Despite some mislabeled packaging, The Abyss has never been released with an anamorphic transfer. There were several prior threads about this, but they got trashed due to a forum glitch.
Fox will release a new edition of "The Abyss" this year in Germany. It's confirmed in a trailer for the new Cinema Premium series. Because there's not mention of an new anamorphic transfer, I sent an e-mail to DVD Producer Van Ling.
Here is his answer from six weeks ago (Dec. 7th):
I believe you will get your wish. My understanding is that the primary reason that Fox is doing this new release is specifically to include a new, director-approved anamorphic transfer. The transfer is currently being reviewed by Jim Cameron's folks at Lightstorm Entertainment.
I also was wondering this. Had no idea of the mislabeling. I hope the above rumors are true and this film is released the way it should be. Thanks to all who helped to answer this.
Hi there! If anyone could help me out...I love The Abyss, and have the SE DVD release from 2000. Unfortunately the transfer is non-anamorphic. Do any of the new editions of the disc have an anamorphic transfer? Is it possible to upgrade to a disc that has an anamorphic transfer and all the same content/extras? Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, Bill
P.S. I also have the exact same question for Carpenter's The Thing.
It's funny-- I didn't really care about anamorphic DVDs as I have a 4x3 CRT set. But I'm getting a 16x9 LCD set in a few weeks and all of a sudden, I realize just how many titles are straight letterbox. While GROSSE POINTE BLANK, MIMIC and BEATUTIFUL GIRLS annoy me, it's movies like THE ABYSS and MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON which are particularly vexing. I just don't get it after all this time. And if HD-DVD and Blu-Ray doesn't catch on, I have a feeling it's gonna take a LONG time for some of these catalog titles to be reissued on any format.
Other than THE ABYSS, hasn't Fox reissued most of their early high-profile non-anamorphic titles with new anamorphic transfers? The SD DVD format's still got a lot of life left in it, so I suspect Fox will eventually get around to THE ABYSS.
Without a doubt, there are tons of great movies on DVD suffering from 4:3 encoded transfers.
It really is sad and it's also sad that I bought them, but for some there will be no better SD release and the HD release path is likely to be 'greatest hits' driven (similar to LD).
On the bright side, there contines to several 16x9 upgrades coming out on DVD (three just today, for example).