Lf you go to the sequel route of showing that happened to the Corleone family after the events of the first movie, while the second is a prequel revealing how Vito Corleone became the mafia boss he ended up as.

I felt this whole sequence was slightly unnecessary. From the material given, the viewer can already guess how the De Niro character rose through the ranks and the events we witness feel a little bit superfluous. Sure, the pair of assassination scenes are excellent, but the rest just feels obvious and expected.

Meanwhile, the Pacino narrative also has its problems, although cast and director aren't at fault; Coppola reunites many of his principals here and to excellent effect. However, there isn't nearly as much incident in the narrative and the whole story feels a little dragged out, a little over-emphasised. In the first film, the Pacino character had three or four major plot points to deal with, whereas this time the events are limited; for example, the entire film focuses on the situation with Roth, whereas in THE GODFATHER that would have just taken up half an hour or so.