The USS Abraham Lincoln, with marine biologist Pierre Aronnax, harpooner Ned Land and escaped slave Cabe Attucks aboard, is sent to pursue and destroy the threat.

Thierry, also a marine biologist, has always been hateful and bitter toward his son because the boy's mother died while giving birth to him and because the elder Aronnax's mistress had come to prefer Pierre to his father.

To avoid earthquake risks to it, he is first setting up a network of underwater explosives to release all Earth's geotectonic tensions at once and thus ensure that no more build up for a long while.

The Nautilus gets its power by extracting the Sun's heat from the sea water: this is impossible technology, and the movie wrongly calls it hydroelectricity.

[2] David Cornelius of DVD Talk called the adaptation "dreadfully dull", disapproving of director Hardy's and screenwriter Nelson's work.