History Film / TheAbyss

-->[[spoiler: '''Bud:''' ''(typed)'']] KNEW THIS WAS ONE WAY TICKET / BUT YOU KNEW I HAD TO COME.

* IdiotBall: Let the mining team disconnect the cable connecting them to the surface so it neither yanks them off the cliff edge or snaps loose to fall on them? Nah! Take the Idiot Ball and head to the submarine to retrieve a nuclear weapon because evidently, [[DeusExNukina decomisioning a nuclear submarine is much more important]] [[TooDumbToLive than being alive to do it]]!

* CompleteTheQuoteTitle: The movie title come from a quote by Creator/FriedrichNietzsche shown in the opening scene.

* CassandraTruth: Lindsey spends the first half of the film trying to convince the crew that there's something not human in the trench. Nobody believes her until they see a giant [[strike:Russian]] water tentacle in front of their faces.

* BitchAlert: Lindsey, coming complete with a character introducing her as "the Bitch Queen of the Universe" and another character making a gagging gesture when Lindsey's put on the phone.

* {{Foreshadowing}}. "They used to call this 'The Hammer'." Think Catfish will use The Hammer to deck someone later at a key moment?

* HowDareYouDieOnMe: When CPRCleanPrettyReliable goes from partial [[{{averted}} aversion]], to full-on enforced to the point of WorstAid, PleaseWakeUp meets ClusterFBomb.

* ClothingDamage: Coffee's shirt suffers from it.

-->'''Bud:''' Look, he's operating on his own. He's cut off from his chain of command, he's showing signs of pressure-induced psychosis and he's got a ''nuclear weapon''. So as a personal favor to me, will you try to put your tongue in neutral for a while

* EightiesHair: Not quite so obvious on the crew, but the [=SEALs=] have some rather non-regulation hair going. In the extended version, the newscast reveals some spectacular 80s hair on the newscasters and crowds. A bit of TruthInTelevision, since [=SEALs=] are free to have non-regulation hairstyles (within reason) as long as it doesn't interfere with their operations, though most still keep their hair fairly short.

* HotSubOnSubAction: The minisubs involved aren't fighting with weapons — they're fighting over a weapon.

* MonumentalDamage: Subverted, In the special addition we see giant tidal waves about to wipe out the Golden Gate Bridge, Lady Liberty and a few others but then it stops.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: [[spoiler:Both variations of Trident missile only carried a complement 100kt yield warheads (Coffey stated 50kt). Physical size of the package was fudged a little, and weight was fudged a lot.]]

* HumanityOnTrial: The aliens consider washing humanity away for all its warmongery and cruelty. They even raise huge tsunami waves all around the globe and held them erect for a while just to make their point perfectly clear, but changed their minds when Bud willingly sacrificed himself on a OneWayTrip to the depths in order to save the aliens from a nuclear warhead sent down by an Ax-Crazy U.S. Navy SEAL. (It's debatable whether the nuke would have hurt them, but still...) They even saved Bud's life as a "thank you.

-->'''Bud''': No! No, she has a strong heart! She wants to LIVE! C'mon, Linds! C'mon baby! Zap her again! Do it!... Do it!... Come on baby, come on baby!... Come on, breathe baby. Goddamn it, BREATHE! ''Goddamn it, you bitch, you never backed away from an

* DramaticAlienVTOL: The dramatic scene where the alien platform lifts to the surface of the ocean.

This might forever hold the record for most technically complex movie ever made. Cameron, crewmembers and major cast members had to become dive-certified, since some of the filming took place in a set built inside (and under the surface of) a flooded, partially-built nuclear reactor containment vessel. (Cameron spent so much time underwater that he regularly had to spend time in decompression chambers, viewing dailies while hanging upside down in the pressure tank.) Many of the FX shots were done with precisely constructed models and green screens. The "water tentacle" was a wildly expensive, difficult and groundbreaking piece of CGI effects. With today's tech-infrastructure the movie could be made at a fraction of the cost with full CGI, but in 1989 the shots were often live footage combined with greenscreen models, matte photography, animatronics ''and'' CGI elements.

* HowDareYouDieOnMe: When CPRCleanPrettyReliable goes from partial [[{{averted}} aversion]], to full-on enforced to the point of PleaseWakeUp meets ClusterFBomb.

* ProperlyParanoid: Hippie trusts the Navy [=SEALs=] about as far as he can throw them and he turns out to be right when they sneak a warhead from the sunken sub onto the rig. Also, along with Bud, he's the first to spot that Coffey has the shakes.

* UncannyValley: Invoked during some scenes depicting [[spoiler:Coffey's]] descent into madness. Specifically: Michael Biehn put a subtle hiss on "s" sounds to invoke the mental image of a snake, and a shot of him flicking his eyes about rapidly is run in reverse to make it seem even more menacing. Both are mentioned in the trivia track on the DVD.

* UsefulNotes/ColdWar: the film is a TakeThat against people who wanted to keep it going.