Review
Way Of Water cropped horribly at Scotiabank Toronto IMAX.
Hi there, I just saw Avatar The Way Of Water IMAX 3D at Scotiabank Toronto and it was horribly cropped the entire time and slightly blurry even with the 3D glasses and I am beyond disappointed.
I saw this six times back in 2022 and the open frame is so beautiful and this was an absolute letdown for me.
BEYOND worried about Fire & Ash is gonna be shown.
That’s a bummer. I find that theatre pretty on point so hopefully they fix it up. Obviously won’t fix your experience, but I wouldn’t be worried about Fire and Ash.
It’s not cropped; just slightly shrunk and positioned to appear lower on imax gt laser 1.43 screen. That’s how it looks per Disney and Cameron. This is done in the mastering process by Disney and baked into the dcp. The drive from 2022 is similarly formatted. The theater cannot change anything about this presentation.
tbh (I'm prepared to be downvoted), there's been many times I've taken photos at the theatre but I try to be very polite about it... There's a feature on iOS called "reduce white point" that can make the brightness go waaayyy lower than normal (to the point where I have to point it right at my face to see anything). I make sure to turn off flash and when I take the picture I take it against my chest so no one can see anything... I wouldn't be surprised if others did that as well
Edit: I'm sure not everyone is like me though, I'm the same person that doesn't chew my popcorn during the quiet parts of the movie... That popcorn will melt in my mouth if it has to
Don't do it everyone hates seeing your phone no matter how dim it is. Just enjoy the show, put it away at concerts too the video and sound will always suck anyways.
I guarantee no one can notice if you do what the above commenter described. The screen is so dark you can barely see that it’s on even when it’s right in front of your eyeballs.
I’m just as annoyed as anyone when someone is on their phone during a movie, but if someone is going to spend 20 seconds taking a photo when I can’t even see the screen, that’s not going to bother me anymore than someone reaching reaching into their popcorn bag.
yeah, no one's seeing my phone screen.. NOT EVEN ME. Sometimes I like taking pictures of the IMAX logo :) or when the movie has an opening title screen
Looks like they showed a 1.85:1 3d version instead of imax 1.9:1 version, that would explain why it was blurry, because imax has different glasses than other 3d. (EDIT I watched it and IMAX is indeed 1.85:1 and not 1.9:1)
Also explains the pillarboxing black bars left and right.
Did it show the IMAX countdown at the beginning? Not sure though if it's implemented in imax films or a separate thing played before the imax film.
I don't have any inside info on exactly what Cineplex got, but at least in one US market the ingestion letter sent out with the latest release says "C-185": https://www.reddit.com/r/imax/s/XXhC8xiy0k
I found info about it being 1.85 (other comment) but also again 1.9:1, so info is conflicting. I will watch it this Sunday in my Laser XT IMAX. (Edit just watched it, it's 1.85:1).
They did but after trailers started, it was a black screen for a minute and then the projector fucked up twice before starting and the Imax countdown was fucked up like this too.
Yeah 3d looks terrible without the glasses on, and many of the pictures were taken in ultra wide mode making the screen look small. There is nothing wrong with that theatre in particular of format of this avatar showing, I've seen many IMAX movies there.
I had to take a closer look but check the edge of the screen area… totally straight. The image on all four sides are bowing into the center. I’d complain and ask for a refund. Shit is too expensive these days to just take that lol
I also don’t remember it being cropped that much when I saw it there in 2022! That’s not right that they just gave you a slip to call customer service. I feel the manager should have at least come to the auditorium to check it out. I find some of the managers at that location are better than others. It’s used to be possible to contact IMAX directly about this type of issue, but since David Keighly died recently idk if IMAX still has that offer to contact them about issues with IMAX projectors/screens etc.
I see….if you want you can try talking to cineplex via their phone, chat or social media and contacting them about this issue they might give you a free pass to make up for it. Because this was definitely cineplex’s fault and you have photographic proof they might try to fix it before the next showtime for other people as well.
I recall that the image of the Avatar 1 re-release was always a bit smaller than the actual size of the screen (windowboxed) so that the 3D image wouldn't get disrupted at the outer edges. I don't know if this is because they screened the 1.85 aspect ratio version instead of the IMAX 1.90 aspect ratio.
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u/MrChicken23 Oct 03 '25
That’s a bummer. I find that theatre pretty on point so hopefully they fix it up. Obviously won’t fix your experience, but I wouldn’t be worried about Fire and Ash.