Sith Master, you missed my points on a lot of things. First off, if CGI is done well, fine, so be it as long as it looks good. Okay?
Secondly, there's a point where there is just way to much CG. I'm not focusing on the sets mostly, just how EVERY little thing is CG in Star Wars. The Jedi Temple I did not complain about for instance, but easily could have been done a model as well.
They actually used models too, like for the arena and do you think that looks bad? LOTR uses many models as well. I think models show more detail and look more realistic. CG in the prequels are cartoonish and seem slapped together. Yes, there are also good shots. But many many bad in my opinion. Jango Fett for instance being CG in the Kamino fight....just horrible....think Matrix, or any martial arts film...its called wires...how much cooler that scene would have been with a real actor....and also him CG in the droid factory...not only is it terrible to have a real guy CG standing there, but it looks horrible, horrible, horrible.
As for droid factory, its called a mix between sets and SPECIAL EFFECTS. Now I'm talking special effects, not CG. The machinery looks so cartoonish and fake I cringe every time I watch that scene. Another thing is that when such action scenes with jumping and moving around a lot, some things just look choppy and don't look right.
Now the fight with Obi Wan and Anakin....You are bringing up scenes I never brought up. I think that stuff looks very good. Ya know why? It's not CG. It's a mix between real volcanos, and fake ones they BUILT. That's why it looks so good...
I personally think the battle on the Death Star still looks good...yes some shots look corny, but the detail is great. It looks gritty and real, not cartoony and fake. The special edition of that scene, I didn't mind the changes there...The new shots were pretty good I thought.
I think in terms of ships, go for models. I don't mind creatures and things to be CG. Because they are alive, and some things are hard to create. Ships and sets I think should be models and real sets in my opinion...Ships CG I hate to use the word yet again, look cartoony, especially that opening space battle in ROTS. Models look more like real ships. Even Steven Spielberg, a director I admire for his movies and because he actually has the fx team spend a good time on the fx and actually makes them look good. He doesn't overuse CG. He uses it when needed. The fx in Minority Report I thought were very well done. He even said, as GL's best friend, that GL overused CGI way too much in the prequels. He said that actors also need real sets to react to, so that the perfomances are better. Greenscreen/bluscreen is good only to an extent, but to shoot a whole movie on it.....Its over doing it...(Unless of course, as I mentioned before it as a style...AKA Sky Captain/SIn City)
I like the Nute Gunray costume, and agree the lip syncing is the bad part, but kind of like it because its like watching a japanese dubbed film...kinda funny...
And the original Star Wars won best fx that year. ROTS is not revolutionary in anyway. I think that there are many other films this year with far better fx that should win.