FAQ

It was released on 4K and standard blu-ray on March 12, 2024.

The location is a bit vague at first but when Coffey and his team are briefing the Deepcore crew before they explore the submarine, he reveals -- for viewers at least -- that the Montana sank in the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean Sea, which is a region just south of Cuba and extends to the northern coast of South America. The Cayman Trough itself lies mostly west of Jamaica. Cat says that the trench is "two miles straight down" but the lowest depth is 25,217 ft or 4.77 miles.

When a nuclear submarine, the USS Montana, crashes into an underwater cliff and sinks into an abyss, the US Navy asks the workers on the Deepcore, a nearby submersible oil drilling platform, to investigate. Suspecting the Soviet navy to be responsible, the US Navy sends in a group of SEALS along with Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), the designer of the platform. Conflicts arise when the platform workers clash with the SEALS and when Lindsey clashes with her estranged husband, Virgil "Bud" Brigman (Ed Harris), foreman of the platform workers. Everything comes to a head when they discover that the cause of the crash is a "non terrestrial intelligence" (NTI) living in the abyss.

The Abyss is based on a screenplay written by Canadian film-maker and deep-sea diver James Cameron, who also directed the movie. However, Cameron's inspiration came from an 1897 short story "Into the Abyss" by English science fiction writer H.G. Wells. The movie was subsequently novelized by American novelist Orson Scott Card.

Yes. In fact, the scene where Hippy's (Todd Graff) rat is used as test subject is a very real scene. Five rats were filmed while being submerged in oxygenated fluid for an extended time, and they all survived. The only drawback not shown in the movie is that the process temporarily dissolves a protective fluid covering the insides of the lung, making the subject more susceptible for airborne infective agents; which can be prevented by giving the subject prophylactic antibiotics (which is what the rats were given). Ironically, the rat that portrayed Beany in the rest of the movie died just before the movie's premiere, but the death was age-related and had nothing to do with the oxygenated fluid exposure.

Firstly, Coffey and the team probably didn't know that the Deepcore team needed the claw on Flatbed to unhook the umbilical cable from the rig. Though it's plausible that they'd have been briefed fully on the operations and procedures by Lindsey, Bud and the crew, when they arrived on the rig or before they left the surface, the writers may have just left this out for the convenience of the plot-if Coffey hadn't taken Flatbed, then we wouldn't have the disaster and story that follows. Also, Coffey is a strictly by-the-book officer and felt that he didn't have to ask permission from Bud or Lindsey or anyone before he took the sub. However, in a deleted scene that was restored for the 1997 theatre and home video release, we see precisely why the SEALs wanted Flatbed: it's much larger and has more power than the smaller subs, plus it has a much larger mechanical arm and claw. If you watch the deleted scene closely, you'll see that Coffey is piloting Flatbed and is using the claw to hold the Trident missile up while the rest of the team removes the warhead. Presumably, the team needed the claw to open the missile hatch and lift the missile itself, something they couldn't do without the largest mini-sub in the rig's fleet.

They are at such a depth that bubbles would form in their blood due to the expansion of nitrogen gases going from a higher-pressure to a lower-pressure environment, causing a fatal condition known as "the bends". Therefore it would be necessary for them to decompress before returning to the surface. And given that there was a hurricane overhead, the seas would be far too rough to be swimming in.

No, it does not. The Deepcore exterior set was built inside the unfinished containment building of an abandoned nuclear power plant project in Gaffney, S.C., and left behind after filming. The entire area where The Abyss was filmed has been changed to make way for a new nuclear plant. The structures that were used in the filming of the movie were demolished in 2007, including the Deepcore set. You can still spot it on "Google Earth" or in "Google Maps" by entering the coordinates 35° 2′ 13.2″ N, 81° 30′ 43.2″ W. Wikipedia has an article on the abandoned Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant and its use as a film set, including links to reports and photos of past visits to the site.

Comparable to James Cameron's effort to recreate his preferred version of Aliens, he began working on an extended version of The Abyss that was subsequently released on VHS, laserdisc and DVD, and includes several extended scenes missing in the theatrical version. The original ending and several prolonged plot sequences throughout the movie have been added, the most significant being an entire additional story element in which the aliens manipulate tidal waves to intimidate humankind into conflict resolution.

No, it isn't. For the UK version, the scene in which a rat is being put in breathing liquid was removed. This scene wasn't done with a trick, the rat really breathed the liquid. Despite director James Cameron's claim that the rat wasn't hurt during the scene, it was cut in the UK (perhaps in the interest of not giving people there ideas, in the fear that somebody might try to recreate the scene without the proper equipment, training and conditions).