It's a generational thing though.

Special effects techniques progressed slowly until computers (first in the form of motion control cameras and as the means to compose elements and then as the generator of the effects themselves ) entered the system.

Computational capacity has increased with the rapid shortening of memory and chip generations and the drop in price of both.

The Last Starfighter's computer generated effects which cost $14 Million out of a $15 Million budget look like a really old game cut scene now. This is compounded by the fact that the computer game featured in the film would have been impossibly un-affordable at the time (especially for a little trailer park) at yet it looks really old hat now.

The Matrix (1999) came out the same year as TPM but in terms of effects techniques (due to CGI usage) many more generations separate it from a film like Transformers (2007) than divide 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which uses almost the same effects techniques as Forbidden Planet (1956) from Star Wars (1977). The over-rated The Matrix is still a much better film than Transformers though.