The director's cut is worth a watch. There's a whole subplot about the US and Russia on the verge of nuclear war that was cut. Also cut was something bigger than the underwater city coming to the surface, but I won't spoil it 😮
Love this film, so underrated. A lot was cut, the finale is at least 30 minutes longer in the Director's cut and completely changes how you look at the 'aliens'.
@@RKnights That's interesting...the theatrical cut is 145 minutes whereas the directors/special edition is 171 minutes. Trying to avoid spoilers by staying ambiguous but the directors cut has a scene involving a tsunami
For the crazy military guy, wasn’t it hinted he was suffering from high-pressure nervous syndrome caused by the decent to the rig, and he hid the symptoms until he was too far gone. So while he seemed like a cliche, there was a reason behind it, and added tension as you knew he was going to become more and more unstable than he already was.
The making of this film is legend with many cast members refusing to ever discuss it. Two other schlock underwater flicks came out the same year: “Leviathan,” and “Deepstar Six.” I remember that this was the same year that Enya’s “Watermark” came out. Everything was maritime themed in ‘89. This came out prior to T2. It was the CGI water tentacle that led to the T-1000 effects. The resuscitation scene is iconic. It’s been parodied numerous times over the years. Guess you should do “Das Boot,” and “Crimson Tide.” This movie reminds me a lot of “SeaQuest DSV.”
This is actually one of the most innovative and revolutionary films in Hollywood history, the water tentacle scene, represents a quantum leap in CGI and what made the liquid metal terminator in T2 possible. There's also the whole shooting underwater aspect, and the insane logistics and incredible sets, highly recommend watching the making of documentary, this is one of the most infamous movie productions and filled with crazy stories, with a number of close calls!
Well, it wasn't the director's cut. :( If you ever re-watch the movie, watch the director's cut and you might like the ending more. There is a big plot change and it makes things more realistic. Like aliens' response to human aggression. And potential war was stopped, never to happen again.
5:22 - my response to her would be: "Well, there are possibly people alive down there. Would you like to call and tell their families that no rescue is possibly because you are possessive about the rig?"
30:30 - one kid was underwater in ice lake for 40 minutes and was resuscitated and recovered. There is a saying about frozen people among the doctors: "a patient is not dead, until he is warm and dead."
@@miller-joel I think he is referring to John Smith, from the St. Louis, Missouri area, who drowned in Lake St. Louise and was underwater for 30+ minutes (he was dead for over an hour). After the doctors had given up, his mother prayed for him and he came back to life. He was in the hospital for two weeks and made a virtually complete recovery. No brain injury at all. His story is told in the book, Breakthrough and the movie of the same name. He just got married recently, by the way. 🙂
@@miller-joel I know it's bad. That's why John Smith's doctors say that what happened with him is a miracle. No seizures, no lung infections, no heart damage, no neurological damage. He walked out of the hospital and eventually returned to playing on his school's basketball team. BTW, the movie doesn't do it justice. The book goes into much greater detail about all the things he went through and had to overcome. You should read it.
@@miller-joel I'm not talking about what's likely. I'm talking about what's possible. You can walk out of the hospital after not breathing for 40 minutes.
@@miller-joel I was going by memory. It's been a while. Anyway, is it normal for a 14 year old who drowns in 40 degree lakewater filled with animal feces and other debris to not have a lung infection? Not suffer heart problems or neurological problems or other issues? Can parents count on his outcome should their children suffer the same fate? Frankly, I highly doubt it and I'm going to guess you would feel the same.
5:40 It truly was. What you may not be noticing is how powerful the soundtrack was at the volume of a loud movie theater. The entire thing was very intense, audio and video!
The filming nightmare of this movie is legendary. From Ed Harris punching James Cameron, to Michael Biehn almost dying, to Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio refusing to talk about the movie, EVER.
The oxygenated liquid breathing medium is a thing, it can provide you with enough oxygen to survive. The only problem is that it can't remove enough carbon dioxide fast enough so you eventually die from CO2 poisoning
I was a teenager when this movie came out, but I had read about the oxygen liquid method in some science media of the time It seems that it's promising but you are right about that specific problem, it seems they are still struggling with it. Incredible how time has flown!
Also, the liquid dissolves the protective mucus layer inside your lungs, so after "breathing" the liquid you need a preventative course of penicillin to prevent massive infection of the lungs. Not the most viable of technologies perhaps... ;)
You maybe are not aware but there is a documentary here on UA-cam about this movie making, just search for it, you'll see that this movie was probably the hardest to make at least in the last 3 decades that passed. That was a killer for both the studios and James Cameron himself to continue this as a franchise. Maybe they can continue it with current technologies, I hope it can revive sonehiw. You are right, this movie is very "realistic" and in many levels very intelectual for its time. Some years before, Unidentified Submarine Objects started the speculation about water dwelling aliens populating our oceans, but there's also the idea that they are not aliens at all, but evolved here and developed intelligence and technologies millenia before us. Even Christopher Columbus wrote about strange lights underwater on his way to discover America so this film is hardcore science fiction indeed. Thanks guys, this movie deserve more consideration from reviewers like you!
James Cameron is one of only three people to dive to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, the deepest spot in the ocean. The Trieste went down to 35,814 feet, which is the record from 1960. Cameron's DeepSea Challenger only made it to 35,787 feet, 27 feet less (35,756 feet, as measured by him at the bottom). But that's still the utter bottom of the seas. And he made the round trip in two and a half hours. He made the movie Titanic specifically so he could afford to dive down to that ship. He did an accompanying documentary about the dive. The man is just gaga for the sea. Early visions of Pandora here. The water effects in this movie were also groundbreaking for their time, the surface ripples were a huge leap in digital special effects.
@@RKnights for research underwater Im sure, when you breathe with those helmets, the bubbles makes a ts-ts-ts sound that gets picked up very clearly on microphone!look it up on the documentary!must have been long hourse for the editor to cut those sounds out!
One of my favorite sci-si films, & it's an underground cult classic. It didn't have a big A list action actor but the the cast was well known. Heck, Ed Harris had some huge hits between "The Right Stuff" (y'all gotta watch!), "Apollo 13" then "Enemy at the Gates" (a must watch for the Knights!) later...& Michael Biehn had "Aliens", "Navy Seals", "Terminator" ( also "The Rock" with Harris) & then "Tombstone"
It took them a lot of takes though since the rat kept throwing up, which bisted up the liquid so they couldn't film it... As much as I like the scene, I'm glad there's no way we'd ever get another one since it's animal torture.
17:49 - It’s not mentioned in the film, but in the novelization, the ring Bud wears was designed by Lindsay and was made of Titanium. She hade it made of Titanium because she knew that he’d be working on oil rigs, which often would have likely dent or damaged any other metal that comes from that kind of work. So, if it hadn’t been for Lindsay and her choices, Bud could have died at that moment.
i think it's a paradox that what's fascinating about the movie it-self these days is the documentary about how tis was made and what it took just to get the "scenes" up
the ring at the 18 minute mark, in the book is says that it was titanium and was chosen for its harness to symbolize the love they had... so it would stand up to the door pressure.
This is one of my all time favorites. The Director's Cut is the best. Mary Elizabeth quit acting to raise her kids. She's been back in a few things. She played the main guys mom in Grimm. The making of documentary is almost as intense as the movie itself.
It was awesome in a movie theater. I was 20 when this flick came out, and 1989 was known for having three more underwater flicks that came out, but they were creature features: DEEPSTAR SIX and LEVIATHAN were big screen movies, and THE RIFT was a low-budget one debuting on cable. The more current underwater monster movie, UNDERWATER (2020), feels like a homage to those flicks. The deepsea suits in it reminded me of the ones in LEVIATHAN.
Yeah, underwater stuff freaks me out. I used to have nightmares about either drowning or being menaced by monsters under the water. Thankfully, they don't plague me as much in middle age.
The Abyss... While it had fantastic critic reviews and made close to, but not quite, double it's budget... it's still considered James Cameron's most under-performing film. Cameron is Hollywood's golden boy. Almost every movie he makes exceeds everyone's expectations at the box office, except perhaps Cameron himself. He very rarely has an unsuccessful film and the Abyss wasn't one either... it just didn't break records like many of his other movies and is usually thought of least when thinking of James Cameron's big movies. So what happened with The Abyss? Several factors... The main one is the fact it was released on Summer 1989, the most packed movie summer in history!!! 1989 was one of the biggest movie years in history. When I say "biggest", I don't necessarily mean "best". I think it's _one_ of the best, but not _the_ best (my choice for _the_ best movie year is 1984). But 1989 had *so many* notable releases and when summer of that year hit so many were jammed into that season that it's become the biggest summer every for *quantity* of notable releases. Look at this list of movies... All these movies were released May 1 - August 31, 1989: The Abyss Tim Burton's Batman Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Ghostbusters II Lethal Weapon II Star Trek V: The Final Frontier The Karate Kid, Part III License To Kill (James Bond XVI) Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Dead Poets Society Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing Great Balls Of Fire Roadhouse Casualties Of War When Harry Met Sally Parenthood Uncle Buck UHF Hear No Evil, See No Evil Turner & Hooch Weekend At Bernies Millenium A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child* Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan* (*The slasher film trifecta was fully represented that year...The "Halloween" franchise also had a release with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, but that wasn't released until October, naturally). Is that not a HUGE list? Of course some of these movies are weak, or even the weakest entries of their given franchise...but they still represented a release from franchises that were iconic. And a few of those movies are arguably the best entries of their given franchises. Then there are the stand alone movies. Movies that were either huge hits right from release or over time have become cult hits (to greater and lesser degrees) and have also become iconic in popular culture in general or at least in niche fandoms. The Abyss was thrown into all that. It also exacerbated the other factors contributing to it not being a hit: James Cameron wasn't really _James Cameron_ yet. He wasn't on the same recognition level as Steven Speilberg anr George Lucas yet. Everybody knew The Terminator and Aliens, but only more avid film buffs were familiar with the director's name... when T2: Judgement Day came out, that's when that started to change. Another thing is we already had 2 other under water movies that year: Deepstar Six had come out in January and Leviathan had come out in March. Neither were great, Deepstar Six being pretty much panned by most critics and Leviathan had more middling reviews, although over time people have come to elevate it from being thought of as a "mediocre at best" movie to a "pretty good" movie. So fatigue of under water movies could have set in with audiences, even though The Abyss was clearly better than the others, it came out last. It also came out towards the end of summer, in August. There were still some other big movies that came out that month, but the biggest had already come out. It was the summer of Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters and above all else it was the summer of *Batman!* The hype for that movie alone over shadowed everything! It was all anyone was talking about months before it was released. The Abyss got a little bit lost in the shuffle, I think. Any other year, I think it would have been a bigger and more memorable hit. Thanks to anyone and everyone who read all this! Best Regards!!!
The toilet Bud dropped the ring in was a chemical toilet. The blue chemicals dyed his hand blue so everyone knew exactly how he got a blue hand and, given that Lindsey was present, they probably knew exactly what he threw in and retrieved, which is why no one said anything about it. There was a novelization written from the original script (by Orson Scott Card) that goes into a lot of detail on all kinds of small things like his blue hand and big things, like the aliens waking up Jammer from the coma and bringing Lindsay back.
There's a behind the scenes doc on You Tube about the making of this, it was BAD, to make, to the point some of the actors and crew still have nightmares about it, well sworth a watch on your own time.
Such a terrific movie...I am so glad you guys are watching this. Julien, the most likely sources of fire on a nuclear sub are either electrical/insulation or flammable lubricants/hydraulic fluids...but fires are most definitely a huge issue. 4:05 I forget the exact depth involved, but the sub was too deep for there to be much hope of survivors. The SEALs and other Navy folks knew there was little hope, but they had to send the SEALs down to do their other work anyway, so they let the folks from the drilling rig think there was a chance. You obviously found out why they have the nuke later, but even before you know that, once they are actually taking a warhead from the sub there is no other place to bring it but inside the rig. Also, there is essentially zero chance of that warhead going off by accident...even if the explosives were to explode by accident, unless they were triggered with the millisecond timing of the actual detonator, all that would happen is that the radioactive materials would be spread around a bit. As you will see...there are things much more dangerous to their lives than that nuke really is. Nice one...Julien...you got him. LOL
That fluid breathig stuff is absolutely real. It's a hydrocarbon mix that waas being tested in the early 80s. It is unclear whether or how much it has been implemented. It kind of . . . just was forgotten. Hah!
Minute 29:11 that is exactly an implosion, there has been so much talk about implosion in recent months due to the issue of submarines, that is the best example of what happened to them. That scene is very well recreated.
The diving gear became a commercial product allegedly, after the movie was done shooting and revolutionized the diving industry since nothing like it was available at the time. This according to the "under pressure" documentary on the director's cut DVD edition.
From whatever rumors or whatever, Mastrantonio didn't get hired for a lot more movies because she refused the casting couch I hope - Julien - is right.
Not only was it a pain to film, it was traumatic with conditions that were literally unsafe . James Cameron himself almost drowned and Ed Harris refuses to even discuss the film.
The obvious sequel: SON OF ABYSS! There was a storm happening when my girlfriend and I went to see this. Lightning hit the building and power was gone Right at the moment when Bud touched down at the bomb. They gave us free tickets. I had to sit through the First Two hours jus to see Aliens? It was good.
I posted recently that I had some emergency home repair that I had to deal with the last couple of days, this has delayed the B5 reactions. I hope to have the new one up this week.
Not just Johnny Ringo, but also Kyle Reece in Terminator. In the extrnded cit it is determined that they are aliens and they threatened humanity with massive tidal waves that would destroy the land if humanity didnt change. Yes Cameron did Terminator.
"Why haven't there been more franchises off of this story?" Well, if you haven't seen SeaQuest DSV... not in the same universe as The Abyss, but a scifi TV show very much in the same style. "In 2018, while men practically exhausted all the natural resources of the earth, colonies were established at the bottom of the oceans. These colonies being an object of lust on the part of several nations, a hyper-sophisticated submarine, commanded by Nathan Bridger, is responsible for protecting them."
IMO great performances by an amazing cast elevate what is a very generic and silly story. 1) In the '80s if military personnel showed up in TV or film you knew they were going to be the baddies. 2) In the '80s if there is a separated couple in TV or film they'll be reconciled by the end. 3) In the '80s if there is a corporation in a movie they're doing something shifty.
Heck yeah! And you guys made me remember I just bought this book which is one of those rare books made after the movie and it is written by Orson Scott card, I'll start it after video 😊📖 🌊
@@RKnights I cannot recommend the Orson Scott Card novelization more highly...there is so much going on with the aliens that the book get fully into that the movie cannot show. Of course, Card is the author of Ender's Game, and so is a masterful author in his own right. The only better sci fi book made from a film that I can think of is the Arthur C Clarke novelization of 2001 A Space Odyssey.
@@jenniferdarling6 It is a terrific story...though in that case, the movie is not nearly as good as the book, nor is the Ender's Game movie anywhere close to as good as this movie.😁
This is one of my favorite films and made Ed Harris my favorite Actors. If you want to see a interesting take on sci-fi series give SeaQuest DSV starring Roy Scheider a try not the standard cookie cutter space opera.
The reason it wasn’t more franchises off The Abyss is because it failed at the box office at the time, I can’t believe geeks would let this movie Flop unless there was Ulterior Motive in play.
Well, if the ring had not caught the door. It would have cut his fingers off and allowed him to die quickly instead of drowning over minutes. You bleed faster in water, as water pressure literal squeezes the blood out of you.
The crazed military man by this time had become a hackneyed trope by this point and took away from movie a lot. Other than that pretty good movie. "Sphere" might be a good watch as well.
My least favorite James Cameron Film. A Good Film but to me disjointed & the editing was off & takes too long to get going. But the love between the 2 main characters is Great !!! Always Enjoy Your Reactions !!!
I'm 51 years old, I remember that Russian thing... Thanks to Putin we are back to those days, exactly as they were. And thanks to many more we are back in the 60s, it seems. I'm glad you reacted to this movie, it's wildly underrated and the fact that it was done is just amazing. It was a torture for all the crew and cast, and James Cameron almost drowned, he directed the entire film underwater himself. And it has the first photorealistic CGI generated "character", the "water face". Not many are reviewing this movie, thanks for sharing this!
Just started to watch this reaction, but am disappointed to read in the comments that this is not the full version, sounds like they might be missing some of the best parts of the story
The biggest problem with this movie is that it is too long. People can sit for an hour and 45 minutes but when you go over two hours, it is not so easy to go without a break.😊
"A pain to film"? Let's talk again after you have seen the 5 hour version of 'Das Boot' (1985), not the theatrical release from 1981. There were no more, because the director's cut explained a lot more and made things more clear. Spoilers While the nuke was active, the aquatic beings created massive tsunamis all around the world. They would have wiped out all coastal cities. After he disarmed the nuke, the tsunamis vanished.
The director's cut is worth a watch. There's a whole subplot about the US and Russia on the verge of nuclear war that was cut. Also cut was something bigger than the underwater city coming to the surface, but I won't spoil it 😮
Michael Biehn is the ultimate "Hey, it's that guy!" guy in Hollywood
A B-Lister that almost became A-List if he didn't get blacklisted Crispin Glover style.
@@WreckingWoodWhy did he get blacklisted?
Such an underrated film. An absolute masterpiece!!
I agree 100%
It's underrated now, like a lot of older movies, but when it came out it was a big deal.
Love this film, so underrated. A lot was cut, the finale is at least 30 minutes longer in the Director's cut and completely changes how you look at the 'aliens'.
When we first started watching this it was labeled as the directors cut. I guess we were lied to
@@RKnights That's interesting...the theatrical cut is 145 minutes whereas the directors/special edition is 171 minutes.
Trying to avoid spoilers by staying ambiguous but the directors cut has a scene involving a tsunami
For the crazy military guy, wasn’t it hinted he was suffering from high-pressure nervous syndrome caused by the decent to the rig, and he hid the symptoms until he was too far gone. So while he seemed like a cliche, there was a reason behind it, and added tension as you knew he was going to become more and more unstable than he already was.
The making of this film is legend with many cast members refusing to ever discuss it. Two other schlock underwater flicks came out the same year: “Leviathan,” and “Deepstar Six.” I remember that this was the same year that Enya’s “Watermark” came out. Everything was maritime themed in ‘89.
This came out prior to T2. It was the CGI water tentacle that led to the T-1000 effects.
The resuscitation scene is iconic. It’s been parodied numerous times over the years.
Guess you should do “Das Boot,” and “Crimson Tide.” This movie reminds me a lot of “SeaQuest DSV.”
That makes sense
MEM’s next big movie was _Perfect Storm,_ another sea story, and her contract specified that she would not get wet at any time making that movie.
This is actually one of the most innovative and revolutionary films in Hollywood history, the water tentacle scene, represents a quantum leap in CGI and what made the liquid metal terminator in T2 possible. There's also the whole shooting underwater aspect, and the insane logistics and incredible sets, highly recommend watching the making of documentary, this is one of the most infamous movie productions and filled with crazy stories, with a number of close calls!
Well, it wasn't the director's cut. :( If you ever re-watch the movie, watch the director's cut and you might like the ending more. There is a big plot change and it makes things more realistic. Like aliens' response to human aggression. And potential war was stopped, never to happen again.
5:22 - my response to her would be: "Well, there are possibly people alive down there. Would you like to call and tell their families that no rescue is possibly because you are possessive about the rig?"
That would be the correct response
30:30 - one kid was underwater in ice lake for 40 minutes and was resuscitated and recovered. There is a saying about frozen people among the doctors: "a patient is not dead, until he is warm and dead."
@@miller-joel I think he is referring to John Smith, from the St. Louis, Missouri area, who drowned in Lake St. Louise and was underwater for 30+ minutes (he was dead for over an hour). After the doctors had given up, his mother prayed for him and he came back to life. He was in the hospital for two weeks and made a virtually complete recovery. No brain injury at all. His story is told in the book, Breakthrough and the movie of the same name. He just got married recently, by the way. 🙂
@@miller-joel That kid fully recovered and was discharged from the hospital in 16 days. His name is John Smith. Look it up.
@@miller-joel I know it's bad. That's why John Smith's doctors say that what happened with him is a miracle. No seizures, no lung infections, no heart damage, no neurological damage. He walked out of the hospital and eventually returned to playing on his school's basketball team.
BTW, the movie doesn't do it justice. The book goes into much greater detail about all the things he went through and had to overcome. You should read it.
@@miller-joel I'm not talking about what's likely. I'm talking about what's possible. You can walk out of the hospital after not breathing for 40 minutes.
@@miller-joel I was going by memory. It's been a while. Anyway, is it normal for a 14 year old who drowns in 40 degree lakewater filled with animal feces and other debris to not have a lung infection? Not suffer heart problems or neurological problems or other issues? Can parents count on his outcome should their children suffer the same fate? Frankly, I highly doubt it and I'm going to guess you would feel the same.
5:40 It truly was. What you may not be noticing is how powerful the soundtrack was at the volume of a loud movie theater. The entire thing was very intense, audio and video!
The filming nightmare of this movie is legendary. From Ed Harris punching James Cameron, to Michael Biehn almost dying, to Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio refusing to talk about the movie, EVER.
The oxygenated liquid breathing medium is a thing, it can provide you with enough oxygen to survive. The only problem is that it can't remove enough carbon dioxide fast enough so you eventually die from CO2 poisoning
Its so creepy
I was a teenager when this movie came out, but I had read about the oxygen liquid method in some science media of the time It seems that it's promising but you are right about that specific problem, it seems they are still struggling with it. Incredible how time has flown!
@@cesarvidelac same and same
The rat breathing the liquid was real. They had the real fluid invented by the guy at Duke.
Also, the liquid dissolves the protective mucus layer inside your lungs, so after "breathing" the liquid you need a preventative course of penicillin to prevent massive infection of the lungs.
Not the most viable of technologies perhaps... ;)
You maybe are not aware but there is a documentary here on UA-cam about this movie making, just search for it, you'll see that this movie was probably the hardest to make at least in the last 3 decades that passed. That was a killer for both the studios and James Cameron himself to continue this as a franchise. Maybe they can continue it with current technologies, I hope it can revive sonehiw. You are right, this movie is very "realistic" and in many levels very intelectual for its time. Some years before, Unidentified Submarine Objects started the speculation about water dwelling aliens populating our oceans, but there's also the idea that they are not aliens at all, but evolved here and developed intelligence and technologies millenia before us. Even Christopher Columbus wrote about strange lights underwater on his way to discover America so this film is hardcore science fiction indeed. Thanks guys, this movie deserve more consideration from reviewers like you!
29:09 - Just to nitpick, the water coming through that break in the glass at _that_ depth would straight up cut him in half...
James Cameron is one of only three people to dive to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, the deepest spot in the ocean. The Trieste went down to 35,814 feet, which is the record from 1960. Cameron's DeepSea Challenger only made it to 35,787 feet, 27 feet less (35,756 feet, as measured by him at the bottom). But that's still the utter bottom of the seas. And he made the round trip in two and a half hours.
He made the movie Titanic specifically so he could afford to dive down to that ship. He did an accompanying documentary about the dive. The man is just gaga for the sea.
Early visions of Pandora here. The water effects in this movie were also groundbreaking for their time, the surface ripples were a huge leap in digital special effects.
I was a little kid when I saw this in the theater. It's still one of my favorite movies!
This movie is incredibly good. Its sad that a lot of people dont know it exist
Cameron came up with the basics of this story as a teenager.
Cameron's brother invented the full face scuba helmets for the film. Without them the actors couldn't act, couldn't even say lines of dialog. 😮
Wow that is awesome. I wonder if people still use these today
@@RKnights for research underwater Im sure, when you breathe with those helmets, the bubbles makes a ts-ts-ts sound that gets picked up very clearly on microphone!look it up on the documentary!must have been long hourse for the editor to cut those sounds out!
One of my favorite sci-si films, & it's an underground cult classic. It didn't have a big A list action actor but the the cast was well known. Heck, Ed Harris had some huge hits between "The Right Stuff" (y'all gotta watch!), "Apollo 13" then "Enemy at the Gates" (a must watch for the Knights!) later...& Michael Biehn had "Aliens", "Navy Seals", "Terminator" ( also "The Rock" with Harris) & then "Tombstone"
Yes they need to watch "The Right Stuff", "Apollo 13" and "Tombstone" please.
9:16 - that rat really breathed that liquid, it's not special effects. Liquid breathing works for a short time and it's yet to be perfected.
It took them a lot of takes though since the rat kept throwing up, which bisted up the liquid so they couldn't film it... As much as I like the scene, I'm glad there's no way we'd ever get another one since it's animal torture.
Are you afraid of the water yet!! The artistry of advanced giant diatoms/zooplankton is still ahead of its time.
There is no way I can do what these guys are doing
@@RKnights The actors I hear refused a sequel because they nearly died making the original movie ;-(
17:49 - It’s not mentioned in the film, but in the novelization, the ring Bud wears was designed by Lindsay and was made of Titanium. She hade it made of Titanium because she knew that he’d be working on oil rigs, which often would have likely dent or damaged any other metal that comes from that kind of work. So, if it hadn’t been for Lindsay and her choices, Bud could have died at that moment.
i think it's a paradox that what's fascinating about the movie it-self these days is the documentary about how tis was made and what it took just to get the "scenes" up
the ring at the 18 minute mark, in the book is says that it was titanium and was chosen for its harness to symbolize the love they had... so it would stand up to the door pressure.
This is one of my all time favorites. The Director's Cut is the best. Mary Elizabeth quit acting to raise her kids. She's been back in a few things. She played the main guys mom in Grimm. The making of documentary is almost as intense as the movie itself.
It was awesome in a movie theater. I was 20 when this flick came out, and 1989 was known for having three more underwater flicks that came out, but they were creature features: DEEPSTAR SIX and LEVIATHAN were big screen movies, and THE RIFT was a low-budget one debuting on cable. The more current underwater monster movie, UNDERWATER (2020), feels like a homage to those flicks. The deepsea suits in it reminded me of the ones in LEVIATHAN.
Yeah, underwater stuff freaks me out. I used to have nightmares about either drowning or being menaced by monsters under the water. Thankfully, they don't plague me as much in middle age.
Deepstar Six and Leviathan are both better movies IMO.
The Abyss...
While it had fantastic critic reviews and made close to, but not quite, double it's budget... it's still considered James Cameron's most under-performing film.
Cameron is Hollywood's golden boy. Almost every movie he makes exceeds everyone's expectations at the box office, except perhaps Cameron himself.
He very rarely has an unsuccessful film and the Abyss wasn't one either... it just didn't break records like many of his other movies and is usually thought of least when thinking of James Cameron's big movies.
So what happened with The Abyss?
Several factors...
The main one is the fact it was released on Summer 1989, the most packed movie summer in history!!!
1989 was one of the biggest movie years in history. When I say "biggest", I don't necessarily mean "best". I think it's _one_ of the best, but not _the_ best (my choice for _the_ best movie year is 1984).
But 1989 had *so many* notable releases and when summer of that year hit so many were jammed into that season that it's become the biggest summer every for *quantity* of notable releases.
Look at this list of movies...
All these movies were released May 1 - August 31, 1989:
The Abyss
Tim Burton's Batman
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Ghostbusters II
Lethal Weapon II
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The Karate Kid, Part III
License To Kill (James Bond XVI)
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
Dead Poets Society
Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing
Great Balls Of Fire
Roadhouse
Casualties Of War
When Harry Met Sally
Parenthood
Uncle Buck
UHF
Hear No Evil, See No Evil
Turner & Hooch
Weekend At Bernies
Millenium
A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child*
Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan*
(*The slasher film trifecta was fully represented that year...The "Halloween" franchise also had a release with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, but that wasn't released until October, naturally).
Is that not a HUGE list?
Of course some of these movies are weak, or even the weakest entries of their given franchise...but they still represented a release from franchises that were iconic.
And a few of those movies are arguably the best entries of their given franchises.
Then there are the stand alone movies. Movies that were either huge hits right from release or over time have become cult hits (to greater and lesser degrees) and have also become iconic in popular culture in general or at least in niche fandoms.
The Abyss was thrown into all that. It also exacerbated the other factors contributing to it not being a hit:
James Cameron wasn't really _James Cameron_ yet. He wasn't on the same recognition level as Steven Speilberg anr George Lucas yet.
Everybody knew The Terminator and Aliens, but only more avid film buffs were familiar with the director's name... when T2: Judgement Day came out, that's when that started to change.
Another thing is we already had 2 other under water movies that year:
Deepstar Six had come out in January and Leviathan had come out in March. Neither were great, Deepstar Six being pretty much panned by most critics and Leviathan had more middling reviews, although over time people have come to elevate it from being thought of as a "mediocre at best" movie to a "pretty good" movie.
So fatigue of under water movies could have set in with audiences, even though The Abyss was clearly better than the others, it came out last.
It also came out towards the end of summer, in August. There were still some other big movies that came out that month, but the biggest had already come out.
It was the summer of Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters and above all else it was the summer of *Batman!* The hype for that movie alone over shadowed everything! It was all anyone was talking about months before it was released.
The Abyss got a little bit lost in the shuffle, I think. Any other year, I think it would have been a bigger and more memorable hit.
Thanks to anyone and everyone who read all this!
Best Regards!!!
The toilet Bud dropped the ring in was a chemical toilet. The blue chemicals dyed his hand blue so everyone knew exactly how he got a blue hand and, given that Lindsey was present, they probably knew exactly what he threw in and retrieved, which is why no one said anything about it. There was a novelization written from the original script (by Orson Scott Card) that goes into a lot of detail on all kinds of small things like his blue hand and big things, like the aliens waking up Jammer from the coma and bringing Lindsay back.
All of your "I want to know more" questions are answered by the SPECIAL EDITION.
There's a behind the scenes doc on You Tube about the making of this, it was BAD, to make, to the point some of the actors and crew still have nightmares about it, well sworth a watch on your own time.
It had to be a nightmare to film
Cameron almost died during the filming 😮
Such a terrific movie...I am so glad you guys are watching this.
Julien, the most likely sources of fire on a nuclear sub are either electrical/insulation or flammable lubricants/hydraulic fluids...but fires are most definitely a huge issue. 4:05
I forget the exact depth involved, but the sub was too deep for there to be much hope of survivors. The SEALs and other Navy folks knew there was little hope, but they had to send the SEALs down to do their other work anyway, so they let the folks from the drilling rig think there was a chance.
You obviously found out why they have the nuke later, but even before you know that, once they are actually taking a warhead from the sub there is no other place to bring it but inside the rig. Also, there is essentially zero chance of that warhead going off by accident...even if the explosives were to explode by accident, unless they were triggered with the millisecond timing of the actual detonator, all that would happen is that the radioactive materials would be spread around a bit. As you will see...there are things much more dangerous to their lives than that nuke really is.
Nice one...Julien...you got him. LOL
This was the first James Cameron movie I ever watched. Great film.
That fluid breathig stuff is absolutely real. It's a hydrocarbon mix that waas being tested in the early 80s. It is unclear whether or how much it has been implemented. It kind of . . . just was forgotten. Hah!
Yes please watch "The Right Stuff", "Apollo 13" and "Tombstone" please.
Minute 29:11 that is exactly an implosion, there has been so much talk about implosion in recent months due to the issue of submarines, that is the best example of what happened to them. That scene is very well recreated.
The diving suits and helmets were developed for this film and were used by the crew, as well as the actors. This included Cameron himself.
The diving gear became a commercial product allegedly, after the movie was done shooting and revolutionized the diving industry since nothing like it was available at the time. This according to the "under pressure" documentary on the director's cut DVD edition.
From whatever rumors or whatever, Mastrantonio didn't get hired for a lot more movies because she refused the casting couch
I hope - Julien - is right.
The Abyss escape room sounds amazing!
He also developed new cameras for filming.
I was lucky to meet her with the extended DVD
Mary Elisabeth is in Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves.
Not only was it a pain to film, it was traumatic with conditions that were literally unsafe . James Cameron himself almost drowned and Ed Harris refuses to even discuss the film.
That rat was actually 4 rats if I recall correctly. All good.
32:11 - I would put the wires next to each other and try to see if one is darker in shade. Then just guess 50/50 :)
The obvious sequel: SON OF ABYSS!
There was a storm happening when my girlfriend and I went to see this. Lightning hit the building and power was gone Right at the moment when Bud touched down at the bomb.
They gave us free tickets.
I had to sit through the First Two hours jus to see Aliens? It was good.
Mostly filmed in an unfinished Nuclear Reactor tank in South Carolina.
also I primarily came to complain about the lack of B5 videos :) come on ! lads
I posted recently that I had some emergency home repair that I had to deal with the last couple of days, this has delayed the B5 reactions. I hope to have the new one up this week.
@@RKnights Oh dang. I hope it all wasn't too serious. My apologies :) family and household always first
@Dee Dd it's ok, I'm still getting things worked on. Hope to have the repairs fixed soon. But, I should have that episode this week
Not just Johnny Ringo, but also Kyle Reece in Terminator. In the extrnded cit it is determined that they are aliens and they threatened humanity with massive tidal waves that would destroy the land if humanity didnt change. Yes Cameron did Terminator.
Amazing visuals for its time, and a great story, too.
One of the weirdest scifi movies you will ever see is called Naked Lunch, starring Peter Weller, 1991😊
One of my favorites
The Abyss is one of my 2 favorite underwater movies, the other one is The Poseidon Adventure (1972).
"Why haven't there been more franchises off of this story?"
Well, if you haven't seen SeaQuest DSV... not in the same universe as The Abyss, but a scifi TV show very much in the same style.
"In 2018, while men practically exhausted all the natural resources of the earth, colonies were established at the bottom of the oceans. These colonies being an object of lust on the part of several nations, a hyper-sophisticated submarine, commanded by Nathan Bridger, is responsible for protecting them."
IMO great performances by an amazing cast elevate what is a very generic and silly story. 1) In the '80s if military personnel showed up in TV or film you knew they were going to be the baddies. 2) In the '80s if there is a separated couple in TV or film they'll be reconciled by the end. 3) In the '80s if there is a corporation in a movie they're doing something shifty.
And any recovery divers can tell you that when you recover a human being from the depths you are never going to forget
Heck yeah! And you guys made me remember I just bought this book which is one of those rare books made after the movie and it is written by Orson Scott card, I'll start it after video 😊📖 🌊
Hope you enjoy the book :-)
It gives a better understanding of the main characters and the aliens. OSC wrote a really good book tie-in.
@@RKnights I cannot recommend the Orson Scott Card novelization more highly...there is so much going on with the aliens that the book get fully into that the movie cannot show. Of course, Card is the author of Ender's Game, and so is a masterful author in his own right. The only better sci fi book made from a film that I can think of is the Arthur C Clarke novelization of 2001 A Space Odyssey.
@@iKvetch558 Enders Game remains to this day the only story to trick me, I was shocked I didn't guess ( or been spoiled lol )
@@jenniferdarling6 It is a terrific story...though in that case, the movie is not nearly as good as the book, nor is the Ender's Game movie anywhere close to as good as this movie.😁
So glad I found your channel.
The reason that there it wasn't a franchise was that the movie bombed in the theaters.
So sad, I love this movie
Real oxygenated fluorocarbon fluid was used in the rat fluid breathing scene.
You should watch the making-of for this movie, it's almost as good as the movie itself
We will :-)
Another movie that I really enjoy. Good job
This is one of my favorite films and made Ed Harris my favorite Actors. If you want to see a interesting take on sci-fi series give SeaQuest DSV starring Roy Scheider a try not the standard cookie cutter space opera.
Now watch the extended version
The reason it wasn’t more franchises off The Abyss is because it failed at the box office at the time, I can’t believe geeks would let this movie Flop unless there was Ulterior Motive in play.
Well, if the ring had not caught the door. It would have cut his fingers off and allowed him to die quickly instead of drowning over minutes.
You bleed faster in water, as water pressure literal squeezes the blood out of you.
The crazed military man by this time had become a hackneyed trope by this point and took away from movie a lot. Other than that pretty good movie. "Sphere" might be a good watch as well.
If you ever get a chance watch the making there's a whole documentary on it..
You never went back to Generation Kill tho :I
The Sphere is next?
No... I don't want James Camron doing anything else until he gives us an Alita: Battle Angel sequel... no reboots... no blue aliens... just Alita
I am yet to see Alita
@@RKnights WE HAVE THE REACT TO THAT THEN.
My least favorite James Cameron Film. A Good Film but to me disjointed & the editing was off & takes too long to get going. But the love between the 2 main characters is Great !!! Always Enjoy Your Reactions !!!
Fair enough!
I'm 51 years old, I remember that Russian thing... Thanks to Putin we are back to those days, exactly as they were. And thanks to many more we are back in the 60s, it seems. I'm glad you reacted to this movie, it's wildly underrated and the fact that it was done is just amazing. It was a torture for all the crew and cast, and James Cameron almost drowned, he directed the entire film underwater himself. And it has the first photorealistic CGI generated "character", the "water face". Not many are reviewing this movie, thanks for sharing this!
Thanks for spending time with us :-)
@@RKnights I wish I was a millionaire, this is time very well spent but I wish I could spend some money here too. Great work guys! 🤗
Were back to the 1930s / 40s thanks to the Ukrainian National Socialists.
.
Not just Putin, China and Biden too. It is a trifecta of evil, plus one incompetent.
Please, let it be director's cut!
No, it wasn't.
@@ScarlettM Jim Cameron has final cut of all his films so both Special Edition and the Theatrical Release are Director's Cuts.
.........⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️..........
The directors cut is way better - same with Aliens. It completely changes the tone of the movie.
Just started to watch this reaction, but am disappointed to read in the comments that this is not the full version, sounds like they might be missing some of the best parts of the story
Great stuff, but it was so demanding it’s been nicknamed by cast members as “The Abuse”
The biggest problem with this movie is that it is too long. People can sit for an hour and 45 minutes but when you go over two hours, it is not so easy to go without a break.😊
"A pain to film"?
Let's talk again after you have seen the 5 hour version of 'Das Boot' (1985), not the theatrical release from 1981.
There were no more, because the director's cut explained a lot more and made things more clear.
Spoilers
While the nuke was active, the aquatic beings created massive tsunamis all around the world. They would have wiped out all coastal cities. After he disarmed the nuke, the tsunamis vanished.
The film Leviathan was better. It was like The Abyss meets The Thing.
Ive never heard of this film. We may react to this.
Didn’t care for Leviathan or Deep Star Six, the two competing deep sea films that year.
Have you not The Terminator?
You don't know "Reece"???
26:45 - please consider using something else as a "scene break". It's jarring and startling and loud static is not very pleasant noise.
I like that scene break