Didn't take long for this thread to pop up.

The prequels are sterile. They may be more impressive on a technical level, but many of the scenes are simply overstuffed/noisy or they stick out too much as being CGI.

There are some great vistas like the volcanic Mustafar or the stormy Kamino, but it's the smaller environments that stick with me in the movies. The lonely swamp on Dagobah is a great example of this. When I watch the movie I don't think, "Oh, that's a soundstage in Leavesden." It feels real because it IS real. I love the realism of the matte paintings in the background.

That said, the imagined scope of the prequels is indeed larger. I won't hate on the use of CGI because it serves a great purpose in realizing ambitious visuals in movies. But it's the overuse and over-reliance that makes each environment less memorable.

In ROTS there's some planet with all kinds of dumb looking, large, colorful plants and flowers. It's a short scene, but it just looks so awful and cartoony given that we're trying to actually feel sad at that moment for the Jedi being killed.