SilverWook said:
IIRC, Ridley Scott used the same trick to make the landing leg of the Nostromo in Alien look even bigger.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about that!
As for photographic miniatures, well, it seems like that's going away. Star Trek didn't use them at all in the traditional sense. The ships were completely digital as far as I know. It shows how far we've come just over the last ten years when we go from actual big-atures on LOTR to digital big-atures on The Hobbit.