Abyss, The: Revisited Edition

Upon reading Neglify’s and Geminigod’s review, I think I fall somewhere in the middle of the two.

The Special Edition of THE ABYSS is easily my favorite James Cameron movie of all time. It is epic, timely, character driven, suspenseful, thought provoking… for me, it is equal to Spielberg’s Close Encounters.

So I must be honest, it was a challenge for me to go into watching this edit with an open mind, but I within a few minutes of the new opening, I found myself pleasantly immersed into this alternate take of Cameron’s underwater tale.

As already pointed out, Seciors has kept the focus on Bud and his crew, removing the “blockbuster” elements and WWIII threat, and has successfully created a slightly more character oriented narration with a looming claustrophobic feel. I found this approach surprisingly both engaging and entertaining.

Though it is not perfect. The removal of the WWIII subplot also removes a lot of subtext from many scenes, making certain characters motivations more muddled. For example, Coffey suffering from Deep Sea Paranoia only goes so far to explain his actions, it does not explain what is driving his fear and concerns or even why his fellow officers follow his lead so blindly. But also for me, the WWIII threat adds an extra, real world, level of tension, a “ticking clock to doomsday” that really informed the energy and drama of the Special Editon.

That said, the new story is well constructed and executed and basically achieves it set out goals.
I enjoyed the Bud/Alien first contact flashback, as I think it works as a nice replacement for the original Shipboard TV exchange and helps explains the Alien’s reasons for saving Bud and his crew. Though I did notice the transition flash was not matted to fit the film.

Other than that, I did notice a couple audio dips and pixels in the reds, but nothing that distracted or ruined the experience for me.

While I still prefer the Special Edition version, Seciors displays a good handle on the material and strong editing skills, and I definitely say this edit is worth one’s time to watch.

In contrast to Neglify, I will confess that James Cameron does give me a slight Princess Leia style hard on. The movie Abyss on the other hand pretty much gives me a full on Kate Upton hard on. It has always been one of my favorite movies. It is cinematically and emotionally powerful. It also has a high degree of technical accuracy by Hollywood standards and features some of the best underwater scenes ever filmed in a cinematic movie.

Unfortunately the movie always did have a slight problem with the ending. Seciors wisely recognized that part of the challenge with pulling off the ending was in how it ties to all the global political background stuff present in the original theatrical version (and even more-so in the SE). It just reeks of cheese. I knew that Secior’s plan was to cut out this aspect of the story. To his credit I have to say that doing so does succeed in mildly improving the ending for me personally. It also succeeds on another level for me in that the movie feels much more atmospheric and more focused in on the underwater experience and the characters we find there, which for me was a major plus over the original.

That said, this plan was always of concern to me because I feared that it would damage the integrity of the main storyline and the character’s motives. Unfortunately this fear proved to be not entirely unfounded. The point where it shows the worst is at 0:59:30. Scene cuts to the middle of an argument with very little context for Coffey’s motives or for the reactions of the rest of the crew acting belligerent out of nowhere. From here-on out there was this nagging feeling of disbelief for me about how events play out more-so than the original version. This edit would have greatly benefited by either including a little bit more of the Russian stuff to provide Coffey more motive, or by finding a different creative way to transition his character more believably.

Video/audio quality was acceptable given the source material and mix of two different sources. There were times when the video quality and audio quality diminish slightly, but it is not overly distracting and I don’t blame the editor. The one exception to this that could probably have been better were a couple rough music audio cuts right in the final climax as the city is rising. Again, though, probably most people won’t notice.

The surround sound was very enjoyable in some scenes and much appreciated.

Menu is just a basic bare-bones menu.

Video/Audio editing is excellent with the exception of the couple rough music cuts at the end. Also I could have lived without the flashback shots when Bud first sees the Alien after cutting the wire. They were totally unnecessary and distracting. It is always a tough call of how much an editor needs to hold the hand of the audience vs letting them make the mental jumps and connections on their own. This was a case for me personally where I felt like the editor was insulting my intelligence with the flashbacks.

FANEDIT RATING (considering the technical and creative new work put forth by the faneditor) – 9/10

MOVIE RATING (considering overall enjoyment as a complete movie and as if I were watching it for the first time) – 9/10

I don’t have a hard on for Cameron, like some guys I know. But I love his movies and own them all. The Abyss I only ever watched once. When it was done I said, “That was good” then put it back on my shelf. It’s a compelling story but dragged on a little too much for me.

Enter The Abyss: Revisited Edition. I didn’t rewatch the original so I don’t remember everything seciors cut out. In fact, had I never seen The Abyss I’d be hard pressed to point out any of the cuts. The editing quality is perfect throughout.

I really enjoyed the new take on it, keeping things simple and claustrophobic. I personally love the way he’s ended it here, but that’s me. I don’t care at all for the preachiness of the SE ending.

My only complaints are that it’s still too slow some times but it’s not bad at all.

FANEDIT RATING – 9
Audio/Video Quality – 9
Visual Editing – 10
Audio Editing – 10
Degree of Editing – 7

(NOTE: “Degree of Editing” is a 100% arbitrary rating that I keep in mind when reviewing edits. This is not meant to insinuate that a faneditor is lazy or not. Some fanedits require a lot more work than others and I take this into account.)

MOVIE RATING – 8
Narrative – 9 (SE is 8)
Enjoyment – 8 (SE is 7)

OVERALL RATING – 9

Technically speaking the edit is great. Considering the source material, the picture and sound quality was very good, with no noticeable glitches anywhere (I watched the .avi version). If it were cut this way for television it would be watchable (at least by to their standards). Taking out the “brink of war” aspects makes the movie go faster and isn’t really missed except for…
(SPOILER AHEAD)
My only real problem with this version is the ending. In my opinion it was too abrupt. You should have used the extended version to at least show how Ed Harris survived because it looks like he died being carried into the ship. There also doesn’t seem to be any reason for the aliens to help the crew back to the surface, or to show themselves for that matter. Just because they seemed interested in the crew, and what was happening on the ship or with Harris’ character, the aliens could have stayed hidden and no one on the surface would have ever known they were around.
I enjoyed this version a lot, but if I hadn’t seen both of the DVD version I’d have never been able to figure out what happened or why at the end.

Picture/Sound – 8 (but that’s no more then I’d give the original DVD)
Editing – 9 (Flawless, except for the above)
Overall – 7 (Really good up until the last 5 minutes.)