The Abyss

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The Abyss is an award-winning science fiction film from 1989, written and directed by James Cameron, starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. There is a cinema version (140 minutes) and a Director's Cut version (171 minutes).

Underwater scenes were filmed in the containment building of an unfinished nuclear reactor in Gaffney, South Carolina, in the United States. It took 26.5 million litres (seven million gallons) of water to fill the tank to a depth of 13 metres (40 feet), making it the largest underwater set ever. The depth and length of time spent underwater meant that the cast and crew had to go through decompression.

There is a novelization written by Orson Scott Card.

1 Plot
2 Awards
3 Trivia
4 External links

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the beginning of the film, USS Montana, a fictitious American Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine sinks near the edge of the Cayman Trough after an accidental encounter with an unknown object. As Soviet submarines head to the area, and with a hurricane moving in, the quickest way to mount a rescue is for a SEAL team to be inserted on to an experimental underwater oil platform, and to mount operations from there, enlisting the skills of the resident oil workers living on the platform to help in the operation.

If bad weather and international tensions escalating toward war aren't enough, the SEAL team is accompanied down to the rig by the platform's designer, Lindsey Brigman (Mastrantonio). Her estranged husband, Virgil "Bud" Brigman (Harris) is the foreman of the platform. Unbeknownst to anyone, the SEAL leader, Lt. Coffey (Biehn), has developed High Pressure Nervous Syndrome, and is losing his ability to reason as he sinks slowly into a paranoid state.

As the oil workers and SEAL team investigate the wreck of the sub, the oil workers encounter an alien, but are uncertain what to make of it. The SEAL team recovers one of the nuclear warheads from the submarine, and plan to destroy the sub (and the rig) if salvage is impossible or the strained relations between the Soviet and American governments result in outbreak of war.

Tension mounts as an accident on the surface ship leaves all aboard the underwater rig stranded and cut off from the surface. At this point, the aliens decide to explore the rig and in doing so, make contact with the stranded workers. They clearly mean no harm, but the now totally paranoid Coffey doesn't see it this way, and prepares to send the warhead to the bottom of the trench, set on a timer to explode. After a brief battle between Lindsey and Bud (in one submersible) and Coffey (in another), Coffey is killed and but the bomb had been released. This leaves Bud and Lindsey stranded several hundred meters away from the platform in their slowly flooding sub. With time running out, Lindsey sacrifices herself so Bud can use the sole SCUBA unit to swim them both back aboard the rig. Although being clinically dead, the team barely manage to revive Lindsey once she's back aboard.

Image:Abyss.jpg Realizing that they're the only ones able to stop a nuclear attack on a sentient race, Bud dons a suit incorporating a liquid breathing system to dive to the bottom of the three-mile-deep trench and disarm the warhead. He does so, but his team is shocked to learn that he doesn't have enough breathable liquid to return, and that even though he knew that the journey was suicide, someone had to take the responsibility. He transmits a final message to Lindsey saying that he loves her.

At the bottom of the trench, the aliens find Bud and bring him into their underwater city. There, the aliens show him the message that he sent, and return him and the platform to the surface, unharmed.

In the director's cut, the aliens, responding to man's warlike tendencies (displayed to Bud as news footage showing man's barbarism), are preparing to destroy all coastal regions of the world by giant megatsunamis and freak waves. The aliens relent when they examine Bud's final communication to his wife, realizing that mankind still has the potential for good. This ending is very similar in style to, but with far more emotional impact than, the ending of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

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Awards

The Abyss won the 1990 Oscar for Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography and Best Sound. The studio also tried hard for Michael Biehn to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The Abyss was also nominated for many other awards, such as by Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films and the American Society of Cinematographers. It ended up winning a total of three other awards by these organizations.

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Trivia

Because it wasn't possible to use digital effects extensively at the time, Cameron convinced the studio that underwater filming was necessary for realism. The production team had trouble finding a tank of the right proportions. Finally, they found a half completed and abandoned nuclear power facility near Gaffney, South Carolina. The exterior of the rig and the cliff were both built in two half-completed reactor cooling tanks.

The film was censured by the American Humane Association for a scene in which a rat is held "underwater" — actually, in an oxygenated fluorocarbon liquid used in fluid breathing systems. The rat was unharmed and became Cameron's pet, but died of natural causes before the film opened. In England this scene was still replaced with a scene where what happens to the rat is verbally described by the characters, because the Royal Veterinarian thought the experience was painful for the rat.
- Some believe that, at the time of the films theatrical release in the UK, the rat-breathing scene was shown fully intact, and that it was only some years later, when the film came to be shown on UK television networks, that the scene was indeed edited heavily. However, there is other anecdotal evidence that when The Abyss opened in the UK in 1989, this scene had already clearly been cut.

This is the third film directed by James Cameron where Michael Biehn plays a military figure, the others being The Terminator and Aliens.

The diving equipment had to be specially designed to allow the actors to remain underwater for hours at a time, and to allow their entire face to be seen by the camera while underwater.

The shooting was very painful for both the cast and the crew; so that several started giving the movie names like "The Son of Abyss" and "Life's Abyss And Then You Dive", and there is even a poster saying "The Abuse", mocking the actual poster with extended U.

Due to injuries he sustained on set, Ed Harris was almost unable to accept the role of Frankie Flannery in his next film, State of Grace.

Ed Harris and James Cameron reputedly clashed vigorously during filming.

Ed Harris really pounded Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio during the scene where his team tries to revive her, and James Cameron was asking for repeats, not satisfied. Lying exposed and being pounded, Mastrantonio stormed out of the set because she couldn't take it anymore after the cameraman announced that they've been re-filming the scene for so long that more film had to be loaded into the camera.

It wasn't liquid breathing fluid pumped into Ed Harris' suit, but pink water, and he was just holding his breath. For the underwater scenes, a similar suit was made with a pink shader that could be opened easily from outside so that the crew can provide him with oxygen between takes. He also had to wear special made contact lenses to focus under the water. Because the tank wasn't deep enough, he was pulled horizontally for each take of the descent sequence. Harris nearly drowned in one take before divers could reach him.

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