Movie Gadget Friday: The Fluid Breathing System from The Abyss
posted October 1st 2004 6:20PM
Last friday Josie Fraser checked out the Voight-Kampff and Esper Machines from Blade Runner, for this week's Movie Gadget Friday she writes about the Fluid Breathing System from The Abyss:
We've looked at some great films recently, but this week's gadget comes from a real stinker of a movie—it's the
Fluid Breathing System from James Cameron's 1989 sentimental underwater alien action fest, The Abyss. I have
(what I regard as) a perfectly reasonable loathing of underwater movies - they are obviously only made by sadists or
lunatics, and watching them reminds me of the early stages of motherhood. Cameron apparently falls into the former
category of film makers; the inclusion of the Fluid Breathing System was inspired by high-school aged Cameron
witnessing a science gimp almost drown in an experiment showing how liquid breathing might be possible (although not
n
ecessarily survivable). Poor old Ed Harris's
near-drowning between takes was dismissively referred to by the director as being "very uncomfortable," and the actors
working on the film subsequently nicknamed it 'The Abuse', The plot lurches from one apocalyptic crises to another with
a couple of heart-warming near deaths thrown in for good measure.
The Fluid Breathing System is brought along to the party by some Navy Seals, who join the crew of an undersea drilling
rig in order to retrieve a nuclear sub, which has sunk to settle on the precipice of an abyss. The water pressure
experienced by divers at depth make it tricky to stay down for too long without running the risk of developing
decompression sickness and turning into a human SodaStream. The breathing liquid solution works on the principle that
this won't happen if you take away the pressure in the blood and lungs by using a non-compressible fluid (oxygenated
fluorocarbon emulsion in the film), rather than a gas. Fluid Breathing theories and experiments have been around since
the mid 1960's, and Cameron happily uses this film to commemorate a long and proud history of rodent
abuse.
The quality of the film aside for a moment, I've always thought this was an intriquing and believable idea: so much so that I wondered whether or not such a system actually existed. Since this site deals in real gadgetry most of the time, and since sci fi often leads the development of technology as something of a prediction method, I think it would be aboth ppropriate and, more importantly, interesting to see these movie gadgets compared to their real world counterparts; looking at whether or not such things are possible, and maybe how and when they may eventually come to be.
In this case, the article piqued my prior curiosity enough to inspire a quick Googling. I found out not only that fairly extensive experimentation was done with this idea years back, but that the rat in the movie was actually breathing liquid exactly as described. Pretty amazing stuff.
http://www.scienceweb.org/movies/abyss.html
I'll accept that most people like Blade Runner last week's movie) for some reason, but you can't actually think that The Abyss is a bad movie! I'm not saying it's great or anything, but it's still one of the best sci-fi of it's era. I'm just saying.
--Matt
www.LivingInSin.net
Yes, the rat breathed the real stuff.
Unfortunately, the liquid is carsonogenic, so no underwater heroics for YOU.
David
I worked on The Abyss. At the time, I helped track down the last five gallons of medical-grade perfluorocarbon at Duke University, which was purchased by the production for use in the scenes where the rat(s) breathe an oxygenated version of the stuff. The rats survived quite nicely, though one developed a lingering cough that eventually cleared up. I owned a pet rat at the time and was concerned that the rats used might develop chemical pneumonia if a lesser grade of PF was used, hence the effort to track down the medical grade PF.
Obviously you've only seen the cut version. Get the full length director's cut and appreciate The Abyss for the movie it was meant to be. It actually makes a whole lot of sense when seen with the extra 10 minutes or so.
While most people think Abyss is a long dull movie, I for one think it was one of Cameron's better works to date. As numLocked said, get the director's version and see what you're missing.
I'd also like to say that I think the Abyss, while not the best movie ever, is a good sci-fi.
As for breathing fluid, it's probbably not as un-natural as you think. After all, we evolved from fish, and we spend 9 months of our lives with fluid in our lungs.
... but The Abyss, UNCUT version, is one of the greatest sci-fi flicks ever. Great ideas, great story, really good cast... granted, Cameron has totally sold out (lots of reasons that I wont go into here), but The Abyss was really a seminal sci-fi work of art. Even if you think it's a BAD movie, there's no way you can call it a STINKER! I mean, have you ever seen the move R.O.T.O.R.? I HAVE! And I felt like KILLING MYSELF afterwards. The Abyss may have it's detractors, but it's curely not a stinker compared to the dreck that Hollywood put out...=D
When I was a Resident Physician (during my speciality training period) on my Pediatric Intensive Care Unit rotation, we had several patients that required "High Frequency Liquid Ventillation" with the previously mentioned flourocarbon solutions. These patients had severe lung damage from their respective disease processes (a couple had ARDS, another had Stevens Johnson's Syndrome) and couldn't tolerate the baro-trauma that a regular Ventillator (which pumps air in under pressure) would cause to their already damaged lungs.
Instead, their lungs were partially filled (less than 15 percent of lung volume) with the a flourocarbon solution probably similar to the one mentioned above.
This gave us time to allow the lungs to heal, without having to use a cardiopulmonary bypass setup (which is quite risky and can't be sustained for very long), to the point that the children can tolerate a regular ventillator and eventually be extubated. Very cutting edge stuff at the time. Dunno how much it is used except at Major Academic centers.
Sometimes reality is as strange as fiction.
DaveC
Oh, BTW, all the patients were heavily sedated and their muscles pharmacologically paralyzed during this liquid ventillation. I really doubt that a conscious human could stand it for any length of time. I never saw it used on older (ie. Not newborn or infant) patients but maybe other places they do that. Then again, with older patients (read adults) the healing potential isn't nearly as good and there ARE injuries/diseases that are just plain incompatible with life so an intervention like this isn't really warranted in those cases.
DaveC
The cockpits of the Evas in Shinseiki Evangelion (GAINAX, 1995-96) used a breathable liquid also. I believe it was used as a way of interacting with the operator's brain, but I can't recall.
The blurb contains no information, nothing new, and no insight. What do we get next week-- the holographic chess set from the Millenium Falcon? This site is great at talking about innovations-- if there were some technology news related to liquid breathing, it might be interesting to hear about The Abyss-- but this movie is 15 years old. I've grown to expect better from Engadget.
You might want to edit the sentence in the original post that says "retrieve a nuclear sub" to "retrieve and detonate nuclear warheads from a sub".
I'm not saying you didn't actually ever watch the movie before calling it a stinker, but you may have stepped out for popcorn for long enough to miss the plot, which has conflict between the SEALs and divers because the former decide to retrieve nuclear warheads and DETONATE them. If they just wanted to retrieve the sub, the divers were up for it (and bonus pay).
"Raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water tentacle."
DaveC, I remember seeing something about that on TV a while back. See the "Medical Uses" section at the bottom of this page:
http://www.scienceweb.org/movies/abyss.html
The Abyss included a seminal moment in film history, the "water tentacle". That was the first CGI character that interacted with live actors. The NY Times reviewer said that that scene alone was worth the price of admission. Besides what other movie includes cold war tension, a submarine disaster, a hurricane, military men gone mad, drownings, breathing liquid, a resurrection, aliens and a strange trip ala 2001 to meet said aliens.
No way this is a stinker.
Also some interesting newsgroup Q and A about liquid breathing here.
http://yarchive.net/med/liquid_breathe.html
article is short and there's much more info in comments than in article itself.
The main question is unanswered: was Ed Harris really breathing liquid during filming or not? Anyone can enlighten this?
Without the article you wouldn't have had the comments you found so edifying.
No he was holding his breath underwater in a helmet full of water... for weeks of intensive shooting!
I couldn't have done it
Some review... whiny and cynical. Go away, go save a rat.
Indeed, Harris didn't breathe. There are some infos in the book (yes, I did read it). They clear out the speculation, how much is real. The thread includes all but this: military was working on it .. (probably true, as they experiment with nearly everything, regardless of contestants health..). And there is a little drawback in all the theory: you could get out air from the lungs, from the outer ear, and the bleb under the contacts to keep vision is pretty ok too. Question for the divers: What about the inner ear ?
When I (and Beth) saw this film, one man fell asleep and snored loudly throughout the last 2 days of the film (it is VERY long, or seems it) and another said "this is fucking abyss-mal" VERY loudly after about an hour, which lead to people bursting out laughing every few minutes and muttering "abyss-mal" as they regained their breath. Good night out, awful film. What about Marine Boy's Oxygum, that's just as feasible as a fluid breathing system. Numpty. Mind you I'm a luddite. PUT THE SPINNING JENNY DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE LOOM.
Ed Harris was breathing.....AIR. I believe that only the front section of the helmet was filled with fluid. It looks like it is filled with the liquid, but it is not. It is a double layer of glass with a space of about an inch or two which traps the fluid,leaving us with the impression that the whole helmet is filled. Something like those trick drinking glasses that look like they have a drink in them, when in fact there is only liquid trapped between two layers of glass/plastic. If Ed Harris' helmet was really filled with this liquid, wouldn't that have taken many, many takes to film that scene? I mean, how long can someone hold their breath? They would have had to stop filming, empty the helmet, have Ed harris take a good lungful of air, refill the helmet and resume filming. I kind of doubt that. Anyway,that's my take on it. Also, as far as this being a stinker of a movie, I wholly disagree. Maybe the writer doesn't like sci-fi. I thought it was pretty good.
About the inner ear - it is actually filled with fluid itself.
The 'middle' ear is the part I think you mean, but that is connected to your throat via the eustachian tube. I imagine that the fluid would enter the middle ear by this connection.
Who ever wrote this is a real "stinker" of a thinker. Classic example of bashing a movie and director for the sake of sounding intelligent. If you are going to write about movies, keep an open mind - you shouldn't have a "loathing" for any type - this is not "reasonable" actually, is discriminatory. By your logic, Das Boot, Hunt for Red October and Crimson Side are "stinkers" as well. It appears as though you are the only lunatic here.
I just finished watching The Abyss again. I still think is great. It's basically a love story wrapped in all the stuff described above and is a classic of SF movie making.