Fighting to revive Lindsey is still one of the most intense scenes in cinema for me. Heart wrenching decision, heartbreaking death, heart warming determination that saves her. All in a few minutes. The acting is phenomenal
Per the behind the scenes documentary, this scene almost broke her. If was intense and painful. Cameron was apparently awful this movie. She had to walk off set for a while.
Ed Harris still won't talk about the movie, because he almost drowned and felt ashamed that he got scared or something. It was deeply traumatizing to film for almost everyone. Crew and cast during the shoot wore t-shirts with the inscription "The Abuse".
Lol, at the end, I saw Bud in the suit and I thought Wow, he looks just like John Glenn. Then later on, I saw him in The Right Stuff and he played ... John Glenn.
I'm pretty sure that's why Ed Harris got to be the hardass admiral in that section of Top Gun: Maverick that was very obviously The Right Stuff-inspired, too.
not only is the liquid oxygen real, but that rat was actually put into it and breathing it for real for that shot. Cameron got some shit for doing that.
Considering the reasons for why we have the term "Lab rats" I'm a little surprized by this fact, not that I advocate animal cruelty, it just strikes me as odd.
@@andbrittain We all know where meat comes from, but that doesn't mean most people want to watch the animal be killed and processed. Most people also feel differently about something being done for a beneficial purpose and something that's solely being done for entertainment.
"So raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water-tentacle" is the sentence I thought I'd never hear. 😂😂😂 LOVED this watchalong with you both. I hope yer patreon members vote for Hunt for Red October for you to watch some time. That would be a fantastic watch.
I wonder if The Abyss was released in the late 1970s if it wouldve done better. People mightve been starving to see a troubled couple like this find a way back together
This is my favorite performance by Ed Harris. The “Nooo!!” yell when Lindsay drown always gets me. Then his refusal to give up on her at the rig, trying to revive her was absolutely convincing.
This movie is amazing and is probably Cameron’s masterpiece. It was also the most difficult film shoot in history. Cameron actually used a decommissioned nuclear power plant’s containment vessel and filled it with something like three million gallons of water to do the underwater shots. Half the cast and crew nearly drowned on several occasions.
the first time I watched this was on VHS in my bedroom. During the night I woke up to water pouring out of my closet. I was thinking wow! What a vivid dream until I realized it was really happening. The water heater in the apartment above me broke.
The special effects on this film were unprecedented at the time. We had never seen the kind of CGI in movies like the water 'worm' and it morphing into faces. Imagine back then we were used to seeing practical and makeup effects or stop-motion miniatures, and then this shows up on screen and the entire audience has no idea what the hell they are seeing or how this was being done. It was a breakthrough moment in cinema and Cameron took it to the next level AGAIN 2 years later with the T-1000 liquid metal CGI in Terminator 2, which blew people away even more.
The liquid oxigen shit its real but not used like that, I dont know now, but back then at least, it was used as a treatment for like newborns to help develop their lungs or something like that, also a fun fact about the subject of a missing sub and the goverment hiring civilians.... Thats how they found the Titanic in 1985, Robert Ballard a civilian was hired by the gov to find the wreck of a nuclear sub, and was hired for a certain amount of time, he manage to find the submarine wreck 4 days before the deadline, and as he was close to the area where he suspected the Titanic's wreck might be, he went and looked for it... and found it.
Niiiiice... I remember being very underwhelmed as a kid watching the theatrical cut. In high school a friend said I had to see the director's cut. I was a little older and for many reasons this version clicked with me. Cameron is in Spielberg mode here and it works. It also evokes classic 50's sci Fi like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. I may love T2, ALIENS and TRUE LIES more but... I think this is his best, most mature film. I think this one is special guys.
BTW, that pink liquid thing, is actually a thing. Dont know if it's ever been tested on humans, but the rat demoed breathing it, was not practical effect. It's the real deal. It is said to be a rather thick sludge, as far as "breathing" is concerned. It is probably very tiring to use.
I don't see that anyone else has commented about it, so I will just say that the novel for the film is pretty much a must-read if you want to know what is really going on...especially if you want to really DRILL DOWN into the characters. (pun intended) As a huge bonus, it was written by one of the great writers of science fiction...Orson Scott Card...who is most famous for the Ender's Game series. For real...the more you like this movie, the more you really have to read the film...it will multiply your appreciation by an order of magnitude. Also, the big thing about being down deep and then coming back up is "the bends", which is the nickname for decompression sickness. The issue is that gasses get dissolved into the blood differently when the body is under compression...especially nitrogen...so the decompression process is needed to allow enough time for that nitrogen to work its way out of your blood while you come up from down deep. If you come up too quickly, the nitrogen forms bubbles that are incredibly painful and debilitating.
Dolphin rib cages and lungs can compress allowing them to dive deep. Good thing that all happened by random chance on the first try or no dolphins would exist today. 🙄
The big difference between the DC and the theatrical is a lot of character development (Like when they are all singing the song together in the beginning) and almost all of the alien angle. The few sighting of aliens are in the TC, but in the end it basically skips from but Bud disarming the bomb to the 'city' rising to the surface. Cuts the tidal waves, the alien's messages etc.
Ridley Scott gave us Ellen Ripley...James Cameron made her a Sci fi icon. First actor or actress to be nominated for a best actress oscar in a Sci fi movie good
Yes. Normal "hardhat" diving helmets have a much smaller faceplate. Guys that do that kind of dive work typically wear a helium based breathing apparatus like the Helinaut 500.
After seeing this version, I never went back to watch the theatrical version, it's just no where near as meaningful. The theatrical completely removes all the "teaching humanity a lesson" aspect. It's a completely different feel, still a good movie, but not as fulfilling or awe-inspiring.
Decompression crash course: - the deeper you go and the longer you stay down result in the gasses you are breathing being dissolved more and more into your blood/tissues. This is similar to shaking a sealed soda can. - the more gasses that have dissolved into your body, the longer you have to wait (decompress) before you can safely walk about on the surface again. This is similar to... well... waiting for a shaken soda can to settle (it's a little bit more complicated but I'm trying to keep it simple). - if you go up too fast, all that dissolved gas in your tissues (that was being kept dissolved by the pressure) now becomes gaseous again => becomes bubbles => you get the bends (bad). This is similar to opening a recently shaken soda. Your blood turns to foam and you die extremely painfully. Or you "only" get a stroke. There was a horrific incident on an oil rig where a decompression chamber (i.e. an area at high pressure) was suddenly decompressed back to sea level pressure and let's just say the results were not pretty for the men inside the decompression chamber. One twist: - for any given pressure there will be a time after which point you reach a "saturation" state: your body can no longer physically store any additional dissolved gas. From this point onwards your decompression time (which will most definitely be in the weeks for the depths being talked about in the movie) remains constant, regardless of how much longer you stay at that pressure. If you increase your pressure (go deeper), then more gas gets dissolved in your body & your decompression timer continues to increase.
Yeah The Byford Dolphin incident was absolutely horrible. I mean it was instant death for the guys but what it did to their bodies was so gruesome, especially the guy who was forced through a tiny opening in an instant. It's amazing that one guy survived the incident.
Great reaction guys! The cast hated making this movie. They were in serious need of therapy it was that bad. Risks were taken, people almost drowned including James Cameron himself. You guys should watch the documentary about the Byford Dolphin rig accident. It’s a good example of why deep saturation divers make so much money. It involved four divers and an explosive decompression from nine atmospheres to one in less than a second. Let’s just say, if it shows aftermath pics, I wouldn’t recommend looking unless you can handle real gore, the holy crap kind.
There is a saying in rescue teams around cold environments: You're not dead until you're warm and dead. The theory about letting Lindsey drown and bringing her back is sound, it just doesn't work that often and you don't shock a flatline.
The liquid-oxygen “dilemma”. Long before the Internet existed we would argue for hours about whether the liquid-breathing was in fact real. I just want to say to all my childhood friends: Suck it! I was right! Also… they’re working on a sequel. Bud and Lindsey have a kid. It’s gonna be called… Son Of Abyss. 😂🤪
James Cameron used what he learned from the water tentacle effect in this movie on the Liquid Metal in Terminator 2. For some good behind the scenes information watch the Critical Drinker’s Abyss Production Hell video.
Oil rig workers are called "roughnecks" Oil well fire fighters are called "hell-fighters" Tunnelers and workers who clear the foundations for bridge towers are called "sandhogs"
I watched this when it was first released, then again with a theater full of Abyss fans when the director's cut came out. For the entire movie, everyone was talking. It was like watching your favorite movie in your living room with 200 friends. My favorite moment: "Oh! That's why his hand was blue!" The rest of us: "Oh, yeah!"
Abyss is a Wonder of Water! If you two are interested in another visit in the deep blue water; suggest adding 'Sphere' - 1998 film to your future watch list.
Everything added in the Director's Cut is the corny, preachy, over-the-top "war bad!" stuff and the cuts to regular people on the shore -- the theatrical cut is actually better. It's less on-the-nose and leaves a bit more mystery to it.
I wish you guy would react to dirty Harry movies, star trek the motion picture 2022 40th anniversary awesome, id4 independence day, terminator 1 and 2,city heat, malone , smokey and the bandit,above the law nico , hard to kill , under siege, the abyss is one of my favourite James Cameron movies look who's here queen butch of the universe
What made this movie so amazing to me when it came out was there were a number of undersea 'alien' type monster films in the theaters at the same time (Leviathan being the one I remember), and the trailer for Abyss made it seem like one of those. I left the theater almost in tears of how much greater a movie I had just watched.
The drowning scene is so traumatic and panic-inducing and the resuscitation part is not much better but well done to the actors for make it so believeable.
You guys need to research Cameron more. He’s not just a director that makes movies above deep sea stuff. He’s an expert that has designed his own submersibles, and gone to the depths of the ocean many times.
This was the production from hell. Ed Harris refuses to talk about this movie in interviews, Mary Mastrantonio had a nervous breakdown and Cameron almost died.
Great reaction fellas. I remember seeing this at the movies with my best pal on release week here in England. We're both in our late 50's and still talk about how good this film is today!! Thanks for sharing. 👊🏻
Keep in mind that if they started swimming while she was still conscious, they'd be half way there before she "died". Also, if you stop CPR after less than an hour of hypothermia, it was you that killed the patient, not the cold water.
As true as that is a drowning person is unpredictable and dangerous. Doing it in a confined/controlled area eliminates the risk of her breaking free and floating away.
So, couldn’t there be more than one movie that’s a 10 out of 10, and more than one that’s a 1 out of 1 (unless you’re ranking all movies against each other)? I have many movies I would rank a 10/10 or 1/1, and I’m not saying that another movie couldn’t be better or worse-just evaluating on their own merits.
Great reaction! May I offer a recommendation if you guys are up to investing time in a TV show? Squid Game (either dubbed English or in Korean w/subtitles). Would love to see your reaction to that!
Please correct me if you have more accurate information, but as far as I know the top 200m of the ocean is known as the euphotic (sunlight) zone and it is here that photosynthesis is possible. Between 200m and 1 000m is the dysphotic (twilight) zone. There is rarely any significant sunlight penetration beyond 200m, so photosynthesis is typically impossible here, though a small number of photosynthetic plant/algal species have been recorded at depths of up to around 270m. The region below 1 000m is called the aphotic zone, where no sunlight penetrates. Given the depths this movie is set at, I have to assume that the "plants" we see are actually deep sea sponges. These are animals that come in a great variety of species with a great variety of colours, sizes, and forms. Some do look very much like plants, but they rely on filter-feeding, not photosynthesis.
The ocean actually has 5 zones for depth. The sunlight zone (epipelagic), the twilight zone (mesopelagic), the midnight zone (bathypelagic), the abyssal zone (abyssopelagic) and the hadal zone (trenches). But for the most relevant part, you are correct.
@@jamesmarciel5237 Yeah, I kept it simple below 1 000m as it wasn't really relevant to break it up into it's 3 component zones for a discussion on sunlight penetration, but thanks for the added detail and alternative terms used for each zone. What do you think of my accessment of the "plants" in the movie? Do you think they were sponges or did James Cameron screw up and put photosynthetic plants in his deep sea environment?..... Surely Cameron wouldn't make such a basic mistake, would he?
The pseudopod sequence was the birth of photoshop. A couple of the guys at ILM took a whole bunch of photos of the set and then created a computer program (became photoshop) so they could stitch them together to create the reflections on the tentacle.
There's a fair amount of technical laymen's exposition in this, unusual for a Cameron film, but it's not quite the level of Twister. Both enjoyable but if you have the slightest knowledge of either film's basis, it feels like 'mansplaining'. Glad you two chose the director's cut. If you're diving into a film - make it count. Yes, breathing Fluorocarbons has been known since I was young - probably back in the 70's.
Please react to The Mask Of Zorro (1998) The Fog(1980) Desperado (1995) A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) The Howling(1981) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) True Lies(1994) Tombstone (1993) Gladiator (2000) Memento (2000) Brawl On Cell Block 99(2017) Star Trek 2 The Wrath Of Khan(1982) Police Story(1985) Speed(1994) Escape From New York (1981) They Live!(1988) 1408(2007) Planet Of The Apes(1968) Kung Fu Panda(2008) Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
Coffee was the ONE in twenty. Dude had the bends. Phenomenal movie 🎬 🎞 🎥. Thanks for the reaction. Also, the movie with the best score ever is The Untouchables. Must see movie.
@33:55 That’s what I call “The Hammer” moment, and it’s one of my favorite moments in this movie. It’s the ultimate payoff of the earlier scene where Catfish (Leo Burmester) said “they used to call this ‘The Hammer’”. The earlier scene could have easily been a throwaway scene where someone’s just bragging about his younger days, but James Cameron brought it back around to show that “The Hammer” is still pretty powerful and useful in a pinch.
The Butterfly Effect. My wife & I watched the directors cut, twice. We loved it. We told people we like it. We were harassed. So we watched the original version. Whoa! What a bad bad movie. tldr: Director’s cut of Butterfly Effect is a good/great movie.
Wasn't not in the theatrical version of the Abyss: the movie. Yeah, the producers decided to cut the movie from ... the movie. At the time: "Technically great but it doesn't add up to much." After the extended cut: "Oh...." Also: "Isn't it just the Day the Earth Stood Still but wet?" Good artists borrow, great artists steal and Cameron gets away with being a great artist.
You lads need to watch "The Making of the Abyss" . The youtube video is "Como se Hizo Abyss - Documental (Subtitulado)". It is about an hour long. After watching the documentary you will have the greatest respect for the actors and what they went through to make the movie. Please check out the documentary.
Love how many genres they fit into this. James Cameron movies are always an EXPERIENCE. Can imagine what a pain in the a-- he might be on set, but you can tell he takes filmmaking very, very seriously.
It's extremely difficult, if not impossible to detonate a nuclear warhead by shooting it or even blowing it up. It takes a very specific chain of events to achieve fission.
34:27 Zay, shooting a nuclear warhead will not set it off. It has its own electrical trigger that has to set it off. That’s why when the Air Force lost a nuclear bomb off the U.S. eastern coast and lost another nuclear bomb of the coast of Spain, they didn’t go off. Those were dropped from bombers around 30,000 feet or so. Interesting fact: the U.S. has literally lost about 6 nuclear weapons since 1950 and NONE have been recovered. It’s also why C4 will not detonate from being shot by a bullet, despite what the movies would have you believe. I know C4 is a plastic explosive and not nuclear. Just a pet peeve of mine about all the times C4 blows up from being shot by the hero in the movies.
Watch the making of The Abyss. It's as thrilling as the movie. Maybe it's because I saw every single 80s movie in the theatre but I think Aliens and The Abyss both long cuts are James Camerons best movies. Both starring Michael Biehn playing one of the Best Good Guys and one of the Best Bad Guys ever put on film. He did the same again Best Good Guy/Best Bad guy ever in The Terminator and Tombstone. Icon! I met him twice He's was a real nice guy.
Have always loved this movie. It deserves a sequel, but I’m glad that they didn’t crank out some sh!tty crap in 18-24 months like they usually do. This is the the type of movie that wound do well with a 20, 30 year gap after release
TY guys so, so much for giving the Special Edition the consideration it deserves. And I will very much look forward to you watching the one-word-titled show Cam referenced that Zay hasn't seen yet, because it's such a wild ride.
@cam&zay the rat in the breathing fluid is real and the shot from the movies is 100% a live rat breathing the fluid, and 192 warheads that "each one" are 5x Hiroshima
Allegedly the actors refused to promote the movie afterwards because of the hardships they endured filming it with James Cameron. Several near-drownings and repeated takes getting slapped with Mary Elizabeth Mastriantonio's revival scene make that all the more understandable--- but it's still an amazing movie.
I'm a huge Abyss fan. Saw it theee times August of '89 opening weekend. Saw the special Director's Cut version you're watching in '92 in Berkeley, Ca in theatres to see Cameron's original intended vision. Went with my childhood friend and equally devoted Cameron fanatic. And we walked out with a sold out crowd onto the empty steeets absolutely hating it. The theatrical released version that was so-called compromised is perfect and the forced plot edited changes actually helped tighten the pace and narrative flow of the story. But when we all saw those tidal wave hold in place on pause effects and that that was actually his corny cliche plot pivot point the original story's themes hung on, I understood then how limitations and some studio pushback sometimes is a good thing. Whatever your reactions will be, this is a first draft version and rare case where the theatrical release is superior to to the Director's Cut. The only other film just like this experience is Apocalypse Now. Theatrical release is a perfectly calibrated edited film masterpiece of post production precision. The Redux version of added in deleted scenes was great to see all the cut footage, but all unnecessary to the final cut. Especially the momentum killing 40 minute French Plantation scene. That frozen still tital wave sub plot is The Abyss's French plantation scene. Just deadly bad and dulling to the plot and film's steeet cred. The Abyss's theatrical cut is a lean, mean bad ass industrial meat and potatoes movie with Mary Elizabeth Mastrentoneo giving a full out go for broke tour de force performance for the ages.
I think the oxygenated liquid thing is actually real, but it's too much work for the lungs to inhale and exhale effectively. They're meant for air not liquid, so its exhausting. Something along those lines. Might have perfected it by now though!
It's been already forgotten, but we have been closer to a nuclear World War III more often than most would like to know. The Cuban Missile Crises is just the most public and known. After the end of the Cold War we found several occasions were the world nearly ended. For example in one case a Russian technician managed got his superior to accept that their perfect missile detection system was defective when it detected 3 intercontinental missile launches towards the USSR. And in the movie we are moving towards another crises so I'd say these water beings did have a point when they went 'Why bother? Sooner or later they'll do it. If we wipe them out at least the ecosystem will survive as well.' If you think about it and how it went, they also set up this entire scenario so that the people on the Rig had to make a choice. The crane missing them, but dragging them down? They might also have been behind that military guy loosing it. You know, controlling water? Up to the nuke landing where it would be a one-way trip to disarm it? They probably already had it disarmed before Brigman arrived. The test was about seeing what they/he would do after all.
This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it makes me so angry that we only got the theatrical version at first, because this was his vision, and the backstory about that is that they used to have a length of script you were allowed to write in films, and if you went past that no one would even look at your script until you edited it down, because films were only supposed to be an hour and a half to two hours long at most... and so Cameron sort of messed with the margins of the script to make it so that he could fit it into the length he was required to fit it into and get the script passed. But that of ourse meant that he shot more movie than they wanted him to have, and they believed that nobody would stay inside of a theater for that long to watch a film, and so they wouldn't let him release the original version, and they made him cut out basically the entire point of the film. The theatrical version doesn't have the same message really. I mean, it kind of does, but it misses so much that it really loses a lot of the punch. It's still a great movie, but it's not the same film, and that's probably why it didn't win best picture. They basically neutered it, and thus I'm SO glad you guys watched this version, because this is the way it was supposed to be. Especially cuz these people suffered so much to make this film, & they deserve to have their full performances put on there. And of course everybody else involved should have all their work shown. Everybody in here is a fantastic character actor. Obviously Ed Harris, whose other great performances include Apollo 13 and others, Michael Biehn, whose other great performances include the Terminator, Aliens, and Tombstone, of course. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was fantastic as Maid Marian and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, among others... Everybody is great in this thing. The novelization is fantastic as well, based off the original script and gives you a couple of ideas that didn't manage to get across even in this Extended Cut, about how the aliens/undersea civilization could understand our thoughts and feelings, and how it helps to preserve people in memory, (which is an interesting concept, that if you remember somebody they never die) ... but yeah. This movie was very high concept, and really fantastically done, and it was really kind of cool that James Cameron got to come back later with another water-based film and prove that the studios were wrong, and people will definitely sit through a 3-plus hour movie just like they used to back in the day, even without an intermission, when he proved it with Titanic (and obviously he proved it again with the Avatar films, but this one was kind of really redeemed by Titanic). So that was in a way kind of his way of saying, screw you guys; look! You didn't have to neuter The Abyss! I could have had the whole movie in there and people would have sat and watched it. So yeah. There's a lot going into that.
Orson Scott Card wrote the novelization of this film (his only film adaptation) the first 3 chapters were about each main character during thier childhood years. They were so good that Ed Harris, Elizabeth Masterantonio, and Micheal Biehn used them to base their performancers off of. The Aliens were much more prevelent in his story, they have the ability to actually read minds and save memories, our being in their eyes alone is horrifying to them. But it's a few chars that change thier minds about us. The called us polluting land slugs. The special edition cut added many additional scenes with the aliens, also added to the standoff developing between the Russian and American Navies, and the escalating international response. If you can find the book I would vehemently recommend reading it. Great reaction, and keep at it fellas
The deeper you dive the more pressure water exerts on your body. The body is mostly water. The higher the pressure the more dissolved gasses water can hold. If you rise up too fast the dissolved gases will form bubbles in your blood and tissues. This is called the bends and is VERY painful and can be lethal. Decompression is simply rising slow enough to allow the dissolved gasses to diffuse out of the body without forming bubbles. This takes longer the deeper you dive. Deep divers actually breath a mixture of oxygen and helium, which makes you sound funny. This is because nitrogen at high pressure causes people to act drunk. Due to how long decompression takes the only practical way to work at deep depths is for long periods of time. This is called Saturation diving. Divers spend weeks working at depth and living in a pressurized chamber at the surface. Fun fact, the Brooklyn Bridge tower foundation was supposed to be built on bedrock but when they tried to dig down to it people kept getting sick and they didn't know why so they just stopped and one tower actually rests on sand.
Decompression is to avoid Nitrogen narcosis or the bends. The deeper you go and the length of time at that depth determines how long you have to decompress for. If you come up too fast, the nitrogen in your blood expands too quick, creating small air bubbles in your bloodstream, which can cut off blood flow and potentially kill you The only fix is a hyperbaric chamber, Putting your body back under pressure (causing the nitrogen to dissolve back into the blood) and then slowly decompress back to atmospheric pressure. Basically, if you come up too fast, it’s like opening a soda bottle. All the pressurized carbon dioxide in the soda suddenly releases and creates bubbles in the soda. So it’s that, but with nitrogen in your blood
They had to do numerous excruciating takes for the scene to revive Lindsay. In fact, Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio and James Cameron had a battle royal on the set over his perfectionism. She was twice as nasty to him as Lindsay was to the guys.
So glad to see you guys react to and appreciate this forgotten masterpiece. The concept is unique, the cast performances superb and the look of the film on point. Michael Biehn is excellent in this, truly disturbing, but his characters keep getting killed off 😞.
Can you guys possibly stop putting your faces in the middle of the screen? It's very distracting. In the corners is good enough, as much as you two yap. We're not trying to watch *you* as a movie.
