The stunning visuals were more than some theater projectors could handle.

The long-awaited sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar, Avatar: The Way of the Water, is still in the midst of its global theater premiere. While the film hasn’t quite broken the bank yet, those who have seen it more or less agree that its visuals are absolutely stunning, more than exceeding those of the previous film.

In fact, apparently the visuals are so stunning, some movie theaters are having difficulty showing them in their full fidelity. According to a Bloomberg report, several theaters around Japan experienced technical difficulties when trying to play the film. Avatar 2 is meant to be shown in high frame rate playback, a feature that only the newest and most advanced projectors can manage, so older projectors have been forced to run the film at a lower fidelity. Projector malfunctions have led to customer refunds and delayed screenings of the film.

The projector ended up breaking in the middle of avatar pic.twitter.com/VuXV8iB87C

— Dune ? PDFC (@DUNE_COYOTE) December 16, 2022

Most theaters are offering lower-fidelity screenings of the film, and only the high-fidelity, 48 FPS shows are having difficulty. Some theaters have even reported their projectors crashing entirely when trying to play higher-fidelity screenings of the film. Most of these reports are coming from theatergoers, however; the actual theater chains have declined to comment on the matter.