A topic that's 15 years late

[House of Mustard]

Okay, so the other day The Abyss was on AMC.  I had never seen it before, and I knew absolutely nothing about it, except I remember seeing commercials for it when I was a kid and knew there was some kind of alien/sentient-sea-creature type thing that looked like a snake made of water.

So anyway, I was extremely surprised to find out that the aliens have NOTHING whatsoever to do with the plot until like the last ten minutes.  It seemed like they wrote a neat Cold War paranoia action movie, and then tossed in the aliens as an afterthought to give it a moral.

In general, I thought it was a very cool movie, but the alien stuff at the end (which, once again, influenced the plot in no way whatsoever up to that point) seemed out of place and almost laughable.  I may be wrong, but wasnt this a very critically acclaimed movie?  I suppose I could look it up.

What are your opinions?

[Fellfrosch]

I've always thought of The Abyss as a good example of a goofy movie redeemed by an excellent director. The aliens are important, and the military stuff is important, and some of other stuff is important, but it doesn't really gel into a cohesive plot. In the hands of James Cameron, however, it makes a darn fine movie.

[Spriggan]

Also if you see the directors cut (wich is like an hour longer) the aliens make more sence.  also FYI Abyss was James camerons firts flop after he became a bigtime director.  It did horrable in theaters, I don't even think that it make all their money back.  Critics din't care for it much either.  Then It comes out on video and gets realy popular.

[42]

Yes, Abyss did flop at the theaters, however it went on to achieve cult status and is reknowned in the world of F/X. In fact, it is the first movie to incorporate CGI effects in the same manner as CGI effects used today. It also made breakthroughs in the realms of surface treatment and rendering of 3D models. As as side note: Tron may have used CGI earlier, but the effect and technology used was different.

Yes, the Aliens are not seen a lot in the movie, but the director's cut shows more. It is basicly, a Cold War thriller story, however, you do have to remember that the aliens start the whole thing by sinking the nuclear sub. So yes, they could replace the aliens with Russians, but it wouldn't be entirely the same story and they would lose all their cool FXs.

[Fellfrosch]

The funny thing is, the version Mustard saw WAS the director's cut. And I agree with him--it doesn't really explain anything new, and just makes the movie more lopsided. It is a nice flashback to cold war B-movies, though, where benevolent aliens save mankind from our own hatred.

[House of Mustard]

Yeah, I saw everything that was supposed to make the aliens 'make sense.'  They did make sense, I guess. It just seemed to be a cool submarine movie, after which an alien pops up and says "And the Moral of the Story is..." and then there's a big musical number.

And as far as the moral, if the aliens got the sub sunk in the first place, didn't they kind of cause the crazy guy to try to set off the nuke?  They complain about how the humans are always trying to blow themselves up, but in this instance, the aliens are the indirect cause.  Dang aliens.

[Fellfrosch]

But the aliens didn't sink the boat on purpose--my understanding is that the sub went through an alien (or alien phenomenon) and lost control. Then everyone thinks it was an attack because the aliens and the humans just don't understand each other.

[House of Mustard]

Well I'm sure it wasn't on purpose, but I still think the aliens get uppity pretty quick.  If I were the aliens, I would apologize for crashing the sub and then spread my message of peace and love.

Out of curiosity, what was in the original movie?  It seems that if the aliens didn't do their song and dance at the end, then there would be no reason at all for them to be there?  Do they just save Ed Harris?

[Spriggan]

Ya pretty much, but it doesn't show the ship rising or have much of ed in the ship.  But don't forget the water creature that was about halfway into the movie, it was there that the tone changed.

[House of Mustard]

I'm not arguing that the tone didn't change - I'm just saying that the plot wasn't affected (except fot the sinking of the sub) until the last ten minutes.  What did the aliens actually do?  They made the sub sink, they scared that one guy so he broke his oxygen tank, and they saved ed harris.  The real plot of the show was that the people were trapped underwater with a crazy guy who had a nuke.  Cut out the aliens and you still have a complete movie.

[Fellfrosch]

The original version did show the ship rising out of the water, but it didn't show quite as much of it. I think our problem is this discussion is that Mustard is trying to convince us of something we all agree with--it was a ill-formed, lopsided movie that somehow turned out to be very entertaining. They certainly could have done more with the aliens, but they didn't. Ah well.

[Spriggan]

Possible senero:
James Cameron (JC) Talking to an ILM guy: I'm makeing a cold war movie about a sunken nuclear sub, and I want you guys to do the F/X.
ILM: How does the sub sink?
JC: The captin gets drunk and crashes into a rock.
ILM:  No aliens?
JC: No.
ILM: Come on every movie needs aliens, did you see Star wars?  It had Aliens, with out them It would be just "wars" and that's boreing.
JC: No, I want this to be a serious movie about cold war fears.  I've don'e too many Sci-Fi films lately.
ILM: You sure?
JC: Yes.
ILM: Look what we can do with our computers....Cool Huh?
JC: .......Ok so Aliens sink the sub and..........

10 years later

JC: Ok I'm makeing a movie where a big ship hits an Iceburg and sinks,  I want you to do the F/X.
ILM: Any Aliens?

[42]

That explains why Titanic had aliens.

[House of Mustard]

Do you mean Kate Winslet or Leonardo DiCaprio?

[Fellfrosch]

Don't forget Billy Zane. He's a male model.