Just wondering if anyone knows why there has never been a proper DVD (anamorphic) release or no word of a BR release? They show this movie on the HD movie channels alot (max, Showtime, etc.) and even then it is in full screen.

This, from the thread "Cameron Talks Avatar Redux, 3D, Titanic, Abyss/True Lies Blu-ray," which comes up when you search "Abyss":

Yes, actually I did see that when I searched for Abyss. However, the question I asked was if anyone knew WHY there hasn't been a proper DVD release or a BR release.

The same reason there has never been a proper release of True Lies. They never bothered. They promised a five star release within a year of the crap release and that never showed. Supposedly he was too busy with Titanic dives, and creating Avatar among other things

Because James Cameron is an asshole?

I was coming here to type this exact same statement. Cameron is too busy getting ready to wow us with Titanic 3D.

^What they said. James Cameron insists that he must personally approve the video transfers for any new release of his films. In the 12 years between Titanic and Avatar, he was "too busy" to sit down for a few hours to do that.

If work has only recently begun on new transfers for The Abyss and True Lies, we should expect them to be completely doused in teal and orange, like Aliens was.

9/11 happened thats why there was never a decent True Lies dvd release.

Yet we got The Siege on blu ray, which is also a Fox release. No fuss about that. Not a spectacular transfer, but it's at least fucking ANAMORPHIC.

Cinemax has been showing The Abyss non stop for months now in HD WITH the correct aspect ratio. Hopefully a release is on the way.

I'm still pressing for True Lies. Got rid of my bare-bones release years ago when a better one was announced. Still waiting.....[crickets]

The Abyss is such an underrated movie (The Extended Cut), and I can't believe we never atleast got an Anamorphic Release on DVD?

The Abyss and Witness are the 2 movies I have been waiting for on BluRay.

My understanding is that Cameron was going to work on a DVD release, and then got distracted by his endless work on Avatar. Though if it ever does come out, I'm sure he'll jerk the color-timing all to hell, which dampens my enthusiasm anyway. Though at least these don't have mono for him to remove. There's a version of True Lies available in HD from Vudu.

Ah finally! I absolutely HATE every pay movie channel that keeps showing this on crap 4x3 and what looks like a VHS transfer. I guess I'll be DVRing it and saving it until we get something updated. Of course knowing our luck, Cameron will announce he's remastering it in 4k Ultra 3D and it'll be done sometime after Avatar XVII comes out.

2010 can't come soon enough!

Well, some territories are supposedly getting both films at the end of this year. We'll see, though.

You can't compare Cameron to Lucas, cause atleast Cameron releases EVERY version of his movies to the public: The Abyss, Aliens, and T2 all have both versions of the movies on either DVD and BluRay.

Lucas said about the Original Star Wars Trilogy Version in 2003, "Those versions don't exist anymore!"

True Lies has been on D-VHS for a long time. Stupid movie, but it does look and sound pretty good.

Strange these movies have never even received an anamorphic DVD release. Remember the supposed 5 star release due the year after the original release?

D-VHS, one of the few formats I never jumped into. Went the way of quadraphonic albums and 8mm pre-recorded movies

Rumor was that James Cameron lost his enthusiasm for True Lies after 9/11 and didn't want to revisit it.

So we don't get a remastered version because Middle East terrorism isn't fun anymore?

Wasn't the rumor that we were getting a 15-year anniversary edition of The Abyss and a 10-year anniversary edition of True Lies in Q4 2014?

That was the gist of the rumor, yes. How much truth there was in it, I don't know.

Depends on where you're getting that from. Bill Hunt has made variations on that claim every year since at least 2010. We're still waiting.