"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you"
"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you"
An unknown force causes the sinking of a US Navy nuclear submarine. With a hurricane on the way time is of the essence for a retrieval operation. Not having the time for one of there own vehicles the US government rents the use of the Deep Core, the first ever completely underwater oil drilling platform. The commander Virgil "Bud" Brigman (Ed Harris) clashed with the Deep Core's designer, and his soon to be ex-wife, Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). With the Americans thinking that the Russians caused the crash of the submarine, causing cold war tensions of Red October proportions. The Navy SEAL commander Lt. Hiram Coffey (Michael Biehn) begins to suffer from depth induced insanity. As the investigation progresses they discover that the sub was sunk by an alien presence.
After Aliens Cameron began work on his most ambitious project yet. He wanted to make a movie that was not only set mostly underwater he wanted it to be shot almost exclusively on or underwater. What he wanted would require the largest underwater tank ever constructed. They converted a half-completed nuclear reactor facility in Gaffney, South Carolina into a 7 million gallon water tank.
Because so much of the movie takes place while the actors are diving in the water the actors were all certified as scuba divers. Cameron had them get the certification that is required for scuba trainers so that moving through the water would be second nature. Special scuba gear was built so that there faces would be visible. A radio system was built so that they could talk underwater. Cameron called it a directors dream because he controlled who could talk, but everyone had to listen to him. The most time consuming part of diving is the slow process of decompression when coming up to the surface, which is needed to get more oxygen. To get around it they worked out an underwater device to refill the tanks while underwater. Many a crew member no doubt wanted to kill the designer as it allowed them to stay underwater for 10 hours straight. Because of light coming through the surface they had to float thousands of small black balls and a tarp on the surface to obscure the light.
During the sequence where Ed Harris is descending into the abyss an accident nearly cost him his life. The deep diving suit really did not work on a liquid breathing system. The liquid was water, Harris had to hold his breath for the several minute long shot, while being dragged sideways across a rock face. On one take Harris could not hold his breath for the amount of time. His safety diver, who had his oxygen supply, was hung up on the rope farther back. The camera man gave Harris his oxygen regulator but he put it in his mouth upside down. Harris inhaled half air and half water. Thinking that the regulator was clogged he tried to clear it when his safety diver finally showed up and gave him his oxygen supply.
For the underwater sequences of the aliens Cameron had some seeming impossible instructions to his special effects crew. He wanted the to be beautiful, transparent, illuminated from the inside, and able to move(requiring electricity). He also wanted it to be fully functional under water, no dry-for-wet, no color filters to make a dry surface look wet. The most groundbreaking special effect was the water technical. Cameron did not want to have computer animation in his movie. All previous uses computer animation always looked very manufactured. Figuring that if it did not look real he could cut the water technical out of the picture he had the ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) team work on it. They exceeded any expectations that he could have imagined.
While editing the film he realized that it was passed slower than he expected. In order to tell the entire story that he wanted would require a longer running time than he expected. He had final cut but was being pressured to cut it something shorter than the 2 hours and 51 minutes he had. After weighting art verses commerce he finally cut it to around 2 hours and 20 minutes. Instead of cutting a lot of the character development between Harris and Mastrantonio he cut a sub-plot involving the aliens causing a tidal wave that would destroy the world until "Bud" Brigman's sacrifice to save everyone else convinces them that there is hope for humanity.
Cameron wanted sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card to write a novel based on his screenplay. Novelization are generally just "knock offs" of the screenplay, have little literary value, and are only published to generate more revenue. Card initially said he didn't do novelization but changed his mind when he heard that Cameron was the writer/director. Card agreed on the condition that he could develop his novel as he saw fit. Card wrote the first three chapters about Bud and Lindsay Brigman's relationship. Cameron gave the chapters to Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio to help them develop there characters.
The Abyss which had a budget of $69 million (in 1989) did not perform as well as his previous films. It still made a profit and was the first step in a new era of special effects, the CGI era. The film earned several technical academy awards including best visual effects.