 The Abyss (1989) - Special Edition
James Cameron's undersea epic is a tale of sacrifice and hope in an amazing alien landscape that covers 2/3 of the Earth's surface. Featuring landmark visual effects but plagued by production difficulties, the cast and crew were stretched to the breaking point and The Abyss became one of the most expensive films ever made in its time, but the final result is a remarkable blend of action and human drama.
Scenes cut from the theatrical version, including a number of special effects sequences involving huge tidal waves threatening the cities of the world, are restored in the Special Edition versions.
In this thrilling, underwater action adventure, a civilian oil rig crew is recruited to conduct a search-and-rescue effort when a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks. One diver (Ed Harris) soon finds himself on a spectacular odyssey 25,000 feet below the ocean's surface where he confronts a mysterious force that has the power to change the world or destroy it. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn co-star.
After a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks in a remote part of the ocean floor, a team of divers on a prototype underwater oil rig are pressed into service by the U.S. Navy in a rescue attempt.
When a hurricane cuts off contact between the surface and the underwater depths, the crew begin to see evidence of a strange, possibly alien intelligence at work. While chief Bud Brigman bickers with his ex-wife and boss, the Navy commander begins to grow increasingly paranoid about the mysterious alien life and threatens to use a recovered nuclear weapon to destroy everything.
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 end of the movie. As chronicled in the 1993 laser disc Special Edition release and later in the 2000 DVD, the pressure to cut the film's running time primarily stemmed from two sources: distribution concerns and Industrial Light & Magic'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 it all (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, with it being most mentioned both in 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 certain running time; roughly two hours and fifteen 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 fifty minutes down to two hours and twenty 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. Shortly after the film's theatrical premiere, Cameron and video editor Ed Marsh created a longer video cut of The Abyss for their own use using dailies; it was not released. With the tremendous success of Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, Lightstorm Entertainment secured a five year, USD$500 million financing deal with 20th Century Fox for films produced, directed or written by Cameron. Within this contract, roughly $500,000 was allocated 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 computer-generated imagery tools developed for Terminator 2 allowed ILM to complete one new shot and correct flaws in their original work. New dialogue, sound effects and foley were recorded when it was discovered that original production sound recordings had been lost. Captain Kidd Brewer died before he could return to reloop his dialog, and the Special Edition was therefore dedicated to his memory. Alan Silvestri was not available to compose new music for the restored scenes.
Robert Garrett, who had composed temp music for the film's initial cutting in 1989, was chosen to create new music. The project was completed in December 1992, saw a limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles starting on February 26, 1993 and ventured to points beyond on the revival circuit. The laserdisc release was the first officially THX-certified laser disc and was a best-seller for months. Both the theatrical and SE editions remain available on DVD.
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