13 years after “Avatar – Aufbruch nach Pandora” last December, the wait for the sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time finally came to an end. But “Avatar: The Way Of Water” not only marks a return to Pandora, but also to director James Cameron’s roots.
He has always shared a fascination, almost an obsession, with water. Even his first feature was set in or on cool water – and even though “Piranha II – Flying Killer” was eventually remembered as a trashy oddity, it’s already evident in the low-budget animal horror that Cameron attempted at a young age. age to use the water as a backdrop in a new way.
He stages water both as a menacing force of nature (“Titanic”) and as an elixir of life (“Avatar 2”) – and has been striving for decades to make the power of water more tangible for moviegoers. Perhaps the most impressive example is by far the legendary director’s least known feature film: the sci-fi adventure “Abyss – Abyss of Death” about a rescue mission in the depths of the ocean.
“Abyss – Abyss of Death”: the black sheep of the Cameron films
While James Cameron is known for cult classics such as “Aliens”, “Terminator” and “Terminator 2” and of course “Titanic” and the “Avatar” movies, “The Abyss” is an outsider. The sci-fi epic brought in just under $90 million at the global box office in 1989, so it wasn’t a financial high-flyer, atypically Cameron – and is still considered an insider tip compared to its great classics.
By comparison, on the movie rating platform the movie currently has 98,000 votes, while “The Way Of Water”, which was released just a few weeks ago, already has more than 670,000. Rising trend. In terms of fame, ‘The Abyss’ is clearly at the bottom of the ultimate Cameron ranking, if you summarize his cinema films of the last 40 years. This is also reflected in the home cinema market:
“The Abyss” is not currently available from any single streaming provider – either as a subscription, purchase or rental VOD – and has only been released on DVD to date (as well as previously on videocassette, of course). That means: While even unusual niche movies and trash pickles are now available on Blu-ray or even 4K Blu-ray, in the case of Cameron’s visually stunning highlight, we’re still having to make do with a long-outdated SD version.
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In an interview on the occasion of the theatrical release of “Avatar 2”, the producer told us Jon Landauthat the film will finally (!) soon be released on Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray – in fact, before the Schwarzenegger classic “True Lies”, also directed by Cameron. After we already reported in 2019 that digital artist Skip Kimball, among others, is already busy with a new restoration, the home cinema comeback or upgrade of “The Abyss” should actually take place in 2023!
This time period alone shows: As with the grandiosely revised version of “Titanic”, James Cameron leaves nothing to chance here. And experience shows that the wait is worth it. If you don’t want to wait, you’ll be fine with the DVD for a while. After all, the picture and sound quality do not change the fact that we are dealing with a gem from Cameron – which we even consider one of the best sci-fi films of all time. Yes, even for the author of this article, who can’t get enough of “Avatar 2” and only recently caught up with “The Abyss”, the latter is actually a step up – and has also earned masterpiece status.
“The Abyss”: One of the most complex movie shoots of all time pays off
The film may be 34 years old, but the shots are still one of the most spectacular in film history. The effort Cameron and his team once made to provide as authentic a deep-sea spectacle as possible demanded everything from everyone involved – as the repeatedly speechless making-of documentary “Under Pressure: The Making Of The Abyss” more than makes clear. is going to be. Only so much can be revealed: at one point, much of the crew suddenly started going blonde or even losing their hair!
Abyss is a good example of visual filmmaking. It was not only James Cameron who spoke at the time with groundbreaking special effects (for which there was an Oscar, by the way). He also practices pictorial storytelling in perfection. The way the tension is gradually built up here, while there’s hardly any dialogue, is really great old school cinema – and would still work great as a silent film. The performance of the excellent cast around Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Ed Harris and Michael Biehn would probably suffer…
Besides: Fans of “Avatar” and “Avatar 2” will likely find great parallels to the Pandora adventures in “The Abyss” – especially visually. Of course we don’t want to give too much away at this point – as already mentioned, even many Cameron fans have probably never delved into the “Abyss of Death” – but especially in terms of design, the film clearly bears James Cameron’s unmistakable signature. Yes, if you didn’t know any better, you could easily think that individual shots are from an “Avatar” movie…
Author: Daniel Fabian
Source : Film Starts
I am Dawid Malan, a news reporter for 24 Instant News. I specialize in celebrity and entertainment news, writing stories that capture the attention of readers from all walks of life. My work has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications and I am passionate about delivering quality content to my readers.
