Cheap effects

I inadvertently flicked through the space battle at the beginning of Star Wars episode 3 recently and instantly reconnected with my boredom the first time I saw it. J.G. Ballard, apocalyptic fiction writer extraordinaire, famously wrote an essay pointing out why Star Wars' visual aesthetic was so convincing and philosophically interesting. It was a future filled with technology that was dirty and malfunctioning, i.e. the often overlooked downside to advancement. Most sci-fi tries to make the most of the future, all cars are new, everything is shiny, etc. Just ask yourself from 1990 what they thought 2010 would be like. Whereas the old Star Wars had handmade cardboard and plastic models, covered in grit, scratches and fingerprints, this one cgi's the shit out of that space battle, leaving us with a day-glo plastic version of a battle with graphics that you'll be able to make with an iphone app in a year or so.