Alexrd said:

Lets take a look at an actual screenshot:

Yes, let's do that.

Poorly shaped puppet not withstanding, to me the CGI version still looks like what it is - a drawing. The shadows aren't consistent with the puppet or the world it existed in, the texture is softened, and the depth has been erased. The cartoon version looks flat.

For the record, I know I'm trying to make my point to an apologist. I get that. I don't even remember the puppet looking so bad when I was in the theater - I was fairly disengaged at that point anyway.

Frink summed it up perfectly. Had they paid more attention to the Empire puppet and duplicated it correctly, this would be a non issue.