Staring at The Abyss

I recently got my hands on a copy of the special edition of James Cameron's The Abyss. I saw the movie many moons ago in the theatre and have been a fan of the underrated film ever since. I've had several opportunities to purchase the DVD in various formats, but I've always passed it up in favour of other, mor urgent acquisitions. However, when I bought the Ultimate Edition of T2 for a steal at $7.99 about a week ago, and rabidly worked my way through it's features and commentary, I was jonesing for more non-Titanic Cameron and The Abyss sort of fell into my lap.

Overall, the DVD is a well put together edition with lots of bonus features to lose yourself in. Still, one minor/major drawback is the fact that, besides the 60 minute documentary (which I also saw years ago on PBS, I think) all the extras are in text format - either as essays or subtitled text commentary. In some ways, this sucks big-time, but in others, it allows some breathing room for the folks that put the whole thing together since they're not really constrained by running time or budget - lots of room on a disc for text. I wish they would have included a Cameron audio commentary on this one (especially this one) but you take what you can get, right?

Actually, one other niggling little problem with the DVD. Despite going through many of the essays and images contained therein, I have yet to run across a mention of Jean Giraud as a designer on the show. All the credit for the NTI's seems to go to Steve Burg and nobody else gets any credit. NOw, I have no idea what the extent of Moebius' contributions to the film were, or whether they were early on in the conceptual stages (pre shooting script) or afterwards, but I wish there would have been something included in this, the official and extensive history of the film.

I know he worked on it. A quick IMDB search will prove that if you don't believe the images he created. I'd be curious to know why the producers excluded someone who is, to his admission, a strong influence on Cameron as a filmmaker and a world-renowned artist to boot.

Oh well, it's still a decent purchase.

mike