How they filmed the cool scenes in Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989)

What I like about Cameron's old films is that they had a minimum of CGI.

Special effects were created by hand, which, of course, added to the authenticity and magic of the movie. The golden era of visual effects.





Here, for example, the beginning of "Aliens". Waking up, Ridley realizes that she was on the orbital space station "Gate".



How this frame was created: the "projection" of the station - separately.





And the Earth is the background, a separate printed picture:



There are also several small models of spaceships, sliding along the wire, plus light bulbs, lighting effects (lights on stations, highlights, etc.).

"The Abyss", an episode of exploration of the wreckage of a sunken submarine.



Three small bathyscaphe models were used here. Each of them was suspended on cables.








There are also moving tiny figures of divers. In fact, we have a puppet cartoon.

During editing, frames of soap bubbles and smoke were superimposed on the stage to achieve the effect of deep sea shooting.



All shots where the characters interacted with the DeLorean were removed from a full size car. And here are the footage of flights taken from using the model.

There is a scene where the car flies past the camera, lands, and then the actors get out of it.







The lamp post masks the dividing line where the model and real shots were combined.



Flying DeLorean transforms from model with small puppets in a full size car with real people right on our eyes as it flies past a lamppost.