Apple's 'Submerged' for Apple Vision Pro is submarine warfare terror in the comfort of you...

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in Apple Vision Pro edited October 10

We're probably the only Apple-centric site with someone who served on submarines on staff, so let's talk about Apple's new Immersive Video "Submerged."

Close-up of a man's face with intense eyes beside a flaming, sinking submarine under 'Apple Immersive Submerged' and Apple TV logo.
Credit -- Apple



I've been here at AppleInsider for about eight years. Some of you know what I did in the nineties. Most of you don't.

Dear reader, your author was in the US Navy between 1991 and 1999. Five of those years were spent rated as a machinist mate serving as a boiler and reactor chemist on the USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN-709). At the time, Rickover was a Los Angeles class submarine that was then based out of Norfolk, Virginia.

It's razor blades now, and a new Rickover was commissioned a year ago.

If the hull number seems vaguely familiar, the USS Dallas, featured in The Hunt for Red October, was virtually identical to Rickover in the real world.

This is me, in 1997, in the Groton, Connecticut submarine flood trainer in 1997. I had a few deployments under my belt already at this point.

To get ahead of the question, that flange in front of me pumped 10,000 gallons per minute. There is a poor soul underneath this plume of water holding the nut attached to the other end of this bolt, so I can apply what we colloquially called "star torque" to the bolt to seal off this flange.

Person in protective gear operates equipment surrounded by splashing water.
Author Mike Wuerthele in a submarine flood trainer in 1997



Bonafides established, let's discuss Submerged.

What is Submerged?



Submerged is a 16-minute short film for the Apple Vision Pro headset, in Apple's own Immersive Movie format. It tells the story of a World War II submarine crew fighting to survive a torpedo attack.

Apple says that the Immersive Video format "leverages 3D video recorded in 8K with a 180-degree field of view and Spatial Audio to transport viewers to the center of the action."

Indoor film set with a large water tank, scaffolding, and various equipment. Crew members work around the area, some near the tank and others on the scaffolding.
'Submerged' practical set - credit Apple



So far, the other Immersive Movies are documentaries, or sports reels. This is Apple's first run at drama using the format.

Submerged was written and directed by Academy Award winner Edward Berger. Berger has several German credits, but is mostly known recently for All Quiet on the Western Front. It is not lost on me that like your author, he too is 54.

Apple Vision Pro Immersive Video is no joke

The movie is protected. As such, screen caps aren't possible, regretfully. This is a shame, but on the other hand, much of the detail and all of the immersiveness would be lost.

Anyway, the film covers the last war patrol of a Balao class submarine, and the lives -- and deaths -- of some of the crew.

Rickover was more than 360 feet long, and 33 feet across. We had space, but with over 120 men on board typically, and more than half the boat dedicated to non-sleepable engineering space, we didn't have a lot.

I am a Cold War vet. That's an entirely different environment, and a different tension than World War II.

The souls on those World War II Balao class boats had it far rougher, in a smaller boat with less operational space -- and diesel engines versus nuclear power making all the air your can breathe and all the water you can drink without fear of running out of fuel. Those fleet boats were 311 feet long with much of that bow space, and 27 feet across.

Submerged is mercifully brief. I say "merciful" not because the media and portrayal is bad, but it's so good and incredibly, profoundly, stressful. The Apple Vision Pro is an incredible media delivery tool demonstrating how claustrophobic submarines are.

And it gets worse when the patrol goes bad. At some point, a surface destroyer depth-charges the Swordfish, and all hell breaks loose.

Scroll back up to my flood trainer picture. There's a reason I included it.

While not stated as such, the number two torpedo tube doors break after a close-aboard explosion, flooding and ultimately sinking the boat. The skill of the director, and the craftsmanship of the practical set demonstrate the terror of water rushing into your fragile air tank, 400 feet under the water with 170 pounds per square inch crushing your boat, as the preface to the video makes clear.

Person in a mechanical room struggling to close a leaking valve, water splashing, sparks flying, with intense lighting and industrial machinery in the background.
The moment things go bad -- Credit - Apple


In my own training and practical experience it's better if you find the water coming into the boat, or you find the fire before the smoke finds you. The Submerged crew didn't have that luxury.

It's not shown, but some of the crew certainly died. For the rest, there's an uncertain ending. They end the film, adrift on the open ocean, theoretically close to shore, since the submarine was resting on the bottom in probably 500 feet of water, allowing them to swim out the escape trunk to the surface.

But, that destroyer lurks, and they're clearly in hostile waters. Knowing this, I scanned the horizon for that destroyer. It wasn't there, but the Apple Vision Pro was happy to pan the field of vision to let me look.

A showcase of Apple Vision Pro potential, and the terror of submarining

It's been said that warfare is "an affair of months of boredom, punctuated by moments of terror." That was certainly true of Cold War submarine deployments, and the inverse was likely true of World War II patrols.

Submerged gives a 15-minute sample of that terror, incredibly effectively. After watching, after the crew escape, I felt a shadow of long-ago post-crisis adrenaline depleting, which is high praise for the film, the hardware, the cast, and the crew.

Lower resolution screens in competing headsets would have been able to show some of this, but the environment was made so visceral by the headset. Even the smallest irrelevant detail was clear, like nameplates on doors.

If you watch, pair the Apple Vision Pro with your Spatial Audio-capable AirPods, you won't be sorry.

This is Apple's first more-or-less fictional Immersive Video. While I am not a fan of the headset ecosystem as it stands today overall, I am a fan of what the future may bring, with this delivery method. I am obviously a fan of this subject matter.

If you own an Apple Vision Pro, watch it. If you can borrow one, it's worth 15 minutes of your day.

I'll be watching it again.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 20
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,726member
    Thank you for your service. It's impressive.

    Thank you for your review. It's interesting.
    thtgregoriusmapple4thewinwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 20
    USS DALLAS was the boat in the story of The Hunt for Red October, but USS HOUSTON (SSN-713) was the physical boat actually filmed.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 20
    Thanks for the review Mike, we couldn't have had a better, or more vivid recommendation. As you say, the current instantiation of AVP might be lacking but the platform possibilities are enormous. It's going to be a slow burn while the content and connectivity expand and the HW contracts.
    appleinsiderusergregoriusmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 20
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,922administrator
    USS DALLAS was the boat in the story of The Hunt for Red October, but USS HOUSTON (SSN-713) was the physical boat actually filmed.
    Yup! 713 was also about the same as 709.
    sflagelwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 20
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,574member
    I hope you sent a copy of this review to the team that put it together. I think they would be thrilled to hear your testimony as to the realism of the experience.
    appleinsiderusersflagelwatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 20
    Wonderful article. Great comments so far too!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 20
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,723member
    Thanks Mike for putting in a good word for your fellow Cold War vets. I know a lot of folks don't give the Cold War very much thought because they don't see it as a "shooting war." But in reality it was probably the highest stakes standoff we've ever encountered because the threat of global annihilation was constantly in play. The mass deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on both sides during that time period could easily have served as the trigger to escalate to the next phase, which would have been disastrous. Very few people fully appreciate the level of responsibility that the US military has always placed on very young adults, both enlisted and officers alike. Zero margin for error.

    I served on the other side of the seawater-air boundary as a surface sonar and underwater fire control system technician and acoustic analyst but maintained close ties with my submariner equivalents throughout my training and career. My brother-in-law was a Chief on the Memphis (another 688 boat). After graduating engineering school I spent several more years working in the same domain and was part of the full scale development teams for both the SQS-53C surface ship sonar for the DDG-51s and CG-47s and the BSY-2 combat system for Seawolf SSN-21. I remember Tom Clancy visiting our plant/campus during the time period the Hunt for Red October movie was in development. 
    edited October 10 appleinsiderusergregoriusmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 20
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 3,020member
    I still get flashbacks to the film Das Boot I watched in the early ‘80s. 
    I think I’ll pass on this one. 
    sflageldanox
  • Reply 9 of 20
    thttht Posts: 5,661member
    My compliments on the article, Mike!

    Your words are more than enough for me, The margin for error between life and death is harrowing. And yes, I'm your age and the cold war was something I hope people never have to experience. Everyone at the time was just a bad decision or mistake away from a nuclear apocalypse.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 20
    Thank you for the review — I just watched Submerged myself and it's good to know it stands up to someone one's been there.

    Submerged really is a great start for modern, narrative Immersive filmmaking, and I'm sure there are creative people out there being inspired by it. (If anyone's curious to know more, I'll be talking about 3D, Spatial and Immersive filmmaking at the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit coming up in about a month in Cupertino, including an Apple Park visit, and I'll definitely be mentioning this film.)
    edited October 10 watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 20
    Thanks for the review of this! Former Navy sailor from the 90s as well (surface, not sub-surface) and I thought this short film was amazing! The detail and even on surface ships, I had issues with tight spaces and this took it to a new level. Intense but absolutely amazing! And like you, I am scanning the surface for the destroyer bc there is no way it's that far out of the area by then and wondering things like water temp and survival time! :D Everyone should experience this film if they can and want more experiences like this from Apple and other film makers! 
    appleinsideruserwatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 20
    Indeed, AVP immersive video is no joke -- I watched some in the AVP demo and it was incredible, mind-blowingly good. It was like being there. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 20
    I wonder, how does the author feel about “exploiting” the dangerous real terror of submarine warfare for safe entertainment? Does he think making the terror so close to reality without any of the danger is ultimately a good or a bad thing, does it cheapen or enhance the respect Cold War vets deserve? 
    edited October 11 watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 20
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 13,086member
    sflagel said:
    I wonder, how does the author feel about “exploiting” the dangerous real terror of submarine warfare for safe entertainment? Does he think making the terror so close to reality without any of the danger is ultimately a good or a bad thing, does it cheapen or enhance the respect Cold War vets deserve? 
    If this is exploitation then you’d better not watch any film with any kind of conflict in it 🙄
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 20
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,445member
    As I don't have a Vision Pro it's unlikely I'll see this and will possibly have forgotten a couple of spoilers in the review. I stopped reading not wanting to discover any more so maybe that's all there were.

    As a Viet Nam era boat sailor my tour was on a diesel boat but still a far cry from a fleet boat. While in New London/Groton I did get to tour an FBM and a fast attack, and even the latter was more "spacious" than my boat.

    Had I been on a nuke I might never have had the opportunity to sit bottomed, working LiOH hoppers.

    Even before enlisting I'd seen every submarine movie made prior. Das Boot came out after my enlistment or I might never have gone to boats. 

    I'm glad Apple is doing more immersive videos and Submerged looks like a winner. I'm itchin' to pull the trigger on a Vision Pro.
    edited October 12 watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 20
    sflagel said:
    I wonder, how does the author feel about “exploiting” the dangerous real terror of submarine warfare for safe entertainment? Does he think making the terror so close to reality without any of the danger is ultimately a good or a bad thing, does it cheapen or enhance the respect Cold War vets deserve? 
    If this is exploitation then you’d better not watch any film with any kind of conflict in it ߙ䦬t;/div>
    It was a question specifically to the author, or anyone who served on a sub and saw this on AVP.  Why did I ask? Because in a film you are quite obviously on the outside looking in - you feel for the people in the movie, but not for yourself. This is different - the fear without the consequence. I wonder how someone who had the fear and the consequences feels about it. What do they think the second level effects may be?
    edited October 12 watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 20
    This trailer is with a watch too.....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjvzQeqoGRg
    appleinsideruserwatto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 20
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,922administrator
    sflagel said:
    I wonder, how does the author feel about “exploiting” the dangerous real terror of submarine warfare for safe entertainment? Does he think making the terror so close to reality without any of the danger is ultimately a good or a bad thing, does it cheapen or enhance the respect Cold War vets deserve? 
    There's no exploitation here, any more than The Hunt for Red October was.

    I am 100% fine with people knowing the experience and fate of fleet boat sailors without having to die or get torpedoed in the process.
    sflagelappleinsideruserdewmemacguiwatto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 20
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,379member
    Apple is just laying the ecosystem groundwork piece by piece much like most of the things they’ve done in the last 25 years since Steve Jobs came back and under Tim Cook, they haven’t stopped.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 20
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,445member
    sflagel said:
    I wonder, how does the author feel about “exploiting” the dangerous real terror of submarine warfare for safe entertainment? Does he think making the terror so close to reality without any of the danger is ultimately a good or a bad thing, does it cheapen or enhance the respect Cold War vets deserve? 
    There's no exploitation here, any more than The Hunt for Red October was.

    I am 100% fine with people knowing the experience and fate of fleet boat sailors without having to die or get torpedoed in the process.
    Or Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, etc. Or any other number of films. William T. Sherman said it. No one should have to experience it. But that's not the world we live in.
    watto_cobra
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