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A topic that's 15 years late

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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.

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