Abyss - abyss of death

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Movie
German title Abyss - abyss of death
Original title The Abyss
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1989
length Theatrical version: 139 minutes
Special Edition: 164 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director James Cameron
script James Cameron
production Gale Anne Hurd
for 20th Century Fox
music Alan Silvestri
camera Mikael Salomon
cut Conrad Buff ,
Joel Goodman ,
Howard E. Smith
occupation

Abyss - Abyss of Death (Original title: The Abyss ) is a science fiction film by the director James Cameron from 1989. The film opened on September 28, 1989 in German cinemas.

action

The US nuclear submarine USS Montana suffers a complete loss of energy as a result of an encounter with an unidentified submarine object on the edge of the quay trench . A serious accident occurs, the boat sinks to the bottom at a depth of 2000 feet (610 m), just 80 miles off the Cuban coast . As Soviet and Cuban spy ships as well as Hurricane Frederic are approaching the scene of the accident, the Americans decide to bring a team of four United States Navy SEALs to the nearest oil platform. The mobile and submersible drilling platform called Deepcore is operated by the company Benthic Petroleum and is to be used as the base of operations for the Operation Selbor rescue mission to officially search for survivors in the wreck.

The rig's chief designer , Dr. Lindsey Brigman, dives with the Navy SEALs to the platform on which her divorced husband Virgil "Bud" Brigman works as a drill master (English: "toolpusher"). The commanding officer of the Navy SEALs, Lieutenant Hiram Coffey, initially falls ill with high pressure nervous syndrome unnoticed during the dive , which increasingly weakens his ability to think and act rationally. When the oil workers and the SEAL team penetrate the completely flooded wreck of the USS Montana to the missile command center to recover the launch codes, the electrical supply to the diving equipment suddenly breaks down. Deepcore crew member Jammer Willis sees a glowing creature in the wreck, panics and falls into a coma .

As the storm intensifies, Coffey and his team take one of the rig's mini-submarines for a secret recovery mission to Montana to secure a nuclear warhead from a Trident missile with the wreckage of the Montana without the crew's permission or knowledge should be destroyed if necessary. The mini submarine is absolutely necessary to cut the connection cable to the supply ship Benthic Explorer . Due to the strong winds and waves, this can no longer hold its position, which means that the connection cable to the rig is so tight that it pulls the crane boom down from the deck. The demolished holding crane hits the ocean floor next to the rig , slides over the reef edge and pulls the rig further towards the abyss due to its great weight. Rig wrecked , two SEALs injured, and six crew members drowned when water broke in and flooded various areas.

Hostilities escalate as the platform loses contact with the surface of the water and the anger of the crew against the SEALs over their comrade deaths rises. The crew has experiences with the alien life forms that apparently live deep down in the nearby abyss. While the crew around Lindsey and Virgil react with enthusiasm and curiosity, the increasingly paranoid Lieutenant Coffey sees only a threat. He finally drags the nuclear warhead into the cargo bay, activates it and tied it to Big Geek , a remotely controllable floating body that is supposed to plunge into the abyss and detonate the warhead there in order to destroy the ominous enemy. Before that, Coffey takes the remaining crew prisoner, but they are freed from the misery that has since awakened from the coma. Bud dives to the cargo bay, where there is a fight with Coffey, who escapes with a submarine .

Lindsey follows, stopping Coffey in a dramatic underwater fight by ramming his boat multiple times. Both boats remain unable to maneuver, with Coffey's boat hanging over the edge of the reef, eventually slipping and ultimately imploding under the rising water pressure. The activated warhead sinks to the bottom of the trench. Caught in the unmaneuverable, quickly flooding dive boat, Lindsey Bud leaves available only aboard diving suit . Bud is supposed to drag Lindsey's unconscious body over to the rig after she drowned in the ice-cold water, in order to revive her there with a defibrillator . The dramatic action succeeds.

The SEALs join the crew as a result of Coffey's irresponsible and improper actions and provide Bud with an experimental diving suit through which a diver receives oxygen by means of liquid breathing. This procedure allows a diver to dive further than a cylinder with compressed air because the fluid in the lungs does not compress the body from the increasing water pressure. Bud wants to dive to the bottom of the trench, deeper than any human before, and defuse the warhead before it explodes. His mission succeeds, but Bud's breathing fluid is no longer sufficient to return to the drilling platform from a depth of 18,000 feet (5,500 m). Bud writes to Lindsey by means of a text communicator (through the liquid breathing it is no longer possible to speak) that he was aware of the hopelessness of his mission in advance. He sends a final note that he loves Lindsey and still regards her as his wife, whereupon Lindsey returns his love.

The underwater creatures find the almost unconscious Bud, who is running out of oxygen, and bring him to a large, glowing submarine facility. You provide him with natural ambient air to breathe and begin to communicate with him. The beings show Bud several recorded excerpts from TV programs that document the worsening political situation on the surface and the generally self-destructive human behavior. Meanwhile, they begin to generate several hundred meter high tsunamis all over the world. They silently explain to Bud that they left humanity alone for a long time, but now believe that humanity has become too self-destructive to continue with this behavior. The beings stop the tsunamis all over the world shortly before the impact and justify this with the fact that he has proven to them that there are also people with love and willingness to make sacrifices.

To the astonishment of the crew on the rig, Bud types another message into his communicator and writes that he has made “new friends” and asks whether the warning has been received. The underwater creatures end the storm and raise a huge platform to the surface that lifts the Benthic Explorer and five other ships. Thanks to the help of the beings, the rig crew can leave the platform without decompression . Lindsey sees Bud come out of the ship, rushes over to him and kisses him.

background

Movie versions

The original theatrical version lasted about 137 minutes and suppressed both the characterization of some supporting roles and the subplot of the conflict between the atomic superpowers that was smoldering above the surface of the water. In 1993, the revised, revised version was published with a running time of 164 minutes, which is now considered the final version. This so-called special edition eliminated several ambiguities in the shorter version and made the motivation of the underwater creatures in the finale a lot more conclusive. Both versions of the film can be selected on the DVD released in 2000.

Underwater shoot

The actors and the film crew spent a week training diving in the Cayman Islands . This was necessary because 40% of all action recordings took place underwater. Cameron's film studio had to develop and manufacture new devices and equipment, such as a modern communication system with which the director could speak to the actor and record their dialogues underwater. Cameron originally planned to shoot in the Bahamas , where the story is set. The director realized that because of the extensive stunts and special effects, he needed complete control over the sets and the film set . He considered shooting the film in Malta , which has the largest unfiltered water tank, but it did not meet the requirements.

The film was ultimately shot in the shell of the Cherokee nuclear power plant in Gaffney, South Carolina , the completion of which was canceled after a local power company had already invested $ 700 million. The underwater scenes were filmed in two specially constructed tanks. The first tank held 34.1 million liters of water, was 16.7 meters deep, 63.7 meters wide and at that time the largest freshwater filtering tank in the world. To prevent the incidence of daylight, the tank was covered with a black tarpaulin at a height of a few meters. However, since this tarpaulin was badly damaged by the weather at the location, many scenes had to be scheduled for night shoots. In addition, black plastic spheres were placed in the water so that the surface of the water on which they were floating was not reflected when filmed underwater.

Additional scenes were shot in the second tank, which had a capacity of 11.4 million liters. While the production team was busy painting the tank, millions of liters of water were allowed to flow into it. After five days it was full. The rig was attached to a 90,000 kg concrete base at the bottom of the tank. It consisted of six incomplete and complete modules, which were planned and manufactured within six years.

The two watercraft Flatbed and Cab One were made especially for the film by Can-Dive Services Limited , a commercial Canadian diving company that specializes in diving systems and underwater technology. The set cost $ 2 million to build.

Special effects

Since many scenes with the research submarines could not actually be shot at the breakneck speed required by Cameron, several special effects companies were turned to, including DreamQuest ( Predator ) and Fantasy II ( Terminator ), which under the direction of John Brunos in A mixture of miniature model , motion control , blue screen and often also rear projection recordings completed many tricky scenes. A refined use of rear projection took place in the scenes with the research submarine: In order to make the research submarine less sterile, small projection screens were built into the miniature submarine models, onto which the film material previously recorded with a mini-projector was also installed performer seated in a cockpit set. In the miniature scenes, this gave the impression that the actors were actually sitting in the cockpit. The scene in which Ed Harris communicates with the underwater creatures through a wall of water in the finale was also largely created using the back projection method. So do most of the scenes in the film consist of - Sometimes imaginatively varied - traditional techniques, the creators reached their limits in one scene. In this key scene, a stable body of water forms in the main basin of the underground rig, which rises like a worm from the water, explores the station from the inside and even takes on the shape of the faces of several crew members. Here they turned to the special effects company Industrial Light & Magic , which had been experimenting with computer-generated effects for a long time. B. in collaboration with Pixar on The Secret of the Hidden Temple . Under the direction of Dennis Muren , several computer-generated recordings were made, which were an absolute breakthrough for the time.

The overall result was so convincing that The Abyss was awarded the Oscar for the best special effects. In the revised, longer special edition of the film from 1992, the finale of the film was extended by a few scenes that again required special effects. The aim was to credibly depict the approach of huge waves on American beaches. For this purpose, waves in Hawaii were filmed and later combined with shots of beaches and bays in Los Angeles and New York . With the help of the rear projection method, shaky live television images could also be faked. Finally, the computer animation, which had been a bit further developed up to that point, was used again, namely in a shot in which a giant wave suddenly stops and stands completely still for a moment. All of these new scenes were again implemented by Industrial Light & Magic.

Trivia

Johnson Sea Link
  • The original title The Abyss literally means "The Abyss", but like the first part of the name of the fictitious oil company Benthic Petroleum , it also stands for a marine term that describes a deep sea section (→  Benthal ).The term rig is derived from the English-language term for an (oil) drilling platform or a drilling device ( oil rig or drilling rig ).
  • The name of the oil company Benthic Petroleum can also be read on tank trucks in the films Terminator 2 and Twister .
  • According to producer Gale Anne Hurd, the production costs were 48 million US dollars, planned were 32 million. The film grossed around US $ 90 million in cinemas worldwide, including around US $ 54 million in cinemas in the United States.
  • After the announcement of the film, other studios wanted to hang on to a possible success with the productions Leviathan and Deep Star Six . Because of Cameron's previous films, which all contained strong horror elements, these productions were also geared towards them. However, since Abyss had a long production time with its special effects, these films were released before Abyss.
  • Michael Biehn played a protagonist in James Cameron's Terminator in 1984 and in Aliens in 1986 .
  • One of the work submarines used in the film was a Johnson Sea Link boat .
  • The novel for the film was published under the German book title Abyss. In the depths of the sea . Author Orson Scott Card wrote the novel in such a way that one gets the impression that the novel was used as a model for the film. In fact, Card wrote the novel based on the script by James Cameron.
  • In the scene in which the underwater creatures show Bud what mankind is capable of, the longer “Special Edition” uses a passage from the soundtrack from The Seventh Character , composed by Jack Nitzsche . This happened because the image sequence was cut to the rhythm (the music had been used as temporary music) and it was now easier to get the license for the music than to compose new music. Michael Biehn also plays a leading role in The Seventh Sign .
  • The film begins in the special edition with the quote "... when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you" , which comes from Friedrich Nietzsche and in the original "And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you "reads. The quote was cut out of the theatrical version when it was noticed that the quote was used in the movie The Woman Killer , which came out just months before the premiere of The Abyss .
  • Bendix comments on the arrival of Lindsey Brigman with the words "The queen bitch of the universe" . This is a direct reference to Cameron's previous film, Aliens: The Return . In the German dubbing, the allusion is omitted because you hear "The super dragon of the western hemisphere" here.
  • For the representation of liquid breathing in the film, rats were actually immersed in an oxygen-enriched fluorocarbon liquid. Six shots were shot with live rats, but according to the filmmaker none of the animals died. So far, liquid breathing has not been practicable for humans, the liquid breathing shown by actor Ed Harris was only faked: His helmet was filled with pink-colored water so that he always had to hold his breath for a long time for each shot.
  • Lew Finler's actor died on May 22, 1990 - around nine months after the film was first released. In the Special Edition, the following dedication was added to the credits: "This film is dedicated to the memory of Captain Pierce Oliver Kidd Brewer Jr."

Reviews

"Cameron's massive entry into the SF genre gave hope for a serious renaissance of the genre in the early 1990s, before a return to special effects stupidity became the order of the day in the wake of Independence Day . What remains is a superbly made James Cameron film in which its strengths (the brief, intensive drawing of characters, the always critical attitude towards the military, the sovereign use of effects and above all the economic staging: A scene between Harris and Mastrantonio is one of the most nerve-wracking what the entire film history has to offer) mercilessly meet its weaknesses (the always somewhat sentimental humanism, which emerges particularly suddenly towards the end). Nevertheless: A milestone not to be mentioned in the same breath as the films of the great Howard Hawks . "

- Christoph Huber : allesfilm.com

“The ending is reminiscent of the 2001 psychedelic sequence . There are also echoes of The Boat and the Close Encounters of the Third Kind . It is well known that humans know even less about the ocean floor than they do about Mars : James Cameron accepted the challenge. The fantastic, technocrat, gigantomaniac and perfectionist, in short: the David Lean of action cinema, combines myths, mysteries and a love story close to death with great special effects. [...] The shooting was at least as exhausting as that of Cameron's mega-success ' Titanic '. As there, Cameron also skilfully harmonizes opulent mechanics and human tragedies - with the dream of entering a new dimension. "

- TV movie

“Thanks to the perfect use of technical cabinet pieces, the naive and largely unoriginal story, which processed set pieces from different genres and stylized them into a naive history of salvation, is largely forgotten. The 'Special Edition' published in 1993, 30 minutes longer, reinforces the ecologically critical approaches, has a more balanced overall concept and, with the previously neglected internal tension and logic of action, creates a meaningful compensation for the complex effects. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

  • The film won a Saturn Award in 1991 in the Best Director category and was nominated in six other categories: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Screenplay, Best Leading Actor, Best Leading Actress, Best Music, and Best Special Effects.
  • Producer Van Ling received a Video Premiere Award 2001 for the DVD menu design of the special edition.

literature

  • Hans Heydebreck: You have to look with better eyes than that . In: Eckhard Pabst: Myths - Mothers - Machines. The universe of James Cameron . Ludwig, Kiel 2005, ISBN 3-933598-71-0 , pp. 93-111.
  • Orson Scott Card: Abyss. In the depths of the sea (novel for the film). 3. Edition. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1991, ISBN 3-404-13246-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Abyss - Abyss of Death ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on allesfilm.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.allesfilm.com
  2. ↑ Abyss - Abyss of Death . In: TV feature film .
  3. ↑ Abyss - Abyss of Death. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used