Having been in the pipeline for the best part of a decade, it appears that the much-anticipated hi-def edition of James Cameron’s 1989 underwater spectacular The Abyss is finally about to see the light of day, with a rumored release date of August 2022.

Something of a rite of passage for sci-fi fans in the 1980s, the rollercoaster action film featured Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris as estranged lovers Lindsey and Bud in the lead roles. Former Cameron collaborator Michael Biehn plays Coffey, the leader of a group of Navy SEALs tasked with the job of investigating the mysterious disappearance of a submarine in the mid-Atlantic. In spite of a famously tortuous production and the film running over budget, The Abyss was a box-office success. It cemented Mastrantonio’s and Harris’ status as bona fide Hollywood stars.

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It is also a staple of any self-respecting SF fan’s collection. So why should we care about a hi-def edition? Here are a few reasons.

The Impressive Special Effects

     20th Century Fox

In an era awash with SFX-heavy films, The Abyss stands out more than most simply because of the sheer variety of effects on display. The miniature models and CGI are groundbreaking. The crew animated the faces of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris for superimposition on the alien “sea creature” that forms the centerpiece of the second act, a full two years before Terminator 2: Judgement Day pulled the same trick with Cameron again at the helm. The effects looked spectacular at the time and still stand up today.

The model shots involving the submarine wreck and the underwater oil rig on which most of the action takes place could easily have been botched. One thinks of the competent but unspectacular work animating a bevy of American and Russian submarines in The Hunt For Red October (1990), released only a few months after The Abyss, to see what a tricky proposition underwater model work could be and how effortlessly Cameron pulled it off.

But the really impressive aspect of the movie is the one sequence that would have caused any director other than Cameron to laugh out loud at the technical difficulties involved in filming it. Namely, the scene in the third act in which Lindsey and Bud set out to stop the deranged Coffey from setting off a nuclear weapon. The very notion of an underwater chase scene involving a pair of submersibles is as preposterous as it sounds. In the hands of any director other than Cameron, it would have been either a mess or played for laughs. Instead, it is dramatic and gripping, setting up the barnstorming final act with a desperate, unforgettable two-hander in which Lindsey and Bud watch their damaged submersible slowly fill up with water, in the knowledge that they only have breathing gear for one of them. Watching it in crystal-clear hi-def will be a joy.

Hello, Color Grading

Back in the ’90s, the usual way of watching The Abyss was on a second- or third-generation VHS recording of a rerun on television. The subtleties of the original color grading were often lost, and scenes on the rig (and in the water) were reduced to various muddy shades of grey, blue, and green.

Restoration can bring out enormous subtleties in color and shading, as fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation were overjoyed to discover when the Blu-Ray version of season one appeared. The infamous reddish tinge of the original prints was replaced by the luscious hues of the original sets and costumes. Expect more of the same in The Abyss’ updated release.

An Extended Version?

While The Abyss benefits from a watertight plot (no pun intended) and good pacing, a great deal of footage ended up on the cutting room floor, with Cameron’s original cut lasting almost three hours. Distributors concerned about the ability to show the film in cinemas multiple times in the course of an ordinary business day were happy when the final cut weighed in at two hours and twenty minutes.

However, that leaves around half an hour of footage still searching for a home. In 2011, some sequences got an airing when makeup effects specialist Steve Johnson shared some footage of the underwater creatures encountered at the film’s climax that ultimately never made it into the finished film. A much-vaunted final sequence involves massive tsunami-style waves, which came a couple of decades before San Andreas made cinematic paydirt with the same idea. To this day, it remains unseen. Will James Cameron offer fans a simple restoration of the original movie, or will viewers have the option of watching an expanded version with the missing material restored? Let’s hope for the latter.