The underwater route to unlikely hits

Film review: the Abyss (1989)

The missing link

From James Cameron, director of Aliens and T2.

-----Theatrical trailer of True Lies.

“Film(s) by James Cameron” fall in 2 catalogues. On the one hand three are R-rated hard-hitting action flicks with relatable characters. On the other, some PG-13 long-winded and soft-ass stuff. 30 years ago, 20^th Century was smart to ignore the latter when they marketed one of the former.

The Abyss is a missing link among James Cameron flicks. Yours truly used to consider Titanic as a threshold, but Cameron tried to make THAT kind of PG-13 drama with adventure elements long before the one crowned him “King of the World”. Yet the 1989 flick got such a lukewarm reception (Arguably, even compared to the Terminator’s modest success.) that Cameron had to go back to Schwarzenegger at his prime train twice before he can do whatever he wants.

After its special edition DVD went out of print in 2000, the Abyss was finally released in higher definition. Coming about one year after Avatar the Way of Water, it does show that R-rated stuff is just he making some coward-pleaser, while “soft-ass stuff” is what he wants to make all along.

Prolonging, necessary and otherwise

But it was and still is a hell of a story. It’s generated…a hundred schlocky movies (and I do include James Cameron’s seven-hour blockbuster)

----How We Lost the Moon by Paul McAuley

First published in 1999 and sometimes titled “How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen”, McAuley’s science fiction novelette is a classical lean and mean sci-fi tale about an experimental fusion reactor malfunctioned on the moon. Setting this one in mid to late 2020s, the author sure took his piss on James Cameron. It also brings out the question: is McAuley more pissed about Cameron’s take on historical setting in Titanic? After all, the 7 hours long epic mentioned in the story would be based on “real event”. Or does him dislike Abyss more? Since that one was made with the bone of classical short form sci-fi with some bullshit paved on it.

In summary, the Abyss does sound like one of those stories a not-yet-Doctor Issac Asimov wrote and sold just to get through his undergrad days. Especially the four featuring Gregory Powell and Michael Donovan, two workers in space dealing with not helpful robots. Most of the good guys in Abyss are highly educated blue-collar engineers, so Cameron did include that element, some acts of prolonging are just the inherent vice of cinema.

The plot of Abyss can be summed up rather simply. US nuclear submarine Montana sunk after it attempted to pursue a fast-moving object underwater. Due to an approaching hurricane, the nearest and fastest assets available to the navy were underwate oil rig Deep Core and its crew. Thus, those oil workers were tasked to search and recover the sub, but made First Contact with an underwater alien civilization.

The things that would make a film longer than sci-fi novelette are two-fold. On the one hand, it takes cinema more time to show its audience the problem than it takes short form literature just to tell its readers about the problem. On the other hand, Abyss being sold as Fox’s summer blockbuster for 1989 requires long and engaging set-pieces. Cameron did not miss his beat, at least not by much, with the 2 long and engaging set-pieces in Abyss. But that does mean feeling bit long-winded compared to classical short-form sci-fi.

So blue collar workers going on underwater adventure with all the excitement and visual flair implied, which is more than fine. What’s less than fine is Cameron mistaking his dealing with the mess in his personal life for good script writing. Cameron is undoubtedly a “wife guy”, though being a man married 4 times, one got to ask “which one?” when it comes to the periods of his life and career.

Take the Avatar movies for example. As much as Pandora was marketed as an alien world Cameron envisioned since he was a boy, the rooting for tree huggers stand those flicks take is only likely coming from Suzy Amis, Mrs. James Cameron since 2000 and counting. Abyss being a mess can be blamed on Cameron letting his personal life bleed too much into his creation.

The picture above, or at least the 2 thirds on its right, should be no stranger to owners or at least viewers of Aliens Special Edition’s home media in digital format. The Xenomorph queen sharing a picture with her “daddy” would appear just as Cameron making an audio introduction to the extended cut of the 1986 summer blockbuster. Though it might take a film nerd to know the lady on the left. Ladies, gentlemen and the rest, allow me to introduce you all to Ms. Gale Anne Hurd, film producer and Mrs. James Cameron between 1985 and 1989. The couple’s only “children” are the films they made together, the Terminator, Aliens and Abyss. This photo was part of the promotion for the Alien sequel.

The marriage between Cameron and Ms. Hurd was on thin ice by the time Abyss was er, conceived. It’s really hard not to see Bud and Linds being estranged couple just one piece of paper from divorced a parallel to the real world. The whole “She just left me behind” façade. Worse yet, this tension feels very separate from the rest of film, it might as well not be there in the first place. The first act of the flick would have felt tighter without it.

The child known as Aliens might cast a larger shadow on this flick as well with the 6 set-pieces structure. First there is the fiasco that kicks off the plot: in Aliens it’s the direct-to-video finding of the Face-hugger; Abyss opens with the submarine before sinking with all that jargon heavy dialogue. Then there is the set-up, one with no action but setting is elaborate nonetheless: Aliens’ space marine storming the abandoned colony; Abyss’ sunk sub.

The third ones are about shit hitting the fan: the marines finally met the titular Aliens and it’s FUBAR for them; Deep Core in Abyss was supposed to be detached from the surface, but the seal team took their sub to secure nukes, and the result being the underwater rig being dragged around with people dead. Though Abyss telegram death way too obviously as none of the deceased can be called “speaking part”.

The fourth ones are about things looking up: Hicks and Ripley manage to shoot their way out as the rest of marines die in Aliens while everyone hates the deranged Coffey enough to solve him as a problem. The fifth ones are about the top-billed talent suiting up and going down for some rescue: Ripley carrying full-loaded weapons to get Newt from the Xenomorph lair while Bud getting to a deep sea diving suit to disarm a nuke. The sixth one in Aliens is of course Ripley throwing down with the Alien queen in a Power Loader, while the final one in Abyss will be discussed farther down. Got to say, Judgment Day just being a more expansive action flick still feels more refreshing than this.

Triumph of the moral high ground

You’re down there, we’re up here! You walked into the wrong goddamn room!

----Ed Harris as General Francis X. Hummel to Micheal Biehn as Commander Anderson in the Rock

Before Pearl Habor almost ruined his career, Micheal Bay was obviously a James Cameron wannabe. 1998’s Armageddon would give a portion of its audience flashback to Abyss, His best flick the Rock is a Die Hard “knockoff” with nods to lines. Harris and Biehn only shares one scene in 1996’s Bay flick, and it would provide a sense of de jevu regrading 1989’s Cameron flick.

Ironically, Cameron did not repeat Alien’s “seven little Indians” in Aliens, but in Abyss he just couldn’t help himself. Harris as Bud and Biehn as Coffey are Dallas versus Ash through and through. Ed Harris playing the goody two shoe here is fine though nothing to write home about while Biehn’s performance here warrant some more words.

For one thing, Coffey is the first of three lousy Navy Seal Team leader Biehn played in his career. One year after Abyss, Biehn appeared in Navy Seal as Lieutenant James Curran. If this guy says “They’re in the goddamn door!” to his team, the only reply would be “No shit, sir! Aren’t you supposed to watch it so we can focus on our tasks?” Then the Rock’s Commander Anderson would get his whole team killed by starting a shouting match.

But Coffey takes the cake for being positioned as a villain in a fairy tale. The character is bit cartoonish, but the way Biehn’s eyes shift around is something can be only done in live-action, no mo-cap in the year 2024 can get that. Got say, had it been Biehn getting mo-cap for a underwater wrestling match with Sam Wellinton in Avatar the Way of Water, I might have bought a ticket and endured those filthy glasses. Instead, Cameron avoiding too much Aliens casting just give me an excuse to catch the flick later on stream.

Bud on the moral high ground grants him more allies. Even the seal team’s medic turned against the leader by taking bullets out of his sidearm (Maybe the rare occasion the empty gun trope works since the holder is out of focus). Then the ex-marine oil worker had his dream of punching a navy seal. In true Cameron flick fashion, Bud’s wife who is better than anyone in driving submarine, chased Coffey to his death. The journey for Bud is very much the friends he made along the way.

Cameron’s first and likely only “director’s cut”

The 3 extended cuts of Cameron flicks in the early 1990s can be called “actor’s cut”, “writer’s cut” and “director’s cut” respective. First there was Aliens Special Edition being “actor’s cut” since Ms. Weaver was more pissed about Ripley knowing her daughter’s death scene being cut than Cameron himself. Then there is T2 being “writer’s cut”, since the longer cut is about putting scenes Cameron’s co-writer Willam Wisher wrote. Then Abyss’ 169 minutes long cut is the real director’s cut.

The last scene first. The underwater aliens pulling out their “stick”, the big waves, contains effect shots that could not be finished in time back in 1989. Which sure made audience go “WTF?” regarding the theatrical cut. With the underwater aliens showing Bud why they feared humanity with footage of nukes and war, then telling him that they appreciating him going down here to disarm the nuke for them, the whole thing does feel more logical. At least fits the fairy tale logic this flick goes for. No, I am going to talking “LOVE YOU WIFE”. Nor the more screen time dedicated to Bud and Linds working through their shit.

Both Cameron’s follow Academy Award winner Peter Jackson and the edgelord hack named Zack Snyder have the tendency to include music number for their longer cut. And of course “Cameron did it first”. As Deep Core was dragged to the area of operation, workers aboard started to sing along a folk song.

As a movie sold on underwater adventure, the special edition did include more underwater adventure. Like how the crew trying different entrances into the sunk sub. Including the following shot from remote control sub’s point-of-view confining the flick’s then “not too distant future" setting.

Abyss is far from a perfect movie, and the longer cut adds as many problems as benefits. Still, the longer version does feel bit more thought out, and it does provide insight into how Cameron makes film.

Ghost in the machine

If Abyss is known to most for anything, it would be the water tentacle. Forerunner for both this digital effect era we live in and the liquid metal in Judgment Day, this actually-could-have-been-done-with animation scene overshadows anything else in the flick.

Even though Cameron claimed that he learnt his lesson from Abyss’ troubled production, as he found ways to mo-cap underwater then pave CG over everything, the 1989 flick is still more impressive. Finding ways to light underwater scene, making the right props and train actors to act while diving are just more interesting than high polygon count. Which is why I still enjoyed this one more than Titanic and them Avatar flicks.