Director’s exploration of the abyss goes deeper than Hollywood glitz

James Cameron has finally made it to The Abyss.

In the director’s 1989 movie of that name, Ed Harris endured one submersible malfunction after another on his way down to the ocean’s bottom. But at least when he got there, he found some friendly glowing aliens. Cameron saw nothing so exciting on March 25, when in real life he descended to the ocean’s deepest point, the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench.