The Abyss: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About This ’80s Sci-Fi Movie

James Cameron is one of Hollywood’s most successful and influential film directors, but he’s also one of the most controversial, as well. These days, he’s become a director ingrained in the elite Hollywood movie scene, but he started out as a renegade run n’ gun filmmaker who pulled out all the stops and cut every corner to achieve his vision. Sometimes, this happened at the expense of his cast.

His 1989 film The Abyss was a landmark in both storytelling, and technical mastercraft. It would push the boundaries of a blossoming CGI industry, and pave the way for future giants like Terminator 2, Jurassic Park and The Matrix. It was also one of the most harrowing shoots of all time; one the cast seem reluctant to talk about in interviews, even to this day. Here’s 10 things you didn’t know about The Abyss.

10 IT WAS EXPENSIVE

One needn’t watch more than 15 minutes of The Abyss to realize the enormous financial cost of creating such a film, but few audiences really understand the full impact. The Abyss had a budget of approximately $70 million dollars in 1989. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $145,710,080 dollars by today’s standards.

While that might not seem like a huge deal when one examines the budgets of a typical Marvel blockbuster, it is still exceedingly high for an off-the-cuff niche film like The Abyss, which was a major creative risk.

9 CAMERON’S VISUAL TRICKERY WAS IN FULL EFFECT

A haunting scene in the film involves mini-subs going down to investigate the wreckage of a nuclear sub teetering at the edge of the Mariana Trench. The mini-sub crews can be seen from the outside, which was achieved using screen projectors playing pre-recorded sequences of the actors.

This pre-CGI filming technique had been used by Cameron before in previous movies such as The Terminator (the future war sequence), and a scene in Aliens where Ripley and the marines can be seen looking out a colony window from the outside. Cameron’s guerrilla-style film-making has since become the stuff of legend.

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8 COMPLETE DARKNESS USING INGENIOUS METHODS

The underwater scenes were filmed in a gigantic tank located at a half-completed nuclear reactor in South Carolina. Even though the tank was filled with water to a depth of 40 feet, it wasn’t enough to hide light coming from the surface, as would normally be expected at vast depths.

To compensate, Cameron draped a large tarpaulin over the surface, and spilled out millions upon millions of tiny black plastic beads, which would create enough density to block out all surface light. This lasted until a massive storm destroyed the tarpaulin, and Cameron was forced to shift production to night, instead of day.

7 THE WATER TENTACLE SCENE WAS FILMED EARLY

Cameron wanted to experiment with a new type of advanced CGI for The Abyss, but there was no guarantee that it would meet his original vision. To compensate, Cameron filmed the memorable water tentacle scene early on, to give visual effects artists much-needed time to harness and perfect the CGI.

The intention was to remove the scene altogether if the sequence failed to live up to expectations. This kind of forethought is considered one of James Cameron’s greatest strengths as a director.

6 THE RESUSCITATION SCENE WAS GRUELING

Few scenes in The Abyss are as chilling and emotional as the one involving Bud trying valiantly to resuscitate a dead Lindsey. The ordeal continues for what seems like an eternity, but it’s nothing compared to what the actors themselves had to endure.

The scene was shot, and then re-shot a second time, but the camera ran out of film and would require another take. The amount of physical and emotional extremes required to pull the scene off were too much for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who stormed off the set with rage and had to be coaxed back hours later to complete filming. Close-up shots of Ed Harris screaming and slapping Lindsey were filled in by a sandbag, then cut together with footage of Mastrantonio’s performance.

5 THE FISTS FLEW FREELY

Tensions were so high during the filming of The Abyss that several people ended up getting a knuckle sandwich due to the amount of stress on set. Actor Ed Harris was so fed up with James Cameron grabbing the perfect shot (of him drowning, no less) that he lost his temper and reportedly punched the director before storming off and later breaking down in tears during his drive home.

Another on-set episode included Cameron running out of oxygen in his tank during an underwater sequence. Releasing his helmet, harness and weights, he attempted to swim to the surface, only to be grabbed by a safety diver and given oxygen through a faulty regulator. Cameron inhaled a mouthful of water and began to panic, prompting the safety diver to hold him in place, not realizing the situation. Cameron punched the safety diver to escape, and swam to the surface just in the nick of time.

4 THE FILMING BURNED MANY BRIDGES

The Abyss might be a technical masterpiece, but it ended up costing James Cameron a lot of friends. Its troubled production created a rift between Cameron and actors Ed Harris and MaryElizabeth Mastrantonio, not to mention many crew members who have seemingly gone in opposite directions since that time.

Perhaps the most notorious upset for an already-stressed Cameron was his marital divorce from producer Gale Anne Hurd, who had been his working partner on films like The Terminator and Aliens. Cameron implemented this as a plot element in the film between the characters of Lindsey and Bud.

3 THE MOVIE GOES BY MANY NICKNAMES

So grueling and punishing was the process of shooting The Abyss, that cast and crew members began showering it with flack in the form of clever nicknames. This may have been an exercise in passive aggression, or a cathartic method of dealing with the on-set trauma.

Some of the more colorful titles included “The Abuse,” “Life’s Abyss And Then You Dive,” and “Son Of Abyss.” It’s difficult to imagine these names were born out of genuine hatred, but stress certainly played a part.

2 ANIMAL ABUSE?

First-time audiences bit their knuckles with anxiety during that memorable scene where a live rat is placed in a container of oxygenated fluorocarbon. Although the rat in question was never in any danger of dying, one can clearly see the animal’s distress as its body slowly becomes accustomed to the fluid.

The scene required a cut-away when panic caused the rat to defecate in the fluid, at which point the act effectively comes to an end. The scene where Ed Harris breathes a helmet full of the stuff is not yet possible to the extent of his scene, but it is closer to actual fact, than fiction.

1 NO BLU-RAY, TO THIS DAY

Despite the mammoth undertaking required to bring The Abyss to life, the film has never received a high-definition Blu-Ray release. Although rumors continue to circulate as to whether a release is in the works, there has been little confirmation to by.

James Cameron has hinted several times that he is indeed working on an ultimate edition of the film for a Blu-Ray release, but all news seems to have dropped off just as Cameron enters production on the Avatar sequel films. Meanwhile, HBO has recently streamed The Abyss in HD, which was reportedly taken from the upcoming 4K transfer, but audiences will have to take that with a grain of salt.

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