All they did was remove the pod racers, they did create a few new shots for it, but mostly used the 24 year old footage.
I’m sorry, don’t mean to nitpick / further derail the thread, but how do you actually know this?
They saved a few thousand by doing this.
And this?
I don’t know specifically about the episode 5 of BOBF episode, but ILM did this kind of thing in Mandalorian season 1:
During a recent interview with ICG Magazine, ILM VFX supervisor Richard Bluff provided insights on how ILM integrated real-time technology with elements from the original Star Wars in order to create a “greater connection.” Bluff explained, “There has been an enormous number of practical elements shot for previous Star Wars films, so we leveraged as much as possible from ILM’s asset library.” Bluff continued with an example from episode 5, in a scene when the Mandalorian looks off into the distance and sees two Banthas. "I was adamant we shouldn’t build a fully animated and rigged furry Bantha for just two shots and suggested we pull out the plates from A New Hope’s dailies. I knew I could come up with a shot design to leverage the Banthas from that.”
Bluff also shared that his team used ILM archives and reshot old matte paintings. “When Mando flies toward Tatooine, we are actually seeing the [Ralph McQuarrie] matte painting seen early in the original film.” This was not the only time the team used this technique. They also used another old matte painting of Mos Eisley for a fly-in. “I sent a photographer out to the exact spot George shot his original plate, capturing high-res elements so we could up-res as necessary.”