Underwater in the Abyss

Cameron enthusiastically details the challenges conquered in bringing his original screenplay to film, but he's tight mouthed about the actual plot, and the rest of the cast have been sworn to secrecy.

"I won't tell you exactly what happens except that there won't be any Alien-type monsters. It's definitely not a horror film," stresses the director. "It's a very positive, hopeful film with a message - that we have to change if we're to survive as a species. It's about contact with a superior force, an ultimate force that has the power to judge us, and it's a love story."

It's also a story that Cameron has been turning over and over in his mind since he wrote the initial draft as a 17-year-old student while growing up on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. "The basic idea hasn't changed at all, although obviously many of the details have gradually evolved over the years in between first getting the inspiration and actually being able to get it on film.

"I originally conceived it as a story about a group of scientists in a laboratory at the bottom of the ocean, which is the sort of sci-fi idea that appeals to kids, I suppose. But once I had arrived in Hollywood, I quickly realized that a bunch of scientists aren't that commercial, so I changed it to a group of blue collar workers and made the whole thing more accessible to the average man on the street."

The director appears totally unfazed by the suggestion that the marketplace might already be saturated by underwater epics.

"I simply don't worry about things like that," says Cameron. "It's always like that in Hollywood, there are a bunch of people trying to make a similar film. Last year, it was the 'body-switch' theme, and look what happened to Big even though it was the fourth or fifth one. And the year before, it was 'science project' films. You just have to ignore everyone else and concentrate on what you are doing and make it the most original, most exciting film you can."

But after six months of a grueling six-day, 70 hour work week, the lack of creature comforts on this isolated set are beginning to tell on both cast and crew, and the stress is beginning to show. Small wonder that during another short break, even the director himself ruefully confesses that, "I knew this was going to be a hard shoot, but even I had no idea just how hard. I don't ever want to go through this again."

"It has been a long, tough shoot, but I know it's worth it," says James Cameron with a weary grin as he trudges back to the set. "I'll just feel relieved when it's all over and I can sit down and watch the whole thing with a real audience. Hopefully, they'll love it; that's the big pay-off for me."