Mrebo said:

Bingowings said:

The video essay is too simplistic.

Agreed with much in your post. I do think the extensive CGI is the issue being complained about when people talk about too much cleanliness. It's more an abundance of fake stuff that looked fake. And Padme's ship was silly! Didn't have the iconic status they must have intended.

The big problem with the "too much CG" is Lucas did too much, too early. He made most of the sets, stunts, creatures, etc CG in 1999, 2002, 2005, way too early for that amount of CG to look good. Avatar was the first one to have primarily CG sets that looked real. The PT now looks embarrassingly bad in many spots and it's not even that old.

The ST won't have such a problem with CG sets, they'll look more convincing, and JJ Abrahms uses a lot of physical sets anyway.