THE ABYSS is an interesting sci-fi underwater movie with a love story and a cautionary tale of first contact against the back drop of nuclear stalemate between big powers. The theatrical version of THE ABYSS is OK, but the extended special edition cut explores the characters more with a climax that packs more of a punch. Skip the theatrical cut and watch the special edition cut. Director James Cameron does create some interesting emotional character drams with most of the movies being in the sci-fi genre (with the exception of TITANIC and TRUE LIES).

THE TRANSFER:
THE ABYSS does look better than what it was. It was previously available as a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD. This is the first and probably only time THE ABYSS will be available on blu-ray and 4K UHD. AI was used to remaster the film in 4K. The blu-ray has a bitrate that ranges from 12 MBps to 37 MBps where the 4K UHD disc ranges from a high-bit blu-ray bitrate to around low 50MBps (sometimes even up to high 70MBps). Sometimes the image quality is quite good while sometimes it is a little soft. The face detail is a little too smooth at times. It is hard to tell the difference between the blu-ray and 4K transfers except the 4K does have a little more detail in some scenes. Probably an issue for some film fans will the how the grain has been scrubbed away from the picture. Other than that, it is my second favorite transfer of the three James Cameron 4Ks that came out this year.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
There are two new featurettes that were filmed for this Ultimate Collector's Edition:
DEEP DIVE: A CONVERSATION WITH JAMES CAMERON- James Cameron talks about the movie as he looks back on it
THE LEGACY OF THE ABYSS- a retrospective featurette on the movie

UNDER PRESSURE: THE MAKING OF THE ABYSS- an hour long making-of documentary in SD 1.33:1 that was previously featured on THE ABYSS Special Edition DVD

A wealth of Archive material from the laserdisc

There is also a digital code so you can stream and download the movie.

FINAL ANALYSIS: The 4K transfer of THE ABYSS may be controversial due to the assistance of AI and scrubbing the grain out of it. However, the movie does have great detail. Also this Ultimate Collector's Edition has fantastic making-of extras.

This review is ©4-9-2024 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com