I just re-watched
The Abyss. It's been a while, and while the hardware pr0n is as good as ever, the corridors are simply top-notch, and everybody loves a rat in a bucket of Fluorinert, I now realise that its Bechdel Test status is marginal at best. Still, bonus points for having a slightly neurodiverse ass-kicking female engineer (who's actually seen doing some plot-critical engineering) as one of the main characters - something that made a big impression on me at a formative age.
The aliens are as twee as ever. James Cameron's Space Marines are interchangeable, even when they're just normal
marines seals. And the ending roots the film firmly in the 1980s.
Something I hadn't really twigged before is that the aliens communicate with Lindsey telepathically at several points, not just during the tentacle scene. That makes so much more sense.
And to escape the flooding submersible (assuming they didn't have the foresight to seal Lindsey in the cockpit behind the perfectly serviceable watertight hatch) they should have cut the hose on the useless oxygen mask, stuck it up the neck-dam of Bud's helmet, and only had hypothermia to worry about while swimming back to the rig. Probably the sort of thing you overlook in the cold of the moment, admittedly...