Comments on: James Cameron hits bottom: deepest ever solo sub dive

By: mccrum

mccrum — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:25:00 +0000

As a diver, it’s always interested to me how dangerous it gets in relatively short periods of time.

200 feet is pretty much the outer limits of recreational diving. That’s pretty much the length of a city block, which you can walk in a minute.

6 miles down is almost as far as you can go. 6 miles on land is halfway across Manhattan.

By: jimbuck

jimbuck — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 01:15:00 +0000

I guess it’s not much different than being an astronaut in terms of danger. But being down there would totally freak me out. Being in space would be cool — 6 miles under the ocean’s surface would be terrifying to me!

By: Noctilucent Studios

Noctilucent Studios — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 23:04:00 +0000

Take a look at the video I posted earlier and then you tell us. Looks like one to me, but I can’t read Japanese.

By: Danny Andrews

Danny Andrews — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Sooo… do the Megalodon exist or not??

By: Mister44

Mister44 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:22:00 +0000

Awesome. Did he find my dad’s old radio? When do we get to see pics?

By: mccrum

mccrum — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Well sure, but you’re only reacting to the unclassified information published by National Geographic (if you want to believe that tabloid, churning out “news” pablum for the masses)! If you understand what is *really* going on under the ocean’s surface and why Cameron had to develop his own nerve-system disabling technology to sell to the US Coast Guard (with it’s front of “helping ships”) you’d really start to see what this thing is truly capable of.

It’s all a conspiracy, man, Jules Verne’s Nautilus was an inside job.

By: Halloween_Jack

Halloween_Jack — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:39:00 +0000

You can't really blame the glut of bad 3D on Cameron, though; he had a specific reason for wanting to use 3D in Avatar (wanting to immerse the audience in Pandora as much as possible without virtual reality headsets; he co-invented the cameras that he used for the process). Numerous studios saw the record-breaking grosses that he got for Avatar and came to the wrong conclusions.

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:36:00 +0000

It took a long time for that zinger to show up in the thread, but it was worth it.

By: Damien

Damien — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:35:00 +0000

The Wikipedia article for ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ states: “Verne depicted the Nautilus as capable of diving freely into even the deepest of ocean depths, where in modern-day reality it is still not possible for a submarine to do so without being crushed by the weight of water above it.”
There you have it: James Cameron faked his expedition. He’s been caught-out by Wikipedia, the fraudster!
Also, Captain Nemo sailed the Nautilus to a depth of four leagues, which is over 22km. James Cameron (what rank is he, anyway?!) descended only as far as 10,898 metres — not even half as much. Piss-weak.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Trieste “just got down there.” Deepsea Challenger has cameras, a robotic arm, and sampling chambers. I’m not sure what additional equipment other craft will be taking down there.

Call this a publicity stunt all you want, but there is science being done. It may not be as much science as you’d like or not the scientist you want, but given the staggering lack of knowledge about 70% of our planet’s area, there’s enough room for everyone here.

By: Lobster

Lobster — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:10:00 +0000

I agree, but it’s OK if they spend a LITTLE on hookers and blow, right?

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:08:00 +0000

As long as it doesn’t get edited like that movie.

The longer version is often referred to as the “Director’s Cut” but the truth is Cameron actually maintained editorial control over all cuts of the film. If there’s a version you like, that was him. If there’s a version you hate, that was him too.

By: Pedro Feliz-Hombre

Pedro Feliz-Hombre — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:07:00 +0000

He’s the King of the Underworld!

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:59:00 +0000

As long as it doesn’t get edited like that movie.

For the longest time I thought the “aliens” were nice benevolent creatures…then I saw the directors cut or full version. HORY SHET how 1 minute of footage changes your perspective of the entire thing.

By: .

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:50:00 +0000

You don’t get it.. He is REALLY good at making money. Lot’s of it.. That allows him to do his real passion, deep sea exploration.
Elon Musk made tons of bread doing PayPal. That let him do his real passion, engineering with Tesla Motors and SpaceX.

I think it’s cool that these guys do real things with their money instead of hookers and blow.

By: jeb

jeb — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:45:00 +0000

I was hoping he’d find the “Sea People” who ended the Bronze Age – a bunch of Dick Cheneys chewing on heart valves.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:30:00 +0000

This story begs for visuals.

Hell, he gave us those in ’88. Remember the water tentacle? The crazy alien city? Ed Harris breathing oxygenated amniotic fluid?

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:47:00 +0000

You have to wonder how soon we’ll be seeing commercial tours down there now…

By: Lobster

Lobster — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:35:00 +0000

There is a distinct difference between, “first to go solo because no one has ever been skilled and/or daring enough to try,” and, “first to go solo because funding is so tight it’s wasteful to only send one guy at a time.”

But hey, if this raises awareness about the health of the deep ocean, more power to him.

By: manybellsdown

manybellsdown — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:37:00 +0000

Seriously, what plan is he on? I couldn’t even get a signal on a boat to Catalina.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:41:00 +0000

i fell bad for someone like that once.

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:38:00 +0000

The divers were a nice touch….now that’s bad-ass, going to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with NO protection.

*tee hee*

By: Andrew Singleton

Andrew Singleton — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:44:00 +0000

I dislike Avatar for being too preachy and heavy handed. I didn’t much care about titanic due to being essentially a sob story.

His deep sea diving and other documentery and research related materials? Spot On.

Keep Rockin’ Mr. Cameron. Keep Rockin’.

By: AlexG55

AlexG55 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:36:00 +0000

Branson’s sub is certainly very different from the others, as it’s based on hydrodynamic lift. Schmidt’s has a larger crew and is more designed to do research rather than just get down there.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:18:00 +0000

Compared to other directors Cameron isn’t really that bad IMO. Aliens, Terminator 1 & 2, The Abyss, and True Lies were all pretty good, or at least I thought they were. Titanic wasn’t a bad movie in and of itself, just not something I cared for. Now the whole Avatar series….well I’ll reserve some judgement for the second one, but it feels like he is trying to out special effect Michael Bay.

But like others have said at least he is doing something to expand the boundaries of science with all his money.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:17:00 +0000

I remember reading about the original dive that Walsh and Piccard made. I’ve long since forgotten the book, but I remember this haunting line: “The record can only be equaled, never broken.”

I also remember reading that if you cut Mount Everest off at its base and dropped it into deepest part of the Mariana Trench its peak would be more than a mile underwater. In spite of never having actually seen Mount Everest that gives me a pretty good idea just how deep we’re talking here.

By: CH

CH — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:49:00 +0000

Read above, where the question was already answered (no need for decompression since the pressure stays the same the whole time… well, unless something goes seriously wrong).

By: doggo

doggo — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:35:00 +0000

I just wish James Cameron would focus on what he’s good at. Deep sea diving.

By: Niklas Peterson

Niklas Peterson — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:08:00 +0000

Can anyone explain how he could ascend so fast without needing to decompress? Or is he spending time decompressing now instead? I read somewhere that you need to be in decompression for 2 weeks for after having hit those kinds of depths.

By: puppybeard

puppybeard — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:48:00 +0000

I heard he was looking for Ed Harris down there. He couldn’t imagine another reason why Ed wouldn’t answer his phone calls.

Seriously though, I love slagging off James Cameron, but this is an incredibly cool thing to do. He’s really gone up in my estimation. If you were to judge him by his later films, you’d think he was an airhead, but now it’s obvious that he has some real…depth. *runs*