Commendatore wrote: So do you think tony was killed?
Yes.
Commendatore wrote:I still think that chase wanted us to assume Tony was going to get whacked.
Interesting that you think that Chase wanted to tease the audience rather than placing that assumption firmly in the mind of the viewer once the scene would end and then be reflected upon. For many viewers it appeared that nothing happened. That was chiefly a complaint.
Commendatore wrote:You were suspicious of the black guys, you were suspicious of the truck driver, you were suspicious of the mog guy.
Most people's attention was on the table and whether or not Meadow would park her car. The tension was happening outside, heightened by Meadow looking like she was about to be hit by the SUV as she was running across the street. However Chase was signalling possible threats as you mentioned. What is remarkable is that Tony was oblivious to them when he might have been highly aware of them as in most other times. With his family around him he kept his guard down - in the same way Phil Leotardi did at the service station.
Commendatore wrote: [Mog] even gets up to go to the bathroom typical of the godfather scene. All leading for the audience to believe at any second someone was going to get blow away.
Did the audience think that on the initial viewing? Like I said most people were oblivious to all these signals and these only became obvious with subsequent viewings. The message that was conveyed wasn't a tease of possibilities but rather a solution to what happened and why there was a sudden cut to silent black.
Commendatore wrote:True "you never hear or see it or expect it, and the only thing everyone never expected was the fade to black ending, hence we the viewers were whacked and the show was over for good.
Chase never hinted that the audience was whacked. He made it quite clear that he never intended to fool them. He gave them credit for being intelligent, having an attention-span and not being spoon fed. Besides how do you whack an audience anyway? The scene was very carefully constructed with a definite and definitive denoument.
Perhaps the reason Chase wants us to assume Tony was hit because when it was all over that was the only possible outcome. What is the purpose of keeping "alive" a fictional character? And as far as we know the audience is still alive (or most of them since 2007).
I suppose the real question after all this time - why does anyone want to assume or believe Tony didn't die in the ultimate scene?
Besides he never really lived in the first place.