MovieChat Forums > Navy Seals (1990) Discussion > Saw it in widescreen and last scene has ...

Saw it in widescreen and last scene has a MAJOR GOOF

posted 13 years ago by SeasonalAffective
4 replies | jump to latest

I've seen this movie a million times over the last 20 years, but for the first time ever, after just catching it in widescreen on tv just now, the throat-cutting at the end of the movie is revealed to be fake.

Now, of course, Charlie Sheen doesn't really slit the throat of the El-Kadi character, but I always thought the scene was shot very well, with his neck just out of view of the camera, giving us the impression that he's slit there, but the version I saw tonight was shot with the camera pulling back another few inches, to show Sheen fake the knife across his throat.

It was weird seeing it that way, but interesting nonetheless. Any idea how this goof was able to slip through? It looked kind of funny seeing Sheen pretend to slit the guy's throat in a feature film.

[–] dykesy30 13 years ago

Considering he's supposed to slit the guys throat there is a shocking lack of blood coming out of his neck! They could have easily had a blood pack leak out in the water.

[–] SeasonalAffective 13 years ago

Yeah, that always bothered me too.

[–] jmalmsten 13 years ago

One interesting thing to note here is that while cinemascope films are typically converted to full-screen they crop out left and right (known as PanScan). But in the case of Navy SEALS, it was shot in 4:3 to be matted to 1.85:1 widescreen in theaters. This to make it easier to sell the video's, where they just show the 4:3 version without the matting without having to go through and re-frame all the shots.

Why do I bring this up? Well, while it's a nit-pick, for all these years you have probably seen the un-matted version on VHS, meaning you have seen more than the film-makers would like you to see. When the film is prepaired for wide-screen DVD and BluRay, they crop of the top and bottom just like in the theaters. Less image, but this is what the scenes where composed for in the first place.

In short. Although you might have not seen Hawkins fake-cutting the throat before. The WideScreen version probably shows less of the fakeness than the old VHS-full-screen release.

The change in what you saw could also have been that they had to re-edit the clip for some release to gain a lower PG-rating. I think this could also be why the movie shows no blood gushing out. It could simply be that this would have rendered the movie a NC17-rating.

That all being said, though. I too found it a bit odd that they would go for a throat-cut but leave out the gushing blood that probably would ensue.

[–] SeasonalAffective 13 years ago

Interesting. The scene I saw was definitely the same as the one in the DVD/VHS--it wasn't a reshoot. I'm sure of that. It was so weird seeing it that way.