godfather," there have been all sorts of mediocre, derivative mob films, in which either Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro play themselves playing mobsters, much as John Wayne began to play John Wayne in formulaic westerns. The big difference is that, while it's not always easy to flip it on in the middle and know whether you're watching "Fort Apache" or "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon," at least John Wayne never starred in "Back On The Stagecoach."

But, for all its scenery-chewing horrors, "Godfather III" does have the saving grace that you don't have to watch it, and it doesn't impinge on the original movie or the first sequel. You can shut your eyes and pretend that there were only two movies in the franchise and remain quite happy. Pretend that, oh, yes, it is said that they held a cast reunion a few years later at which they got really drunk and shot an improvised souvenir video, but it isn't part of the series.

What happened to "Star Wars" cuts a little more deeply than that.

So, for tonight's homework, I want you to imagine that "The Godfather" was in the hands of George Lucas rather than Francis Ford Coppola. What changes would he make to the original movie that would have fans scrambling for archival, unaltered versions?

I'm grabbing the easy one for myself: When Mikey comes out of the bathroom, he finds that Sollozo and McCluskey have guessed his intentions. McCluskey fires first.