Volcanoes of the Deep Sea (2003)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Stephen Low

Writers:

Alex Low (writer)
Stephen Low (writer)

Release Date:

14 September 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Documentary

Tagline:

12,000 feet down, life is erupting

Plot:

Alvin, a deep-sea mechanized probe, makes a voyage some 12,000 feet underwater to explore the Azores, a constantly-erupting volcanic rift between Europe and North America. |

Plot Keywords:

Underwater | Evolution | Shrimp

Cast

Ed Harris	...	Narrator
Dr. Richard Lutz	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Voyage Into the Abyss (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

40 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Sonix

Trivia:

This film, along with Cosmic Voyage (1996), and Galapagos: The Enchanted Voyage (1999), were shunned by some theaters in the southern US after special interest groups felt that film's references to evolutionary theory were blasphemous.

The most impressive. spectacular, absolutely incredible Imax film ever made.

We went to the New Jersey Liberty Science Center on Thursday for the premiere of the Imax film, Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, a production conceived by Rich Lutz, a Rutgers University marine biologist. For more than a decade, Dr. Lutz has been working thousands of feet under the ocean, studying life unexpectedly discovered in the late 1970s, down in the deepest abysses of the ocean. These hitherto unknown life forms are growing in the most poisonous atmosphere in the world, the area around hypothermal vents--the volcanoes of the deep sea. Scientists now believe that these life forms hold the secret of the origins of life on earth. The scenery is awe-inspiring, never before seen by anyone as it is in the film, since even the researchers have never before been able to flood areas the size of a football field with intense illumination, as director Stephen Low's crew did for the film, by attaching lights to the deep sea explorer Alvin. Animations of the actual volcanic explosions were so good and so well integrated into the film that it was hard to tell if they were real or not. The deep sea creatures themselves are as marvelously bizarre in their appearance as they are in their biology. This is the most impressive, spectacular, absolutely incredible Imax film I've ever seen. Forget The Matrix and Kill Bill. Volcanoes of the Deep Sea is the most thrilling film ever made.