Tony didn’t die
The final cut to black is meant to be ambiguous. End of discussion.
shareHe dead.
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MovieChat Forums > The Sopranos (1999) Discussion > Tony didn’t die
He's deader than a new jersey doornail
shareI believe he's still out there cruising around in an escalade listening to steely dan
shareJust about everything points to him being dead but the beauty of it is indeed that you can interpret it how you wish.
shareI ALWAYS ASSUMED THEY WOULD REVISIT THE SHOW...TONY SURVIVES,BARELY...NOBODY ELSE DOES...BUT WHEN GANDOLFINI DIED SO DID ANY CHANCE OF THEM MESSING WITH THE AMBIGUOUS ENDING WHICH IS PRETTY AWESOME.
shareWe don't know.
But I always had the feeling he not die but end is life at jail. I can't see how he will be survive the trial with one state witness and three different charges.
Tony's dead. There were way too many clues leading up to it. The conversation between Tony & Bobby about what it's like when you get "whacked" was the most overt foreshadowing. The seeming ambiguity of the ending was mainly to keep an air of mystery & ongoing discussion about for years to come while also leaving the door open for future spin off projects involving the character. With the real life death of James Gandolfini eliminating the possibility of him ever reprising the role, I think the issue is settled. Tony Soprano is definitely dead
shareHis top guys are dead, Carlo had flipped, his criminal organization was crumbling around him as the FBI moved in. Tony was heading to prison either way. The ending is merely meant to signify the end of everything for Tony, there was no way out for him. Whether he lived or died didn’t matter, he was a dead man walking. The ending is an ambiguous fork in the road as to his fate but whatever it was wasn’t good.
shareTony's death wasn't filmed - so there is no death. Chase had no way to end the series so he simply didn't. The joke is on the viewers.
If Gandolfini didn't die, there's almost a 100% chance there would have been a movie 10 years or so after the series ended due to the continued and even building interest in the series. They would have thrown a ridiculous amount of money at Gandolfini and the movie would have happened, probably with flashbacks to incorporate the previously whacked characters.
If they did a sequel, no one would have yelled foul because there was no ending. Tony could have been shot and killed, he could have been shot and put in a coma, he could have been arrested by the feds, or he could have farted loudly and everyone laughed. There was no ending filmed (or at least broadcast), so there is no ending.
For instance, the sequel could have started 15 years after the restaurant scene with Tony being released from federal lockup, which might indicate the guy in the Member's Only jacked was a fed. Or maybe Tony was shot, and the movie opens up years later when he still suffers from a physical disability from being shot. The possibilities would have been endless, and not one of them would have contradicted the "ending" that was filmed.
Regarding foreshadowing, let's look at Nostradamus' predictions. Not one person on the planet ever used his writings to predict something before it happened. Every "accurate" prediction was retroactively fit to a historical event.*** Why didn't Nostradamus simply state what would happen and when? The answer is that he was simply a nut who had no vision of the future.
Sure, we can go back and find something said in past seasons to apply to the final episode, but there are limitless quotes from early seasons that could be found and applied to an ending if it was actually filmed.
There's no ending. Chase got the last laugh.
EDIT *** Regarding retroactively applying something said years before it happened, consider this verse that was published in 1976 and seems to describe the attack and burning of the WTC:
Day is night in New York City
Smoke, like water, runs inside
Steel idle trees to pity
Every living thing that's died.
"Day is night" It was a clear morning on 9-11-01, but the black smoke from the burning buildings made street lights come on." Smoke, like water, runs inside" Seems to describe the inside of the towers as the fire raged. "Steel idle trees".. skyscrapers?
Anyway, the verse is from Hitch a Ride by the rock band Boston and released in 1976 on their debut album. When contacted about what seemed like the erie prediction of the WTC attack, the band laughed and said it had nothing to do with the WTC but had to do with leaving New York for a simpler life on the West Coast.
Tony's death wasn't filmed - so there is no death.
Ah yes, things that don't show up on camera never happened. Of course. Brilliant. share
Nice try are diverting the point. There are plenty of things not filmed in tv shows and movies that don't require filming, but if you think the ending of The Sopranos was anything but an unresolved cliffhanger, you're deluding yourself.
I have a question for you: if Gandolfini lived and they did a sequel movie instead of this prequel, would you argue that Tony being alive is a plot hole because he died in the finale?
Tony dies.
Chase set up a clear pattern in that final scene:
1. Doorbell rings.
2. Shot of Tony looking up.
3. Shot of whatever Tony sees and hears (his POV).
This recurs several times as new characters enter the diner, until the final moments when it plays out like this:
1. Doorbell rings.
2. Shot of Tony looking up.
3. Blackness. Silence.
Now add that to the truckload of other clues - eg. the man in the grey jacket sneaking in and heading for the bathroom behind Tony, the discussion about the experience of being whacked with Bobby (this plays out exactly as they described so we experience the hit), the fact that Meadow will be entering the diner to see her dad’s head blown off, the way everything ends badly for all these criminals and Tony was on a death-slide to the inevitable for the final season (his ‘enlightenment’ was short-lived, he murdered Christopher, his therapist abandoned him etc etc)
Chase wanted to kill Tony but keep us talking for decades, and it worked.
Interesting theory, but the writers admitted it was meant to be ambiguous. Tony could have died that night, he could also have been arrested, or he went on living. They wanted all three endings in one so they went with the cut to black.
shareIt’s not ambiguous if you pay attention, it’s just that we don’t see a traditional third-person objective view of the murder. It’s an innovative way of presenting a hit on film, which demands closer engagement with the material to be understood.
shareThat’s your personal interpretation, but the writers are on record admitting it was meant to be ambiguous.
shareThe writer and director of that episode is David Chase, the series creator. He hasn’t wilfully clarified that Tony dies because he wants you to pay attention to the material and pick up the clues.
I say ‘wilfully’ because he let slip in an interview: https://decider.com/2020/06/11/david-chase-sopranos-ending-tony-dies/
Your link just proves my point:
“He could have been whacked in the diner. We all could be whacked in a diner. That was the point of the scene,”
It’s ambiguous. End of discussion.
Firstly, you’ve deliberately ignored the focus of the article which is Chase’s accidental reveal, which is here:
Chase slipped up with his reply, which sounds like a confirmation of Tony’s death. “Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end,” he said.
“Tony was going to get called to a meeting with Johnny Sack in Manhattan, and he was going to go back through the Lincoln Tunnel for this meeting, and it was going to go black there and you never saw him again as he was heading back, the theory being that something bad happens to him at the meeting,” he continued. “But we didn’t do that.”
Co-author Matt Zoller Seitz caught the slip and called Chase out on it. “You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene,” he told The Sopranos creator.
Realizing his mistake, Chase took a long pause. “Fuck you guys,” he replied.
Secondly, what you quoted reinforces the other thing I said - that Chase hasn’t wilfully publicly clarified that Tony dies (because to do so would prevent you from engaging with the material and picking up on the clues).
Again, Tony’s fate is only ambiguous to those who weren’t paying attention. share
Chase was talking about a previous idea for a death scene that was scrapped. That is all. It has nothing to do with the finale except offer food for some additional thought. Even the author of that book you linked admitted that it doesn’t prove anything:
"David Chase did not 'confirm' that 'Tony died' in the Sopranos book I cowrote with @Sepinwall," Seitz tweeted. "He spoke of another ending he considered, yrs before the one he actually wrote. Even that scene was open to interpretation. Frustrating to be intentionally misrepresented for clicks. I hit a surreal high point in my career today when a guy trying to argue that 'Tony died' at the end of the Sopranos linked me to a New York Post article that intentionally misinterprets the book that cowrote. I guess he didn’t even read what he was linking to. I am even more convinced that the dudes — and it’s always dudes — who won’t accept any interpretation except 'Tony dies' never actually gave a moment’s thought to what the show was doing and saying."
https://www.primetimer.com/item/No-David-Chase-did-not-confirm-that-Tony-Soprano-died-in-The-Sopranos-series-finale-DjSvxk
The line I quoted from Chase only reinforces that he was being ambiguous with the ending. Tony could have died or he could not have. He is going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. That quote couldn’t be anymore plain as day.
You’re looking for things that aren’t there in an attempt to feel smart…
Chase’s slip-up isn’t confirmation, I never said it was, it just bolsters what the clues already tell us - that Tony dies.
Tony dies.
Chase set up a clear pattern in that final scene:
1. Doorbell rings.
2. Shot of Tony looking up.
3. Shot of whatever Tony sees and hears (his POV).
This recurs several times as new characters enter the diner, until the final moments when it plays out like this:
1. Doorbell rings.
2. Shot of Tony looking up.
3. Blackness. Silence.
Now add that to the truckload of other clues - eg. the man in the grey jacket sneaking in and heading for the bathroom behind Tony, the discussion about the experience of being whacked with Bobby (this plays out exactly as they described so we experience the hit), the fact that Meadow will be entering the diner to see her dad’s head blown off, the way everything ends badly for all these criminals and Tony was on a death-slide to the inevitable for the final season (his ‘enlightenment’ was short-lived, he murdered Christopher, his therapist abandoned him etc etc)
Chase wanted to kill Tony but keep us talking for decades, and it worked.
Agreed 100%. If you dissect and break down the established pattern in the scene, which is distinctly different from any other scene in the entire series because of the almost mechanical pattern it sets up, it becomes quite clear that the endless, silent blackness of the final shot was meant to be Tony's point of view after Meadow walked in the door, the bell rang, and he looked up and was shot in the back of the head by 'Members Only.'
HOWEVER, it wasn't explicitly shown on screen, so technically yeah, it was ambiguous.
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