SilverWook said:

Tatooine isn't a nice place to live, and the cinematography, intentionally or not reflects that.

Visually ugly and inhospitable are two different things. If you watch some quality BBC documentary showing beautiful shots of desert you can clearly see and get the feeling that the environment is inhospitable and harsh to life, but at the same time you can still enjoy the nice scenery. And since we are talking about fantasy film here this should be even more so. Unfortunately the original shots fail to provide that.

Yet with scenes of Hoth, Dagobah and Tatooine (in ROTJ) they succeeded in that. So without any shame I can say I am very glad Lucas updated Tatooine shots in ANH.