Went to see Avatar 2 in 3D on opening day. It was their very first showing of the film. Was initially pretty disappointed. It was…OK. Kind of uncomfortable. I took the glasses off and it was actually better without the glasses.

And then something happened that has never before happened in my moviegoing experience. They paused the movie.

A guy from the theater came out and explained there was an issue they were troubleshooting. They had received very detailed instructions from IMAX on how to set up the new projector and 3D tech, they’d followed the directions to the letter, but it wasn’t working quite right. So they were on the phone with IMAX and fixing it. The theater was a little restless, one or two guys left, but the rest of us waited it out. It took them about 15 minutes to fix. They rewound the movie a few minutes and hit play, and…

WOW. The difference was incredible. Night and day. Whatever they fixed, it made the movie go from “eh, whatever” to “this is exactly the kind of experience that will never be able to be achieved at home”. I’ve seen a number of 3D movies in the theaters before and enjoyed them, but this took the cake. I’d been on the verge of asking for a refund. That changed into me wanting to see it again immediately.

Couldn’t tell you the names of half the characters. But I could tell you how many hair follicles each of them had.

I'd agree; the issue is that a lot of big "spectacle" movies actually have cheap and rushed CGI that's not really that good.