I did not know exactly what to expect from “Ghosts of the Abyss,” a 3-D IMAX movie about the Titanic.

I feared that Academy Award-winning director James Cameron’s journey back to the site of the Titanic in documentary form would lack some fascination compared to his original blockbuster hit in 1997.

I was wrong.

Teaming up with veteran underwater filmmaker Vince Pace, Cameron travels beneath the Atlantic to explore the famous sunken ship that claimed 1,500 lives, and emerges with a thrilling and historic documentary about the famous wreck site.

Cameron, along with Titanic actor Bill Paxton, scientists and historians, descend 1,200 feet to the bottom of the ocean with a variety of new technical gizmos to capture the breath-taking abyss where the ocean liner rests.

A small pair of robotic cameras nicknamed Jake and Elwood probe within the inner spaces of the sunken ship, capturing images in areas that normal bulkier IMAX cameras could not go.

Designed by writer/director Cameron’s brother, Mike Cameron, the remote-controlled cameras reveal intimate and memorable scenes.

Cameron arranged for the wreckage to be lit from above with an innovative underwater “chandelier” that cast a mysterious, lunar glow over the remains.

The production uses a stereoscopic rig called the Reality Camera System, which Pace co-designed with Cameron, to reduce the strain on a viewer’s brain and eyes when two images converge into one 3-D image.

The state-of-the-art system is designed to place camera lenses within three inches from one another, which simulate eyesight.

Wearing 3-D glasses for the hour-long film brings a reach-out-and-touch experience for movie goers.

Combined with high-definition 3-D cameras, there is an adventure-movie thrill to the documentary.

Images and objects take on a holographic presence that pop out from the screen’s flatness. There is also educational value to the movie; it is both a history lesson and a tribute to the latest, digitized oceanographic research.

The dimensional effect more or less disappears on the ocean floor, but it does not take away from the overall experience. Images from inside the decaying ship are gripping enough without the need for special effects.

The entrancing look at the remaining items still in the ship will leave you astonished.

You see the china, you see the windows, you see the captain’s bathtub and you see it all so vividly, aided by this 3-D format.

Cameron uses an engaging technique to recreate life on the ship and to fill in missing furnishings.

Through old pictures and frames from the movie Titanic, Cameron uses holograms resembling the disastrous night to tell this story.

This concept allows Cameron to reveal the wreckage, inside and out, as never before.

He gives viewers the chance to see the reanimation of the Titanic and even the characters that inhibited it, including the band that played until the end.

The crew discusses what happened during their exploration and how they reacted to situations. They speculate on how they may have reacted to situations had they been on the boat themselves.

Because filming took place during the 9/11 tragedy, Cameron provides somewhat of a parallel between the two disasters, creating more of a realistic human element to the movie.

The IMAX 3-D theater in Moody Gardens, located in Galveston, and the Wortham IMAX theater in the Houston Museum of Natural Science, show “Ghosts of the Abyss” daily, and will play it through the end of summer.

Top of Page | Front Page