Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews April 30, 2024 April 23, 2024
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
We're sorry, we could not create your account. SparkNotes PLUS is not available in your country. See what countries we’re in.
There was an error creating your account. Please check your payment details and try again.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
The Godfather trilogy at once proves and disproves the conventional wisdom that a sequel can never equal the original in a series of films. In the case of The Godfather Part III, the dictum holds. Though a good movie, The Godfather Part III suffers in comparison to its predecessors for the same reasons that sequels generally fail: surprise is harder to come by because once successful tropes have grown stale. The Godfather Part II, on the other hand, is in every way the equal of The Godfather. Like its predecessor, it is one of the great movies of the 1970s, indeed of all cinematic history. Ranking the two films is more a matter of taste than artistic merit. Like War and Peace and Anna Karenina, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are each unique and appealing in their own way.
This fact is all the more remarkable considering that, unlike a trilogy such as The Lord of the Rings, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II were not filmed or even conceived of all at once. The Godfather is a complete movie, and had Coppola ended his project there, no one would have felt it was incomplete. The ability to generate a second film as fresh and exciting as The Godfather is, therefore, the singular achievement of the trilogy. This is possible only because Part II is a sequel of an unusual sort. Rather than a continuation of the first film’s plot, it is a new take on the themes of the first film and can be classified as belonging to a different genre. The Godfather may be classified as an epic, a multigenerational family saga told in an almost mythical way. Part II, on the other hand, does contain elements of epic, but feels more like a psychological drama, narrating the making of one don (young Vito) and the personal undoing of another (Michael). Some might even call Part II a tragedy. Certainly, this is the element of the film that Part III takes up, in the murder of Fredo and the disintegration of Michael and Kay's marriage. As a whole, the trilogy feels more like Michael's tragedy than the Corleone family epic. But regardless of how we decide to classify the Godfather films, the fact remains that the first two employ radically different means of storytelling. The principle difference between the two films is in their narrative structures, which are achieved through different modes of editing.
Please wait while we process your payment