THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Story time! I was originally going to go to my local Regal to see Avatar: Fire and Ash, but Reddit convinced me to see it in IMAX 3D. Then I changed my showtime from 6:15 to 2:00 because I got out of school early, only to have the movie start, get one minute in, and then have the screen malfunction that took 45 minutes to get resolved. Avatar: Fire and Ash then started at 3:15, and luckily, the lengthy delay didn’t take away from my IMAX 3D experience.

As was to be expected, Fire and Ash’s calling card was its visuals, which definitely took a smaller step up than the cavernous one between Avatar and The Way of Water, but were also easily the best of the franchise. It still blows my mind how expressive, fluid, and intricate motion capture can look when it’s developed this intentionally and with this much money. From the Na’vi to the water (that was legendary in the last movie) to the Ash and Wind tribe’s unique qualities, every inch of Pandora popped yet again.

The music was also stunning, both in songs and score, from Simon Franglen and Miley Cyrus. Franglen has done an admirable job on the Avatar films since James Horner passed, bringing pompous and elegant sounds to every horizon-expanding scene, and “Dream as One” was one of the best credits songs I’ve heard this year. I’ve been of the opinion that only songs used in a film’s narrative should be considered for the Oscar, but this song gets a pass.

While a treat for the eyes and the ears, Fire and Ash was a bit of a disappointment in the story department. So many beats felt recycled from the previous films, and rarely was anything new tried with the tons of new characters. I was really interested in Varang and the Mangkwan Clan, but I didn’t like how their tribe ended up functioning as an arm of the Miles Quaritch machine. Quaritch has been a great villain in these movies, but his time has passed. I would have loved to see Cameron really dive headfirst into the geopolitics of Pandora—an idea we’ve seen promising glimpses of in the last two movies—but he seemed afraid to take the leap here.

I was a really big fan of the Sully family dynamics in The Way of Water, and there was a bit of a step back in terms of their cohesion in this film. The story focused more on Spider and Kiri—characters who definitely deserved some development—and while I enjoyed where Cameron took their characters, it came at the expense of the family’s development as a unit. I’m hoping that Avatar 4: Wind and Clouds (calling my shot now) finally takes the franchise in my desired direction: all Sullys, no humans (except for Spider), à la the Planet of the Apes reboot.

Avatar: Fire and Ash was a spectacle worthy of the IMAX 3D treatment, even if I had to sit through the guinea pig screening where nothing works. James Cameron clearly loves this franchise and this world, but for a director who will probably be working on this for the rest of his life, he needs to lean all the way in and open up Pandora’s box (literally). I will no doubt keep buying tickets to see the best CGI in history over and over again, but if the stories don’t become more unique, you may see the tickets I buy switch from IMAX 3D at AMC to standard at Regal.