Not that deserted is better, but there is just too much focus on all the peripheral crap instead of what was important. That's grandstanding, showboating, whatever you want to call it. What made the original SW movies so good (and other scifi films like Gattaca) was a very understated reliance on the special effects. They were there to establish setting and maybe mood, but there was no reliance on them. Their use was very subtle. That's what made the original SW films so great. You knew it was there, but the story survived without the CGI pushing it along.