It’s funny because Lucas talks in From Star Wars to Jedi about how sci-fi directors always make the mistake of spending film time showing off the amazing sets and locations they’ve created just because they’ve spent a lot of time actually making them, but really they should be getting on with the story and letting the setting speak for itself. This mantra is definitely followed in the OT and TFA but not at all in the PT.
You know the more I read stuff like this I start to wonder what happened to Lucas in the 90’s. He really has a great track record of contradicting himself.
It also kind of ironic on how he used the PT to show off all the CGI while he did all he could to not show off the practical stuff. It’s almost as if it was done on purpose.“Almost”?
Well it’s still technically there, and you can see it if you look closely enough. And he did after all pay for it. Kind of a weird thing to do if you never planned to use it. And he did gradually use less of it for each PT film that he made.