''The Abyss'' is a 1989 American

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

written and directed by

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...

and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and

Michael Biehn Michael Connell Biehn ( ; born July 31, 1956) is an American actor, primarily known for his roles in science fiction films directed by James Cameron; as Sgt. Kyle Reese in ''The Terminator'' (1984), Cpl. Dwayne Hicks in ''Aliens'' (1986), and ...

. When an American

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

sinks in the Caribbean, a US search and recovery team works with an

oil platform An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...

crew, racing against Soviet vessels to recover the boat. Deep in the ocean, they encounter something unexpected. The film was released on August 9, 1989, receiving generally positive reviews and grossed $89.8 million. It won the

Academy Award for Best Visual Effects The Academy Award for Best Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects. History of the award The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects ...

and was nominated for three more Academy Awards.

Plot

In January 1994, the U.S. USS ''Montana'' has an encounter with an

unidentified submerged object An unidentified submerged object (USO) is an unidentified object submerged in water. This term does not necessarily refer to an object of paranormal activity origin. See also * Baltic Sea anomaly * Bimini Road * Cuban underwater formation * Elta ...

and sinks near the Cayman Trough. With Soviet ships moving in to try to salvage the sub and a

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

moving over the area, the U.S. government sends a SEAL team to ''Deep Core'', a privately owned experimental underwater

drilling platform A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill wat ...

near the Cayman Trough to use as a base of operations. The platform's designer, Dr. Lindsey Brigman, insists on going along with the SEAL team, even though her estranged husband Virgil "Bud" Brigman is the current foreman. During the initial investigation of the ''Montana'', a power cut in the team's submersibles leads to Lindsey seeing a strange light circling the sub, which she later calls a "non-terrestrial intelligence" or "NTI". Lt. Hiram Coffey, the SEAL team leader, is ordered to accelerate their mission and takes one of the mini-subs without ''Deep Core''s permission to recover a

Trident missile The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Originally developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation, the missile is armed with thermonucl ...

warhead from the ''Montana'' just as the storm hits above, leaving the crew unable to disconnect from their surface support ship in time. The cable crane is torn from the ship and falls into the trench, dragging the ''Deep Core'' to the edge before it stops. The rig is partially flooded, killing several crew members and damaging its power systems. The crew waits out the storm so they can restore communications and be rescued. As they struggle against the cold, they find the NTIs have formed an animated column of water to explore the rig, which they equate to an alien version of a

remotely operated vehicle A remotely operated underwater vehicle (technically ROUV or just ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device, commonly called ''underwater robot''. Definition This meaning is different from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the ai ...

. Though they treat it with curiosity, Coffey is agitated and cuts it in half by closing a pressure bulkhead on it, causing it to retreat. Realizing that Coffey is suffering paranoia from

high-pressure nervous syndrome High-pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS – also known as high-pressure neurological syndrome) is a neurological and physiological diving disorder which can result when a diver descends below about using a breathing gas containing helium. The eff ...

, the crew spies on him through an ROV, finding him and another SEAL arming the warhead to attack the NTIs. To try and stop him, Bud fights Coffey but Coffey escapes in a mini-sub with the primed warhead; Bud and Lindsey give chase in the other sub, damaging both. Coffey is able to launch the warhead into the trench, but his sub drifts over the edge and implodes from the pressure, killing him. Bud's mini-sub is inoperable and taking on water; with only one functional diving suit, Lindsey opts to enter deep hypothermia and trigger her

mammalian diving reflex The diving reflex, also known as the diving response and mammalian diving reflex, is a set of physiological responses to immersion that overrides the basic homeostatic reflexes, and is found in all air-breathing vertebrates studied to date. It op ...

when the ocean's cold water engulfs her. Bud swims back to the platform with her body; there, he and the crew use a

defibrillator Defibrillation is a treatment for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, specifically ventricular fibrillation (V-Fib) and non-perfusing ventricular tachycardia (V-Tach). A defibrillator delivers a dose of electric current (often called a ''coun ...

and administer

CPR Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore sponta ...

, they manage to successfully revive her. It is decided that the warhead needs to be disarmed, which is more than 2 miles below them. One SEAL, Ensign Monk, helps Bud use an experimental diving suit equipped with a

liquid breathing Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air-breathing organism breathes an oxygen-rich liquid (such as a perfluorocarbon), rather than breathing air. By selecting a liquid that is capable of holding large amounts of oxyg ...

apparatus to survive to that depth, though he will only be able to communicate through a keypad on the suit. Bud begins his dive, assisted by Lindsey's voice to keep him coherent against the effects of the mounting pressure, and reaches the warhead. Monk guides him in successfully disarming it. With little oxygen left in the system, Bud explains he knew it was a one-way trip, and tells Lindsey he loves her. As he waits for death, an NTI approaches Bud, takes his hand, and guides him to a massive alien city deep in the trench. Inside, the NTIs create an atmospheric pocket for Bud, allowing him to breathe normally. The NTIs then play back Bud's message to his wife and they look at each other with understanding. On ''Deep Core'' the crew is waiting for rescue when they see a message from Bud that he met some friends and warns them to hold on. The base shakes and lights from the trench herald the arrival of the alien ship. It rises to the ocean's surface, with ''Deep Core'' and several of the surface ships run aground on its hull. The crew of ''Deep Core'' exit the platform, surprised they are not dead from the sudden decompression. They see Bud walking out of the alien ship and Lindsey races to hug him.

Special Edition

In the extended version, the events in the film are played against a backdrop of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the potential for all-out war; the sinking of the ''Montana'' additionally fuels the aggression. There is more conflict between Bud and Lindsey in regard to their former relationship. The primary addition is the ending: when Bud is taken to the alien ship, they start by showing him images of war and aggression from news sources around the globe. The aliens then create massive megatsunamis that threaten the world's coasts, but stop them short before they hit. Bud asks why they spared the humans and they show Bud his message to Lindsey.

Cast

* Ed Harris as Virgil "Bud" Brigman, Deep Core's foreman and Lindsey's estranged husband. * Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Dr. Lindsey Brigman, designer of the rig and Bud's estranged wife. *

as US Navy SEAL Lieutenant Hiram Coffey, the commander of the Navy SEAL team. *

Leo Burmester Bernard Leo Burmester (February 1, 1945 – June 28, 2007) was an American actor. Burmester worked for director John Sayles several times, including in ''Passion Fish'' (1992) and '' Lone Star'' (1996), and also for directors such as John Schl ...

as Catfish De Vries, a worker on the rig and a Vietnam veteran

Marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

who is skeptical of the SEALs. *

Todd Graff Todd Graff (born October 22, 1959) is an American actor, writer and director, best known for his 2003 independent film ''Camp'' and his role as Alan "Hippy" Carnes in the 1989 science fiction film ''The Abyss''. Early life Graff was born in New ...

as Alan "Hippy" Carnes, a conspiracy theorist who believes that the NTIs have been covered up by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

. * John Bedford Lloyd as Jammer Willis * J.C. Quinn as Arliss "Sonny" Dawson * Kimberly Scott as Lisa "One Night" Standing * Captain "Kidd" Brewer Jr. as Lew Finler * George Robert Klek as Wilhite, a US Navy SEAL * Christopher Murphy as Schoenick, a US Navy SEAL * Adam Nelson as Ensign Monk, a US Navy SEAL *

Chris Elliott Christopher Nash Elliott (born May 31, 1960) is an American actor, comedian and writer. He appeared in comedic sketches on '' Late Night with David Letterman'' (1982–1988), created and starred in the comedy series '' Get a Life'' (1990–1992) ...

as Bendix * Richard Warlock as Dwight Perry * Jimmie Ray Weeks as Leland McBride *

J. Kenneth Campbell J. Kenneth Campbell (born July 22, 1947) is an American film, stage, and television actor who has been cast in over 80 roles. He was born in Flushing, Queens, Flushing, New York (state), New York. Campbell studied acting under theatrical fight dir ...

as DeMarco *

William Wisher, Jr. William Howard Peter Wisher Jr. is an American screenwriter, known for his work with long-time friend James Cameron on '' The Terminator'' and '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day''. Career Wisher has had roles behind and in front of the camera. ...

as Bill Tyler, a reporter *

Ken Jenkins Ken Jenkins (born August 28, 1940) is an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso, the chief of medicine on the American comedy series '' Scrubs'' (2001–2009). He has also had notable appearances in many popular TV shows. Ea ...

as Gerard Kirkhill

Production

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

In the Abyss "In the Abyss" is a short story by English writer H. G. Wells, first published in 1896 in ''Pearson's Magazine''., accessed 22 Dec 2014. It was included in ''The Plattner Story and Others'', a collection of short stories by Wells first published i ...

". The idea for ''The Abyss'' came to

when, at age 17 and in high school, he attended a science lecture about deep sea diving by a man, Francis J. Falejczyk, who was the first human to breathe fluid through his lungs in experiments conducted by Johannes A. Kylstra at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. He subsequently wrote a short story that focused on a group of scientists in a laboratory at the bottom of the ocean. The basic idea did not change, but many of the details were modified over the years. Once Cameron arrived in Hollywood, he quickly realized that a group of scientists was not that commercial and changed it to a group of blue-collar workers. While making ''

Aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...

'', Cameron saw a ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

'' film about remote operated vehicles operating deep in the North Atlantic Ocean. These images reminded him of his short story. He and producer Gale Anne Hurd decided that ''The Abyss'' would be their next film. Cameron wrote a treatment combined with elements of a shooting script, which generated a lot of interest in Hollywood. He then wrote the script, basing the character of Lindsey on Hurd and finished it by the end of 1987. Cameron and Hurd were married before ''The Abyss'', separated during pre-production, and divorced in February 1989, two months after principal photography.

Pre-production

The cast and crew trained for underwater diving for one week in the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...

. This was necessary because 40% of all live-action principal photography took place underwater. Furthermore, Cameron's production company had to design and build experimental equipment and develop a state-of-the-art communications system that allowed the director to talk underwater to the actors and dialogue to be recorded directly onto tape for the first time. Cameron had originally planned to shoot on location in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

where the story was set but quickly realized that he needed to have a completely controlled environment because of the stunts and special visual effects involved. He considered shooting the film in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, which had the largest unfiltered tank of water, but it was not adequate for Cameron's needs. Underwater sequences for the film were shot at a unit of the Gaffney Studios, situated south of

Cherokee Falls Cherokee Falls is a waterfall located in Cloudland Canyon State Park in Dade County, Georgia. The waterfall, formerly unnamed, was named in a contest.

, outside

Gaffney, South Carolina Gaffney is a city in and the seat of Cherokee County, South Carolina, United States, in the Upstate region of South Carolina. Gaffney is known as the "Peach Capital of South Carolina". The population was 12,539 at the 2010 census, with an estim ...

, which had been abandoned by

Duke Power Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Overview Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...

officials after previously spending $700 million constructing the

Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant The Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant is an uncompleted energy project outside Gaffney, South Carolina, United States. In the early 1970s, Duke Power started construction on a three-reactor nuclear power plant at the site. However, the project stalle ...

, along Owensby Street, Gaffney, South Carolina. Two specially constructed tanks were used. The first one, based on the abandoned plant's primary reactor containment vessel, held of water, was 55 feet (18 m) deep and 209 feet (70 m) across. At the time, it was the largest fresh-water filtered tank in the world. Additional scenes were shot in the second tank, an unused turbine pit, which held of water. As the production crew rushed to finish painting the main tank, millions of gallons of water poured in and took five days to fill. The Deepcore rig was anchored to a 90-ton concrete column at the bottom of the large tank. It consisted of six partial and complete modules that took over half a year to plan and build from scratch. Can-Dive Services Ltd., a Canadian commercial diving company that specialized in

saturation diving Saturation diving is diving for periods long enough to bring all tissues into equilibrium with the partial pressures of the inert components of the breathing gas used. It is a diving mode that reduces the number of decompressions divers working ...

systems and underwater technology, specially manufactured the two working craft (Flatbed and Cab One) for the film. Two million dollars was spent on set construction. Filming was also done at the largest underground lake in the world—a mine in Bonne Terre, Missouri, which was the background for several underwater shots.

Principal photography

The main tank was not ready in time for the first day of principal photography. Cameron delayed filming for a week and pushed the smaller tank's schedule forward, demanding that it be ready weeks ahead of schedule. Filming eventually began on August 15, 1988, but there were still problems. On the first day of shooting in the main water tank, it sprang a leak and of water a minute rushed out. The studio brought in dam-repair experts to seal it. In addition, enormous pipes with elbow fittings had been improperly installed. There was so much water pressure in them that the elbows blew off. Cameron's cinematographer,

Mikael Salomon Mikael Salomon (born 24 February 1945) is a Danish cinematographer, director and producer of film and television. After a long cinematography career in Danish cinema, he transitioned to the Hollywood film industry in the late 1980s earning two ...

, used three cameras in watertight housings that were specially designed. Another special housing was designed for scenes that went from above-water dialogue to below-water dialogue. The filmmakers had to figure out how to keep the water clear enough to shoot and dark enough to look realistic at 2,000 feet (700 m), which was achieved by floating a thick layer of plastic beads in the water and covering the top of the tank with an enormous tarpaulin. Cameron wanted to see the actors' faces and hear their dialogue, and thus hired Western Space and Marine to engineer helmets which would remain optically clear underwater and installed state-of-the-art aircraft quality microphones into each helmet. Safety conditions were also a major factor with the installation of a decompression chamber on site, along with a diving bell and a safety diver for each actor. The breathing fluid used in the film actually exists but has only been thoroughly investigated in animals. Over the previous 20 years it had been tested on several animals, who survived. The rat shown in the film was actually breathing fluid and survived unharmed. Production consulted with Dr. Kylstra on the proper use of the breathing fluid for the film. Ed Harris did not actually breathe the fluid. He held his breath inside a helmet full of liquid while being towed 30 feet (10 m) below the surface of the large tank. He recalled that the worst moments were being towed with fluid rushing up his nose and his eyes swelling up. Actors played their scenes at 33 feet (11 m), too shallow a depth for them to need decompression, and rarely stayed down for more than an hour at a time. Cameron and the 26-person underwater diving crew sank to 50 feet (17 m) and stayed down for five hours at a time. To avoid decompression sickness, they would have to hang from hoses halfway up the tank for as long as two hours, breathing pure oxygen. The cast and crew endured over six months of grueling six-day, 70-hour weeks on an isolated set. At one point, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had a physical and emotional breakdown on the set and on another occasion, Ed Harris burst into spontaneous sobbing while driving home. Cameron himself admitted, "I knew this was going to be a hard shoot, but even I had no idea just how hard. I don't ''ever'' want to go through this again". For example, for the scene where portions of the rig are flooded with water, he realized that he initially did not know how to minimize the sequence's inherent danger. It took him more than four hours to set up the shot safely. Actor Leo Burmester said, "Shooting ''The Abyss'' has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Jim Cameron is the type of director who pushes you to the edge, but he doesn't make you do anything he wouldn't do himself." A lightning storm caused a 200-foot (65 m) tear in the black tarpaulin covering the main tank. Repairing it would have taken too much time, so the production began shooting at night. In addition, blooming algae often reduced visibility to 20 feet (6 m) within hours. Over-chlorination led to divers' skin burning and exposed hair being stripped off or turning white. As production went on, the slow pace and daily mental and physical strain of filming began to wear on the cast and crew. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio remembered, "We never started and finished any one scene in any one day". At one point, Cameron told the actors to relieve themselves in their wetsuits to save time between takes. While filming one of many takes of Mastrantonio's character's resuscitation scene—in which she was soaking wet, topless and repeatedly being slapped and pounded on the chest—the camera ran out of film, prompting Mastrantonio to storm off the set yelling, "We are not animals!" For some shots in the scene that focus on Ed Harris, he was yelling at thin air because Mastrantonio refused to film the scene again. Michael Biehn also grew frustrated by the waiting. He claimed that he was in South Carolina for five months and only acted for three to four weeks. He remembered one day being ten meters underwater and "suddenly the lights went out. It was so black I couldn't see my hand. I couldn't surface. I realized I might not get out of there." Harris recalled: "One day we were all in our dressing rooms and people began throwing couches out the windows and smashing the walls. We just had to get our frustrations out." Cameron responded to these complaints, saying, "For every hour they spent trying to figure out what magazine to read, we spent an hour at the bottom of the tank breathing compressed air." After 140 days and $4 million over budget, filming finally wrapped on December 8, 1988. Before the film's release, there were reports from South Carolina that Ed Harris was so upset by the physical demands of the film and Cameron's dictatorial directing style that he said he would refuse to help promote the motion picture. Harris later denied this rumor and helped promote the film. However, after its release and initial promotion, Harris publicly disowned the film, saying "I'm never talking about it and never will." Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio also disowned the film, saying, "''The Abyss'' was a lot of things. Fun to make is not one of them."

Post-production

To create the alien water tentacle, Cameron initially considered cel animation or a tentacle sculpted in clay and then animated via stop-motion techniques with water reflections projected onto it. Phil Tippett suggested Cameron contact

Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pro ...

. The special visual effects work was divided up among seven FX divisions with motion control work by

Dream Quest Images Dream Quest Images, later known as The Secret Lab, was an American visual effects company, co-founded in 1979 by Hoyt Yeatman, Scott Squires, Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister. History After early piecemeal work on ''Es ...

and computer graphics and opticals by ILM. ILM designed a program to produce surface waves of differing sizes and kinetic properties for the pseudopod which was referred to by ILM informally as the "water weenie." For the moment where it mimics Bud and Lindsey's faces, Ed Harris had eight of his facial expressions scanned while twelve of Mastrantonio's were scanned via software used to create computer-generated sculptures. The set was photographed from every angle and digitally recreated so that the pseudopod could be accurately composited into the live-action footage. For the sequence where Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio touches the surface of the pseudopod, then-ILM receptionist Alia Agha stood in as a hand model. The company spent six months to create 75 seconds of computer graphics needed for the creature. The film was to have opened on July 4, 1989, but its release was delayed for more than a month by production and special effects problems. The animated sequences were supervised by ILM animation director

Wes Takahashi Wes Ford Takahashi is an American visual effects animator and animation supervisor who has worked for motion picture visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic. He is known for his special effects work on numerous films; his efforts includ ...

. Studio executives were nervous about the film's commercial prospects when preview audiences laughed at scenes of serious intent. Industry insiders said that the release delay was because nervous executives ordered the film's ending completely re-shot. There was also the question of the size of the film's budget: 20th Century Fox stated that the budget was $43 million, a figure Cameron himself has reiterated. However, estimates put the figure higher with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' estimating the cost at $45 million and one executive claiming it cost $47 million, while box office revenue tracker website '' The Numbers'' lists the production budget at $70 million.

Reception

Box office

''The Abyss'' was released on August 9, 1989, in 1,533 theaters, where it grossed $9.3 million on its opening weekend and ranked #2 at the box office behind '' Parenthood''. It went on to make $54.2 million in North America and $35.5 million throughout the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $89.8 million.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, a

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

, ''The Abyss'' has an 88% approval rating based on 48 reviews and an average rating of 7.30/10. The critical consensus states: "The utterly gorgeous special effects frequently overshadow the fact that ''The Abyss'' is also a totally gripping, claustrophobic thriller, complete with an interesting crew of characters." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 14 critics indicating "generally favorable reviews". The reviews tallied therein are for both the theatrical release and the Special Edition. Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

David Ansen David Ansen is an American film critic. He was a senior editor for ''Newsweek'', where he served as film critic from 1977 to 2008 and subsequently contribute to the magazined in a freelance capacity. Prior to writing for ''Newsweek'', he served a ...

of ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'', summarizing the theatrical release, wrote, "The payoff to ''The Abyss'' is pretty damn silly — a portentous '' deus ex machina'' that leaves too many questions unanswered and evokes too many other films." In her review for ''

'', Caryn James wrote that the film had "at least four endings," and "by the time the last ending of this two-and-a-quarter-hour film comes along, the effect is like getting off a demon roller coaster that has kept racing several laps after you were ready to get off." Chris Dafoe, in his review for ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', wrote, "At its best, ''The Abyss'' offers a harrowing, thrilling journey through inky waters and high tension. In the end, however, this torpedo turns out to be a dud—it swerves at the last minute, missing its target and exploding ineffectually in a flash of fantasy and fairy-tale schtick." While praising the film's first two hours as "compelling", the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'' remarked, "But when Cameron takes the adventure to the next step, deep into the heart of fantasy, it all becomes one great big deja boo. If we are to believe what Cameron finds way down there,

E.T. ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (or simply ''E.T.'') is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dub ...

didn't really phone home, he went surfing and fell off his board." Mike Clark of ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

'' gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Most of this underwater blockbuster is 'good,' and at least two action set pieces are great. But the dopey wrap-up sinks the rest 20,000 leagues." In her review for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', Rita Kempley wrote that the film "asks us to believe that the drowned return to life, that the comatose come to the rescue, that driven women become doting wives, that Neptune cares about landlubbers. I'd sooner believe that Moby Dick could swim up the drainpipe." ''

Halliwell's Film Guide Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Film ...

'' stated the film was, "despite some clever special effects, a tedious, overlong fantasy that is more excited by machinery than people." Conversely, Peter Travers of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' enthused, " 'The Abyss'' isthe greatest underwater adventure ever filmed, the most consistently enthralling of the summer blockbusters…one of the best pictures of the year." John Ferguson of ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'' awarded it three stars out of five, stating "For some, this was James Cameron's '' Waterworld'', a bloated, sentimental epic from the king of hi-tech thrillers. Some of the criticism was deserved, but it remains a fascinating folly, a spectacular and often thrilling voyage to the bottom of the sea ..Cameron excels in cranking up the tension within the cramped quarters and the effects are awe-inspiring and deservedly won an Oscar. It's only marred by being overlong and by its sentimental attachment to aliens." The release of the Special Edition in 1993 garnered much praise. Each giving it thumbs up,

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...

remarked, "''The Abyss'' has been improved," and

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

added, "It makes the film seem more well rounded." In the book ''Reel Views 2'',

James Berardinelli James Berardinelli (born September 25, 1967) is an American film critic and former engineer. His reviews are mainly published on his blog ''ReelViews.'' Approved as a critic by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, he has published two collections of r ...

comments, "James Cameron's ''The Abyss'' may be the most extreme example of an available movie that demonstrates how the vision of a director, once fully realized on screen, can transform a good motion picture into a great one."

Accolades

''The Abyss'' won the 1990 Oscar for Best Visual Effects ( John Bruno, Dennis Muren,

Hoyt Yeatman Hoyt Yeatman (born January 23, 1955, in San Francisco, California, United States) is an American visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked with Jerry Bruckheimer on a number of films, including ''Armageddon (1998 film), Armageddon'', ''C ...

, and

Dennis Skotak Dennis John Skotak (born 1943) is an American visual effects artist. In 1990 he won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for the film ''The Abyss'', and was nominated for another three years later for ''Batman Returns''. Selected filmogr ...

). It was also nominated for: *

Best Art Direction The Academy Award for Best Production Design recognizes achievement for art direction in film. The category's original name was Best Art Direction, but was changed to its current name in 2012 for the 85th Academy Awards. This change resulted fro ...

(Art Direction:

Leslie Dilley Leslie Dilley (born 1941) is a Welsh art director and production designer. During his film career from the 1970s to 2000s, he won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction twice for '' Star Wars'' (1977) and '' Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981). ...

; Set Decoration:

Anne Kuljian Anne Louise Kuljian (born June 17, 1949) is a set decorator. She was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film ''The Abyss''. Filmography * The Silence (short) (1982) * Fatal Games (1984) * Tuff Turf (1985) ...

) *

Best Cinematography This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

(

) *

Best Sound This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow List of film awards, film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awa ...

( Don J. Bassman,

Kevin F. Cleary Kevin F. Cleary is an American sound engineer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. Selected filmography * ''Die Hard'' (1988) * ''The Abyss'' (1989) * ''The Hunt for Red October ''The Hunt for Red October ...

, Richard Overton and

Lee Orloff Lee Orloff is an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and has been nominated for six more in the same category. He has worked on over 60 films since 1984. Selected filmography Orloff won an Academy Award for Best Soun ...

) Many other film organizations, such as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, and the American Society of Cinematographers, also nominated ''The Abyss''. The film ended up winning a total of three other awards from these organizations.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to ''The Abyss'' was written by

Alan Silvestri Alan Anthony Silvestri (born March 26, 1950) is an American composer and conductor of film and television scores. He has been associated with director Robert Zemeckis since 1984, composing music for all of his feature films including the ''Back ...

and released by Varèse Sarabande on August 22, 1989. In 2014, they issued a limited-edition (3,000 copies), two-disc album featuring the complete score minus the end credits medley, which is absent from both releases.

History of the Special Edition

Even as the film was in the first weeks of its 1989 theatrical release, rumors were circulating of a wave sequence missing from the film's end. As chronicled in the 1993

LaserDisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...

Special Edition release and later in the 2000 DVD, the pressure to cut the film's running time stemmed from both distribution concerns and

's then-inability to complete the required sequences. From the distributor's perspective, the looming three-hour length limited the number of times the film could be shown each day, assuming that audiences would be willing to sit through the entire film, though 1990's '' Dances with Wolves'' would shatter both industry-held notions. Further, test audience screenings revealed a surprisingly mixed reaction to the sequences as they appeared in their unfinished form; in post-screening surveys, they dominated both the "Scenes I liked most" and "Scenes I liked least" fields. Contrary to speculation, studio meddling was not the cause of the shortened length; Cameron held final cut as long as the film met a running time of roughly two hours and 15 minutes. He later noted, "Ironically, the studio brass were horrified when I said I was cutting the wave."

What emerges in the winnowing process is only the best stuff. And I think the overall caliber of the film is improved by that. I cut only two minutes of ''Terminator''. On ''Aliens'', we took out much more. I even reconstituted some of that in a special (TV) release version. The sense of something being missing on ''Aliens'' was greater for me than on ''The Abyss'', where the film just got consistently better as the cut got along. The film must function as a dramatic, organic whole. When I cut the film together, things that read well on paper, on a conceptual level, didn't necessarily translate to the screen as well. I felt I was losing something by breaking my focus. Breaking the story's focus and coming off the main characters was a far greater detriment to the film than what was gained. The film keeps the same message intact at a thematic level, not at a really overt level, by working in a symbolic way.

Cameron elected to remove the sequences along with other, shorter scenes elsewhere in the film, reducing the running time from roughly two hours and 50 minutes to two hours and 20 minutes and diminishing his signature themes of nuclear peril and disarmament. Subsequent test audience screenings drew substantially better reactions. Star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio publicly expressed regret about some of the scenes selected for removal from the film's theatrical cut: "There were some beautiful scenes that were taken out. I just wish we hadn't shot so much that isn't in the film." Shortly after the film's premiere, Cameron and video editor Ed Marsh created a longer video cut of ''The Abyss'' for their own use that incorporated

dailies In filmmaking, dailies are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. The term comes from when movies were all shot on film because usually at the end of each day, the footage was developed, synced to sound, and pri ...

. With the tremendous success of Cameron's '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' in 1991,

Lightstorm Entertainment Lightstorm Entertainment is an American independent production company founded in 1990 by filmmaker James Cameron and producer Lawrence Kasanoff. The majority of its films have been distributed and owned by 20th Century Studios. Its productions i ...

secured a five-year, $500 million financing deal with 20th Century Fox for films produced, directed or written by Cameron. The contract allocated roughly $500,000 of the amount to complete ''The Abyss''. ILM was commissioned to finish the work they had started three years earlier, with many of the same people who had worked on it originally. The CGI tools developed for ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' allowed ILM to complete the rumored tidal wave sequence, as well as correcting flaws in rendering for all their other work done for the film. The tidal wave sequence had originally been designed by ILM as a physical effect, using a plastic wave, but Cameron was dissatisfied with the end result, and the sequence was scrapped. By the time Cameron was ready to revisit ''The Abyss'', ILM's CGI prowess had finally progressed to an appropriate level, and the wave was rendered as a CGI effect. ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' screenwriter and frequent Cameron collaborator

William Wisher William Howard Peter Wisher Jr. is an American screenwriter, known for his work with long-time friend James Cameron on '' The Terminator'' and '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day''. Career Wisher has had roles behind and in front of the camera. ...

had a cameo in the scene as a reporter in Santa Monica who catches the first tidal wave on camera. When it was discovered that original production sound recordings had been lost, new

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...

and foley were recorded, but since Kidd Brewer had died before he could return to re-loop his dialog, producers and editors had to lift his original dialogue tracks from the remaining optical-sound prints of the

. The Special Edition was therefore dedicated to his memory as a result. As

was not available to compose new music for the restored scenes, Robert Garrett, who had composed temporary music for the film's initial cutting in 1989, was chosen to create new music. The Special Edition was completed in December 1992, with 28 minutes added to the film, and saw a limited theatrical release in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

on February 26, 1993, and expanded to key cities nationwide in the following weeks. Both versions of the film continue to receive public exhibitions, including a screening of an original 35mm print of the theatrical cut on August 20, 2019, in New York City.

Home media

The first

THX THX Ltd. is an American company that develops the eponymous high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games. Founded ...

-certified

title of the Special Edition Box Set was released in May 1993, in both Widescreen and Full-Screen formats, and was a best-seller for the rest of the year. The Special Edition was released on VHS on August 20, 1996 as a part of Fox Video's Widescreen Series with a seven-minute behind-the-scenes featurette with footage that did not appear in the ''Under Pressure: The Making of The Abyss'' documentary that was included on the Laserdisc and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

releases. The film was released on DVD in 2000 in both one and two-disc editions and featured animated menus, both the theatrical and Special Edition versions of the film via

seamless branching Seamless branching is a mechanism used on DVDs and Blu-ray Discs to allow the player to jump to a different scene after finishing one. The most common purpose is to have several versions of a scene within one film, without having to store the ent ...

along with—on the second disc—the Laserdisc's extensive text, artwork and photographic documentation of the film's production, a ten-minute featurette and the sixty minute documentary ''Under Pressure: The Making of The Abyss.'' In 2014 the pay cable channels Cinemax and

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

began broadcasting both versions of the film in 1080p.

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

's UK service began offering the theatrical version in 1080p in 2017. At an October, 2014 event James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd were asked about a future Blu-ray release for the film. Cameron gestured to the head of Fox Home Entertainment, implying the decision lay with the studio. Five months later another article suggested a spat between Cameron and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment was responsible for the delay. While promoting the upcoming 30th-anniversary

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

release of ''Aliens'' at Comic-Con in San Diego July 2016 James Cameron confirmed that he was working on a remastered 4K transfer of ''The Abyss'' and that it would be released on Blu-ray for the first time in early 2017. Cameron added, "We've done a wet-gate 4K scan of the original negative, and it's going to look insanely good. We're going to do an authoring pass in the DI for Blu-ray and HDR at the same time." In March 2019

digital intermediate Digital intermediate (typically abbreviated DI) is a motion picture finishing process which classically involves digitizing a motion picture and manipulating the color and other image characteristics. Definition and overview A digital intermediate ...

colorist Skip Kimball posted a photo to his

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

suggesting that he was working on the film. In November 2018 Cameron told ''Empire'' magazine that a Blu-ray transfer was "complete for my review" and he hoped it would be ready before 2019. This was, however, before Disney's acquisition of Fox, so, as of 2020, there has been no information about the Blu-Ray release. In December 2021, during a promotional interview for the new book "Tech Noir: The Art of James Cameron" with website Space.com, director Cameron made the following statement: "Yeah, we finished the transfer and I wanted to do it myself because Mikael alomondid such a beautiful job with the cinematography on that film. It is truly, truly gorgeous cinematography. That was before I started to assert myself in terms of lighting and asking the cinematographer to do certain things. I'd compose with the camera and choose the lenses, but I left the lighting to him. He did a remarkable job on that movie that I appreciate better now than I did even as we were making it." "So I just recently finished the high-def transfer a couple of months ago so presumably there’ll be Blu-rays and it will stream with a proper transfer from now on. I appreciate what you said about the film. It didn't make much money in its day, but it does seem to be well-liked over time." In December 2022, journalist Arthur Cios tweeted that during a interview for ''Avatar: The Way of the Water'', he ask Cameron about a 4K release of The Abyss and Cameron told him "he had a new master and it would be out by March 2023 max."

Adaptations

American science fiction author Orson Scott Card was hired to write a

novelization A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...

of the film based on the screenplay and discussions with Cameron. He wrote back-stories for Bud, Lindsey, and Coffey as a means not only of helping the actors define their roles, but also to justify some of their behavior and mannerisms in the film. Card also wrote the aliens as a colonizing species which preferentially sought high-pressure deep-water worlds to build their ships as they traveled further into the galaxy (their mothership was in orbit on the far side of the moon). The NTIs' knowledge of neuroanatomy and nanoscale manipulation of biochemistry was responsible for many of the '' deus ex machina'' aspects of the film. A licensed

interactive fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

video game based on the script was being developed for

Infocom Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''. ...

Bob Bates Robert Bates (born December 11, 1953) is an American computer game designer. One of the early designers of interactive fiction games, he was co-founder of Challenge, Inc., which created games in the 1980s for the pioneering company Infocom. ...

, but was cancelled when Infocom was shut down by its then-parent company Activision. Sound Source Interactive later created an action video game entitled ''The Abyss: Incident at Europa''. The game takes place a few years after the film, where the player must find a cure for a deadly virus. A two-issue comic book adaptation was published by

Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops known ...

Notes

References

Sources

* *

External links

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abyss, The 1989 films 1980s science fiction adventure films American science fiction adventure films American science fiction thriller films American adventure thriller films Sea adventure films 1980s English-language films Films directed by James Cameron Films produced by Gale Anne Hurd Films with screenplays by James Cameron Fiction about animal cruelty Films scored by Alan Silvestri Films set in 1994 Films set in the future Films shot in California Films shot in Missouri Films shot in North Carolina Films shot in South Carolina Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award Lightstorm Entertainment films Science fiction submarine films 20th Century Fox films 20th Century Studios franchises Underwater action films Underwater civilizations in fiction Films with underwater settings Marine salvage operations 1980s American films