Before the first part of season six aired, Daivd Chase said in an interview that AJ was the next generation of Livia. I found that very interesting. At the time that I read that I was surprised. I always felt Janice was more like Livia than anyone else. The big difference between Livia and Janice is that Janice seemed dumb enough to believe her own bullshit.
After rewatching the series and then watching season 6a, Chase's statement made more sense to me. I didn't realive how unbelievably self centered AJ is. I found it interesting that in the season two opening montage, AJ is seen staring at himself in the mirror (while Meadow is learning to drive from Tony). In the season six opening montage, AJ is seen taking pictures of himself and looking at them on his cell phone (Meadow is seen dancing for Finn). Since the begining (mainly starting in season two), AJ so self involved and uninterested in anything that doesn't have to do with him.
Chase said that in the last nine episodes AJ will be going through some "serious growing pains" and that he will have to change and deal with his "heritage". That could mean a number of things. Through the whole series, AJ's situation has not changed much; he was a selfish, lazy, not-so-bright boy that lives with his parents. Now he is thrust into the world with a construction job (a striaght job, yet still very close to Tony's crooked world) and a sketchy girlfriend with a kid. He can only use his dad's gifts to please her for so long before she asks something more of him. My feeling is that she thinks he's more like his dad than he really is.
Since Chase has said the series will come full circle and that AJ is the new Livia, will AJ try to kill Tony? I am interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the matter.

Well 1st off i dont believe he would try to hurt or kill tony because of the way aj reacted to junior shooting tony. With the aspect of earlier on in the show with how he was looking at himself in the mirror, possible to see how he is changing, maybe not even as a big thing but just david chases way of saying he is changing. With the cell phone taking pictures of himself, It really could be just another dead end thought. David chase knows how to keep us guessing and can lead us into 50 diferent directions on stuff that doesnt even mean anything.

Very interesting comments for Chase to make. However, when he is saying that AJ is the "next generation", I don't think he means he will be exactly like Livia, meaning, trying to kill Tony. We have already seen that AJ doesn't have the stones to take out someone (unless he ends up pulling a Fredo-type hit, but c'mon. Those are the weird little plots that people come up with on the Internet, and never will really come to pass). Mainly Livia's function was to stir feelings inside Tony. Meaning, she was the source of guilt and shame in Tony's life. So I am wondering if Chase is simply meaning to use AJ to show another individual who will bring out those very strong emotions.

As the series has progressed, no one has been discussed in Tony's therapy as much as Livia. The only one who comes close is AJ (with his continuing discipline problems at school, grades, lack of maturity, lying, panic attacks, etc). This is interesting to me, because Tony, in his therapy with Melfi has shown some very genuine emotion and concern about how AJ will develop and turn out. Meaning, "will he try to follow in my footsteps" and "do I want him to?".

I feel like I am meandering a bit here and maybe others can make more sense of it, but to conclude...Livia, in essense, was "old school" and represents many of Tony's failings as a mobster, a son, and a person (she was always too happy to point out how much better Johnny Soprano was then him). Watching AJ grow older and mature can only bring about feelings one way or the other in Tony about his job as a father. In essence, moving from son to father, Tony will, no doubt, be feeling some very strong feelings about how AJ has turned out. Possibly anger, guilt, or shame. At the end of season 6, things seemed very positive for AJ, despite his parents concerns over his girlfriend not being caucasian and having a child. But, as often happens in Sopranos, as things progress, what seems perfectly fine and good, have a sneaky way of souring.