Deep Dive: Remembering “The Abyss” on its 30th Anniversary

Thursday, 14 November 2019 14:23

Deep Dive: Remembering “The Abyss” on its 30th Anniversary

by Michael Coate

THE Q&A

Matthew Kapell is the editor (with Stephen McViegh) of The Films of James Cameron: Critical Essays (McFarland, 2011).

Kapell is a Lecturer in American Studies and his other books include (with Ace G. Pilkington) The Kelvin Timeline of Star Trek: Essays on J.J. Abrams’ Final Frontier (McFarland, 2019), Exploring the Next Frontier: Vietnam, NASA, Star Trek and Utopia in the 1960s and 1970s American Myth and History (Routledge, 2016) and (with William G. Doty) Jacking In to the Matrix Franchise: Cultural Reception and Interpretation (Bloomsbury, 2004). He also is Series Editor of several books on role-playing and video games.

Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): How do you think The Abyss should be remembered on its 30th anniversary?

Matthew Kapell: In a couple of ways: As the last film Cameron allowed to be meddled with, and as a film that first brought together his desire to combine science fiction with the ocean. But, his first few films are very much about nuclear anxiety — the Terminators destroying humanity that way, terrorism with nukes, even the destruction of the alien nest with a big nuclear explosion. Up until Titanic there’s a bomb of some kind in all his films. This is the one where it doesn’t explode, though. That’s important.

Coate: In what way is The Abyss a significant motion picture?

Kapell: See my answer to [your first question]. But, also, it does something that every single Cameron film does: explores new frontiers in the technology of film making. And that’s important. Perhaps more importantly, though, is that it does this without compromising the plot and the characters too much. Other filmmakers (I’m thinking specifically of Robert Zemeckis here) often get so caught up in the new technology they’re using that they forget that the story and characters are still the most important part. This doesn’t happen to Cameron until, ahem, Avatar.

Coate: Can you discuss the performances in the film, especially those of the leads, Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio?

Kapell: This is a hard one. They are both so, so good. As is Michael Biehn. I’ll remain disappointed that (with the possible exception of Harris) the three never got enough credit in their careers for how good they are at being character actors when they are surrounded by effects. On a certain level the character set-up of two divorced people forced to work with each other is pretty trite. But Mastrantonio and Harris do such a wonderful job of making their characters real people that you often don’t notice how trite the set-up is. This is a thing in many of Cameron’s films: a trite and overused trope that is surpassed by the quality of performance he seems to get.

Coate: How would you describe The Abyss to someone who has never seen it or to someone who has avoided seeing it because they dislike science-fiction films?

Kapell: Simply, I’d call it a film about the cold war and the hopes of surviving it. I’d put it in a category with the original Manchurian Candidate, not in a category with E.T.

Coate: Where do you think The Abyss ranks among Cameron’s body of work?

Kapell: It’s got to be near the bottom of his films, and he knows it. That makes it a pretty average film. But, that happened because he didn’t have the final cut. And he never made that mistake again.

Coate: Do you think The Abyss works best in its 1989 theatrical cut or the revised cut from a few years later?

Kapell: Oh, the theatrical release is kind of horrible. It’s the end of the Cold War that kills that version, and demands a significant edit in ’89. But the reworking is a far better movie. Because, simply, some of the plot holes are, if not filled in, at least covered over.

Coate: It has been ages since The Abyss was offered in a contemporary state-of-the-art home video release? Would you like to see it released on Blu-ray and/or UHD Blu-ray?

Kapell: Yes. But then again, I think every film ever made should be remastered. But, if you asked me to put it on a list of such things it would be somewhere in the bottom third. I’d remaster the 1950s The Blob before I’d do this one.

Coate: There were several underwater adventure/sci-fi/horror-type movies released in 1989. Where do you think The Abyss ranks among them?

Kapell: It’s the prettiest. By far. Even Ed Harris is pretty in it somehow. But, seriously: It is a film that ranks highly among all films of the year. Watch it with Batman and one of them still holds up and the other looks hopelessly corny. But, Dead Calm (a film about being on the ocean) is pretty great in a low budget way, and The Little Mermaid obviously is better known as the beginning of the new age of Disney animation. But Deep Star Six or Leviathan? I can’t even really remember what those are about and I’m an actual popular film scholar. So, yes, this film is a pretty good film for both the era, and of the type.

Coate: What is the legacy of The Abyss?

Kapell: I’m afraid it isn’t great. But, it will also be remembered as a film that began the movement toward really beautiful CGI effects. As a teen the thing I liked most about it was Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (and her hair), and as an old guy now it’s the fact that this movie made me feel like maybe we wouldn’t all kill each other with bombs. And you can’t really overstate the importance of that at the time. But, really, I think its legacy will be as a connector film from Cameron’s early stuff to his mid-career stuff. And, as one of the most important popular film makers of the last 60 years, that makes it an important film.

Coate: Thank you, Matthew, for sharing your thoughts about The Abyss on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.

--END--

IMAGES

Selected images copyright/courtesy CBS-Fox Home Video, Fox Video, Bobby Henderson, Lightstorm Entertainment, Pacific Western, Schauburg Archive, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The Abyss (1989) screenshot

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The primary references for this project were regional newspaper coverage and trade reports published in Billboard, Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety.

All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.

SPECIAL THANKS

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Jerry Alexander, Herbert Born, Raymond Caple, Sheldon Hall, Bobby Henderson, Bill Kretzel, Mark Lensenmayer, Genevieve Maxwell, and Joe Odenthal, and an extra special thank-you to all of the librarians who helped with this project.

The Abyss (1989) screenshot