Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

One thing I don’t want to do is simply regurgitate all my research verbatim and essentially rewrite the Wikipedia page or the IMDb page associated with this movie.

Additionally, this movie has been around for a while so people know about it.

So I guess I’ll direct this toward the five people on the planet who don’t know about this film. But maybe you’ve not heard of the Special Edition release. It’s actually a very different movie.

It’s easy to watch this and take for granted how difficult it was to film. At face value it’s just a fun sci-fi movie with some deep (no pun intended) lessons. In reality however, the technical hurdles, massive water tanks with submerged sets, and long grueling hours actors and crew spent underwater, made The Abyss not just an amazing achievement, but one that has gone down in infamy.

If you watch this or have already seen it, I recommend seeing any documentary you can find on the making of The Abyss. It is a story just as interesting if not more so than the actual film. At the very least read the production notes on the Wikipedia page. Also, send Wikipedia a few bucks now and then. They’re quite useful.

Not only was the filming a difficult process, Director James Cameron faced much criticism and nitpicking from producers who were concerned about the film’s original length. At the time, a film almost three hours long was uncommon. Deadlines were also drawing near. Certain CGI shots were not being produced fast enough and some of it was dissatisfactory to Cameron’s vision.

All this culminated in the release of The Abyss Special Edition on Laserdisc in 1993, and actually affordable formats in 1996 and 2000.

The Special Edition did not just cram some crappy deleted scenes into the original film for a quick cash grab. Cameron’s success with Terminator 2: Judgement Day inspired the studio (gnomes) to drop a huge bag of money on his desk to let him make the movie he originally intended. And you thought Zach Snyder was the first to have that opportunity!

In the meantime, technology had caught up with what Cameron hoped to achieve and so new  effects shots were created and finished this time. A half hour of footage was added, making this a two-hour and 50 minute film.

While the messages the film was trying to convey were more subtle in the theatrical version, The Abyss Special Edition raises the stakes with its extra footage. Or, more accurately, it blatantly shows the audience what the stakes have always been, no subtlety about it. While subtlety is often more preferred with a lesson or moral (lest the audience feel preached to) in this case I feel its blatant warning is earned due to transpirations leading up to this new climax. The subtlety is replaced with something spectacular!

Cameron once defended his theatrical cut. But given the chance to make the Special Edition, he jumped at it. And considering how difficult this film was to make in the first place, any further effort to see this project through to its true realization is likely appreciated by all parties involved. Even if this film is not your usual cup of tea, it is a marvel to behold when you know what they went through to make this.