T2 lags on the Mexico detour, but the final hour is unfuckwithable.
went with Aliens, which is pretty mega.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Sunday, 15 November 2009 17:31 (fourteen years ago) link
Was I a weird kid in that, as big a fan as I was of Aliens and the Terminator movies, I probably watched and enjoyed The Abyss twice as much as the others?
― I HEART CREEPY MENS (Deric W. Haircare), Sunday, 15 November 2009 18:32 (fourteen years ago) link
i read the novelization of the abyss :D :D :D
orson scott card iirc
― Alf, Lord Melmacsyn (s1ocki), Sunday, 15 November 2009 18:33 (fourteen years ago) link
maybe The Abyss is the "smartest"
― mdskltr (blueski), Sunday, 15 November 2009 18:41 (fourteen years ago) link
i haven't seen Piranha 2 tho
the only knock i have against T2 is that it contains neither bill paxton or michael biehn
i voted for true lies because of the scene where arnold fires a missile with a terrorist dangling from it
― NEW YORK DESERVED 9-11 (cankles), Sunday, 15 November 2009 18:57 (fourteen years ago) link
michael biehn is an axiom of cinema imo
― fel (latebloomer), Monday, 16 November 2009 01:36 (fourteen years ago) link
for me it's: Terminator > Abyss > True Lies > T2 > Aliens
i hate unnecessary sequels.
― Buck Utah (rockapads), Monday, 16 November 2009 07:39 (fourteen years ago) link
my knock against Aliens is that when you look at it there's only like 10 actual minutes of the marines fighting against the aliens
― 囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 07:46 (fourteen years ago) link
since his first film in 11 years is about to come out, mebbe shoulda waited?
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Sunday, November 15, 2009 11:11 AM (Yesterday)
Somehow, I don't really think it would've made a difference.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 16 November 2009 07:46 (fourteen years ago) link
maybe challops, but i voted The Abyss.
― Mordy, Monday, 16 November 2009 08:53 (fourteen years ago) link
The Abyss. By a large ...er...margin.
― Lord Byron Bay of Pigs (SeekAltRoute), Monday, 16 November 2009 09:22 (fourteen years ago) link
terminator 2. wouldn't change a thing.
― caek, Sunday, 15 November 2009 16:02 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― George Mucus (ledge), Monday, 16 November 2009 10:03 (fourteen years ago) link
True Lies is vile; it feels more 1984 than The Terminator.
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 16 November 2009 12:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Voted Titanic because for at least 45 minutes, it's something like the best action-adventure movie ever. T2 is the best action-adventure movie for more like about 41 minutes or so.
― cough syrup in coke cans (Eric H.), Monday, 16 November 2009 12:47 (fourteen years ago) link
No, not for even 2 minutes is it like The Wages of Fear.
Yeah, what a shame it has characterization and story instead of being "a ride" in the permanently approved style.
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 November 2009 13:40 (fourteen years ago) link
The Wages of Fear (good, not great) is no more an action classic than Diabolique outdoes Hitchcock.
― cough syrup in coke cans (Eric H.), Monday, 16 November 2009 13:48 (fourteen years ago) link
come on morbius the only reason anybody watches aliens is to watch the marines be badasses xp
― 囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 13:56 (fourteen years ago) link
"anybody"
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 November 2009 13:59 (fourteen years ago) link
you're right tho the movie needs more scenes of ripley and newt being tender and making deep ~connections~ with each other
― 囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:02 (fourteen years ago) link
morbius doesn't watch movies "anybody" watches
― cough syrup in coke cans (Eric H.), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah dyao, empty action keeps the masses mollified. Whatever works.
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:19 (fourteen years ago) link
right morbius because the enjoyment of action scenes is completely predicated upon your inclusion in the third estate
― 囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:24 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm gonna go watch Jeanne dielman to purge myself of my populist leanings
― 囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:26 (fourteen years ago) link
Jeanne Dielman has plenty of action in it if you know what i'm sayin
― cough syrup in coke cans (Eric H.), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Thursday, 19 November 2009 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Piranha II no contest and this guy is horrible in general
― Jack Kirby's Orangutan Surfing Civilization (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 19 November 2009 00:50 (fourteen years ago) link
T2 but i mean i'll sit and watch any of the others if they're on tv.
― Louis Cll (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 November 2009 00:53 (fourteen years ago) link
goddamn it i should have voted for aliens over t2
― I don't know if it's just the smurfiness of it or what (M@tt He1ges0n), Thursday, 19 November 2009 00:56 (fourteen years ago) link
not too late to start a cool new sock!!!
― Alf, Lord Melmacsyn (s1ocki), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:03 (fourteen years ago) link
anthony lane is an aliens stan iirc
― max, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:25 (fourteen years ago) link
A question for Abyss stans: I have not seen this & am thinking maybe I should. Being a sfx-laden sci-fi joint from the late 80s, has it aged well, or is a "had to be there" kind of thing?
― gerbl (Pillbox), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:29 (fourteen years ago) link
iirc it's pretty great until the amusement park pops up
― Alf, Lord Melmacsyn (s1ocki), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Haven't seen it for donkeys years, but as I remember the non-CGI alien bits of the Abyss are better - it's a fairly tense underwater spy thriller (or something to that effect, like I say it's been ages).
― I am flesh and blood. You are software and circuitry. (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:33 (fourteen years ago) link
And I just went for Terminator over Aliens after a minute of dithering between the two with the cursor.
― I am flesh and blood. You are software and circuitry. (chap), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:35 (fourteen years ago) link
s1ocki otm. also the abyss got me into linda ronstadt, so it has a special place in my underwater amusement park
― 囧 (dyao), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:46 (fourteen years ago) link
by god what a run. The Abyss though.
― piscesx, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Goddammit, you bitch! You never backed away from anything in your life! Now fight! is a random catch-phrase btwn my brother and i
i am torn btwn Aliens and Terminator... okay, Terminator
― paragon of incalescence (rrrobyn), Thursday, 19 November 2009 03:29 (fourteen years ago) link
Aliens, easily. The Terminator and T2 are close, with The Abyss a distant fourth, though it has aged pretty well.
― President Danny Glover (Millsner), Thursday, 19 November 2009 03:50 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah I voted The Abyss.
― fields of salmon, Thursday, 19 November 2009 04:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Aliens. Wanted to go with Terminator, but Aliens edges it out in almost every category: more quotable, more memorable, more suspenseful, more fun. Plus way more ambitious. Could say the same for T2, I suppose, but I don't dig the characters in that one half as much. If it weren't for the ending, the Abyss might have been in the running. And True Lies is horrible crap.
― my full five minutes of iguana time (contenderizer), Thursday, 19 November 2009 04:50 (fourteen years ago) link
Not my favourite, but Abyss has aged fine.
― caek, Thursday, 19 November 2009 14:36 (fourteen years ago) link
the time travel is what tips the scales in favour of Terminator, for me, tbh
― paragon of incalescence (rrrobyn), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link
"lolz"
<3 all these movies p much but terminator is just n/l
― Lamp, Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Friday, 20 November 2009 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
lol ok then
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 20 November 2009 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Finally saw The Abyss and was really pleased with it right up until the ending, where it would have really benefited from being much vaguer, closer to Close Encounters or even more than that - our heroes could still be 'saved' but in more of a mysterious/miraculous way. (This may be vague but I'm sort of trying to avoid spoilers even though this movie is like twenty-five years old - - - my sense is a lot of people, at least my age, are like me and never got around to it? I was too young for this and then just the right age for T2 to be my first R-rated movie.) Kind of throws off the focus of the story and the intensity of our small band of humans confronting the knowable and unknowable fears in the deep. Apparently the special edition goes even more in on the goofy/top-side stuff which sounds really bad IMO.
But for all that - some fucking incredible scenes. The big near-death climax is fucking riveting even on VHS and a tiny screen. And great to see Michael Biehn in a role that sort of uses his type-casting standards and then totally plays against your expectations of that. And generally it looks great, everything is lavishly shot.. There are one or two shots that are the equivalent of the moment in Aliens when the queen waves off the drones and it just looks really awkwardly like a guy in a rubber suit shuffling politely back out of the room. But would recommend it.
I can't believe anybody voted for True Lies which is just grotesque and awful.
― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 28 November 2013 18:35 (ten years ago) link
I would vote for Terminator 2. The timey wimey stuff was thrilling and yet just shallow enough that it didn't get in the way of Ahnold being a silly robot trying to be hip to a proto-hacker kid in-between fighting against liquid metal cop from the future. Plus that one minute of future Judgement day time war w skeleton-looking robots crushing skulls under their feet is still one of the coolest visions of horrific technologic dystopia ever.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 29 November 2013 01:55 (ten years ago) link
Haven't seen "The Abyss" in ages, so gave it another go. Still think it's pretty underrated, but man, the dialogue - it's so ruthlessly on the nose and clunky, at least for a long while, with every single line blatantly conveying a character beat/trait or explicitly foreshadowing. Every line is like "Now be careful here, boys, one touch of that red wire is enough the paralyze a man for life!" Or, "With this storm approaching, we better be careful, otherwise, we may be isolated, which would be a problem if one of us gets the bends, which is a condition that ..." Etc.
On the plus side, it gets going pretty efficiently, introducing everyone and the scenario in a fraction of the time it takes "Aliens" to get going, and the acting/casting is as top notch as the aforementioned as well. And once it gets going it's pretty great, until it realizes it needs an ending that also involves aliens. Would have been a great thriller simply about rescuing nukes from a sub while a SEAL goes nuts.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 8 July 2015 18:42 (eight years ago) link
Just watched The Abyss again, had it on in the background as the latest in a string of familiar-films-to-play while working through a kind of tedious organizational project. I totally see what JiC is saying above but man is it good anyway. I totally gave up working halfway through and just rode through the string of climaxes. Ed Harris is so fucking intense in this that really any flaws are forgiven - there's SUCH a clear, strong, raw human story at the center of the effects and the environments and the nuclear-bomb plot. Maybe Cameron's only effective tear-jerker? Really underrated IMO.
― the thirteenth floorior (Doctor Casino), Sunday, 31 January 2016 19:29 (eight years ago) link
i watched it last night! what a stupidly hard movie to make
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, 9 January 2023 15:20 (one year ago) link
there's a bit on the ILM documentary about how they did the effects for the water creature in the abyss, fun stuff
― 龜, Monday, 9 January 2023 15:28 (one year ago) link
think the last time i heard about a filmmaker filming something in an abandoned nuclear power site it was tarkovsky/stalker and he died of cancer afterwards
― 龜, Monday, 9 January 2023 15:29 (one year ago) link
key for Cameron and co was the choice to shoot in an unfinished nuclear power plant and not an abandoned one
There was a western film which was shot near a nuclear test site and similarly lots of cast and crew died of cancer (John Wayne being one of them iirc)
― omar little, Monday, 9 January 2023 16:06 (one year ago) link
that was his Genghis Kahn movie, The Conqueror. everything about that thing sounded like a disaster.
also yeah, xxp that multi-part Industrial Light & Magic doc on Disney+ is excellent, especially the earlier episodes covering its more Wild West days.
― circa1916, Monday, 9 January 2023 16:08 (one year ago) link
i didnt realize the Abyss was so hard to see these days. i'm still carting around my special edition dvd from back in the day. i guess that explains why it seems massively underrated in the Cameron canon, an incredibly fun movie
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Monday, 9 January 2023 16:12 (one year ago) link
Cameron claims a deluxe Blu-Ray treatment is coming out this year, but he's been saying that for years now. Presume it'll be available streaming in some capacity whenever that sees the light of day.
― circa1916, Monday, 9 January 2023 16:18 (one year ago) link
! 🌊
https://x.com/jimcameron/status/1724111169840124360?s=46&t=bJOqpCuQneT7ju08y55VSA
― piscesx, Monday, 13 November 2023 17:13 (four months ago) link
nice, been meaning to see this
― k3vin k., Monday, 13 November 2023 17:23 (four months ago) link
it's such a great movie
― ivy., Monday, 13 November 2023 17:27 (four months ago) link
Possibly the only Cameron movie where the acting is the best part.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 November 2023 18:09 (four months ago) link
My favorite Cameron film! This is great it's finally remastered
― octobeard, Monday, 13 November 2023 18:18 (four months ago) link
Hope it's not the Director's Cut. OG ending was perfect. Hope they kept that
it’s the special edition
(i prefer the special edition ending in just about every way even tho the frozen tidal wave cgi is a little ehhh)
― ivy., Monday, 13 November 2023 18:21 (four months ago) link
Kind of funny how many Cameron movies feature someone fighting in a mech suit, if you include the submersible battle here. Both Avatars, Aliens, this, even his short amateur film Xenogenesis.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 November 2023 18:24 (four months ago) link
is it any wonder he eventually adapted an anime
― ivy., Monday, 13 November 2023 18:37 (four months ago) link
Seriously. Why has Jim wasted so much time exploring the ocean when his heart is clearly set on building a giant mech suit?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 November 2023 18:41 (four months ago) link
I don't think much of either ending but I primarily thinking of The Abyss as a suspense movie - one of the greatest suspense movies ever IMO - so I kind of prefer the shorter run time.
It's been so long since I've seen it, I can't remember the details, but there's a scene where Ed Harris (maybe?) creeps up on Michael Biehn (I think) with a hammer (possibly?) but it's probably the most edge-of-my-seat cinema experience I can rememeber. Once Ed Harris gets to the bottom and survives, all the tension goes out of it.
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 13 November 2023 18:44 (four months ago) link
Iirc it's a wrench. But same idea. Biehn has got the space madness, and he's kind of messing with some chains, and there's that great shot where Ed is being all sneaky-creepy and the camera cuts to Biehn's eyes, and he is being literally *creepy*.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 November 2023 18:46 (four months ago) link
I've never seen Abyss. I should probably remedy that. My favorite of the ones I've seen is the original Terminator, which I rewatched recently. It's great to see how resourceful he could be without a mega-bucks budget.
― o. nate, Monday, 13 November 2023 19:21 (four months ago) link
Saw The Abyss in theaters and loved it. Have never seen it all the way through since but would absolutely buy a Blu-Ray.
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Monday, 13 November 2023 19:39 (four months ago) link
I read the Orson Scott Card adaptation! iirc there were maps!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 November 2023 19:44 (four months ago) link
Terminator > Terminator 2
I couldn't remember whether I had seen The Abyss till I read a synopsis, and . . . I'm pretty sure I've seen it.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 13 November 2023 20:40 (four months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k1y6TGW24I
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 November 2023 13:50 (four months ago) link
I haven't seen The Abyss since it first hit video stores. The only thing I can remember is the liquid breathing apparatus.
None of my usual theaters have any screenings listed yet. Looks like tickets go on sale next Monday, so hopefully one of them will announce it between now and then.
― peace, man, Tuesday, 14 November 2023 14:17 (four months ago) link