The Abyss
Before James Cameron's
Avatar preached to us about the dangers of Smurfs eating too many smurfberries and about species getting along on the earth, there was
Titanic preaching to us about the dangers of not being able to count the right amount of lifeboats, as well as the perils of freezing water. Before all of that though, in 1989, James Cameron brought us
The Abyss. It's a film that preaches about getting along on earth and about the dangers of freezing water. Cameron's gotta trend going on I see.
Deep in the sea, the American submarine called the
USS Montana has sunk after a strange encounter underwater with an unknown object. Both the Americans and the Soviets are on their way to get down there to salvage anything they can from it. The US gets the bright idea to send in some NAVY SEALs to hitch a ride on an experimental underwater mining structure that's near the sink site. Using it as their base, the SEALS are supposed to get inside the sunk sub and search for a cause of the disaster. Along for the ride down to the mining platform is the designer of the rig, Dr. Lindsey Brigman. Her being there is a serious thorn in the side of the rig's foreman, her ex husband, Vergil or "Bud". Oh, happy days!!
Bud says "Get off my rig."
After an initial exchange of "pleasantries" from the couple, the SEAL team informs the crew of whats going on and readies them for a dive into the sunken sub. Once inside the sub, a couple of the mining crew see strange glowing floating objects in the water. One of the men, Jammmer, actually has a panic attack and has to be taken back to the mining rig.
Once back on the rig, with jammer attended to, the SEAL's decide to use the rig's mini-subs to go back to the
Montana and bring back one of it's nuclear warheads. Per government orders of course. Unfortunately for the rest of the rig crew, a hurricane is brewing on the surface and the oil rigs main surface ship, the
Benthic Explorer needs to be untethered from the rig so it can get out of the storm. They need the mini sub the SEAL's are using to untether. See the problem? Well needless to say, the crane that attaches the the rig to the
Explorer breaks off in the storm and sinks below to the rig and falls into a nearby trench. The falling crane actually pulls the rig down for the ride briefly, but the rig stops short of actually going over the ridge. Bad news is, the rig suffered some damage and took on a bunch of water and some of the rooms were flooded over and some of the crew were lost.
With the crisis tended to and the crew recovering for now, the SEAL's take their new toy bomb and secure it in one of the rooms. Later that night, while most of the crew is asleep, a serpent like liquid form slithers and floats through the rig coming up from the seawater in the minisubs bay. The water form explores the room with the warhead and is discovered by the main SEAL, Coffey. While the rest of crew begin to interact with the gentle form, Coffey freaks and shuts the door on the form causing it to disentegrate into drops of water.
Eye poke. Nyuk, Nyuk
The rig crew is amazed, but now they fear that Coffey may be suffering from pressure sickness and could become dangerous. Sure enough, he and his team use one of the mini camera subs and strap the warhead to it, hoping to send it down to wherever the water form came from. He gets in one of the mini subs and begins on his new mission. Bud and Lindsey take another mini sub and go after him. There is tense sub vs sub underwater crash derby that ends with both subs disabled and the warhead floating down to the abyss below. Coffeys sub is taking on water and sinking. His sub implodes on itself under the high pressure and he is a threat no more. Lindsey and Bud are stuck in their sub with no power. With only one diving suit and breathing apparatus onboard, Lindsey tells Bud to use the suit for himself and drag her back to the main rig in the hopes that she can be revived on board the rig. Bud initially says no to this, but she convinces him it's the best idea.
Bud takes the plunge and drags her back to the rig and he and the crew begin to work to revive her. After many minutes of CPR and using shock paddles plus a little motivational screaming by Bud, Lindsey comes back to the world.
Now that all is well with the crew, they still need to go down and get the warhead. They program the last mini camera sub to go down and find the one with the bomb. Only thing is, someone has to gown down with it to deactivate the big boom. No one can survive at that depth, but fortunately for all, the SEAL's have brought along their experimental breathing fluid that allows for deep, deep, deep sea diving. Bud volunteers to go down, even though Lindsey says "No." Fighting through the protests, Bud suits up and gets his head full of the breathing water. It's quite a cool scene as he sucks it in and begins to breathe it like a fish. Awesome stuff. Bad thing is, Bud is restricted to communicating through a keypad, since ya know, the crew wouldn't really understand "Bloop, Bloop, Gargle Gargle!!"
So now Bud begins his perilous deep sea dive as the camera sub drags him down to the bomb site. Falling and falling down deeper and deeper, the pressure starts to kick in and the camera sub implodes leaving Bud sinking on his own. He miraculously lands on target and starts to type away to get info on disarming the bomb. After a tense movie cliche moment of "cut the right wire" transpires, he cuts the right one, but now he doesn't have enough of the breathable fluid left in his suit to make the ascent back up. Lindsey informs him that he can leave now and breathe shallow, but Bud persist that he wants to just stay down here and die. He expresses his new found love for her again and sits and waits as the cre uptop mourns their lost friend. Soon though, Bud is visited by a glowing butterfly like figure that beckons for Bud to join it. Almost in a trance from the beauty of it, Bud goes along as the creature takes him down deeeper into the abyss and to it's home colony/ship. Again, another awesome scene to behold. Bud's new friend takes him inside to another room and causes the water to part away and now Bud has a breathable place to take his suit off and gather his senses.
So thats where all the 80's neon went.
Shortly after, some other glowing friends come along and begin trying to communicate with him. They show him images of news reels depicting a giant tidal wave emerging from the oceans all over the world. The giant walls of water are getting closer and closer to the coast putting all in a panic. Bud ask them why is this happening, to which his response in more footage of past events of the world. Destruction, chaos, wars, murder, riots - humanity destroying eachother. Bud then realizes that these glowing underwater beings have been watching humans for years and now are tired of us destroying ourselves. As more footage is shown of the giant wave, Bud tries to reason with the beings, telling him that not all people are like that. In response, the screen lights up with Bud's last message to Lindsey expressing his love for her. Bud and the beings come to an understanding and the giant wave dissapates to nothing.
Back on the surface and in the rig, the crews begin plans for a rescue of the rig crew. To their suprise, they soon get a message from Bud. They are astonished and relieved as he tells them that he has met "some new friends down here." He mentions that the friends want us to stop destroying eachother, or else they'll have to make their point again. He then tells them to hang on. Soon the giant colony ship below the water emerges slowly up to the surface bringing with it the sunken sub and the rig itself in an awesome splendor. It's a truly awesome scene to see.
As the crew exit the rig, they are puzzled that they came up that fast and didn't have to decompress. Realizing that the beings must have protected them, they are then also relieved to see Bud come up from the shadows of the giant structures tunnel. He and Lindsey embrace and rekindle their lives together.
This is a truly awesome movie with nicely done effects that were new for it's time. James Cameron worked hard to bring this film to life and it was worth the effort. I love it.
