to the bottom of the sea [...] Cameron excels in cranking up the tension within the cramped quarters and the effects are awe-inspiring and deservedly won an Oscar. It's only marred by being overlong and by its sentimental attachment to aliens." The release of the Special Edition in 1993 garnered much praise. Each giving it thumbs up, Gene Siskel remarked, "The Abyss has been improved," and Roger Ebert added, "It makes the film seem more well rounded." In the book Reel Views 2, James Berardinelli comments, "James Cameron's The Abyss may be the most extreme example of an available movie that demonstrates how the vision of a director, once fully realized on screen, can transform a good motion picture into a great one." Accolades The Abyss won the 1990 Oscar for Best Visual Effects (John Bruno, Dennis Muren, Hoyt Yeatman, and Dennis Skotak). It was also nominated for: Best Art Direction (Art Direction: Leslie Dilley; Set Decoration: Anne Kuljian) Best Cinematography (Mikael Salomon) Best Sound (Don J. Bassman, Kevin F. Cleary, Richard Overton and Lee Orloff) Many other film organizations, such as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, and the American Society of Cinematographers, also nominated The Abyss. The film ended up winning a total of three other awards from these organizations. Soundtrack The soundtrack to The Abyss was written by Alan Silvestri and released by Varèse Sarabande on August 22, 1989. In 2014, they issued a limited-edition (3,000 copies), two-disc album featuring the complete score minus the end credits medley, which is absent from both releases. Special Edition Rumors circulated from the film’s opening weeks of sequences cut from the film's third act. Pressure to cut the film's running time stemmed from both distribution concerns and Industrial Light & Magic's then-inability to complete the required sequences. The looming three-hour length also limited the number of times the film could be shown each day, though Dances with Wolves would challenge industry notions. Test audience screenings revealed mixed reactions to the sequences as they appeared in their unfinished form. Cameron held final cut provided that the film met a running time of roughly two hours and 15 minutes. He later noted, "Ironically, the studio brass were horrified when I said I was cutting the wave." What emerges in the winnowing process is only the best stuff. And I think the overall caliber of the film is improved by