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Cameron flaunts footage of pristine, featureless bottom

Fails to ram robot fist into it (with Rolex on wrist!)

Celebrity mega-auteur James Cameron, fresh from his partially successful submarine mission to the deepest recess of the oceans, has stunned the interwebs with the release of some video showing the "featureless" seabed which he reached after such great efforts.

Here's a press-conference vid including the footage:

Cameron, renowned for giving the world such flicks as The Abyss (alien hippies live at the bottom of the oceans and vanquish an alliance between the US military and an oil company) and Avatar (alien hippies live on distant worlds and vanquish a mining company employing ex-US-military mercenaries) seemed upset at not discovering any aliens or hippies.

Another disappointment from the trip was the failure of the film-maker's submarine, DeepSea Challenger, to retrieve a bottom sample. The vessel was equipped with a robotic arm for this purpose, but a hydraulic failure unfortunately kyboshed the bottom-groping part of the expedition.

As was also the case with the first expedition to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, a diving watch manufactured by corporate sponsor Rolex was attached to the outside of the sub. In this case a specially developed Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge, rated for no less than 12km depth at static pressure, was strapped around the robot arm which unfortunately failed to scoop up any samples.

There's no particular reason to suppose that the watch will have failed to function throughout, as the Deep Sea Special attached to the bathyscaphe Trieste, making the first descent to the bottom of the world back in 1960, had no problems. ®

Bootnote

For a change of pace, you might like to join in the argument about poseur's dive watches in our new Forums section as opposed to the usual Comments.

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