Dat,
I wouldn’t say you’re wrong about anything in particular!
The shutter speed on the ties is coming from the blur added in AE with the Pixel Motion Blur effect. It’s currently set to 180 degrees, which is the typical shutter speed for most films. If it’s feeling too smooth, it can be dialed down a bit, maybe going with 135 or even 90 degrees. I’ve posted the project files for those who’d like to play with it. I would say I think the biomes shot is probably 180 as well, but everything looks so sharp because there’s not much depth (it’s all so far away), while the ties fly right by the camera.
The focal length is a bit harder to nail down, but was efforting for something around the 35mm range (seems safest without knowing what the shot actually is). I should mention that the biomes shot is motion tracked in AE so the ties are tracking along with the 3D camera (so even if the ties were just hovering they would still move along the shot).
The shot at the end of the film has had some debate between Option A (shorter focal length) and Option E (longer). I honestly think the focal length should be even longer considering the size of the sun, but it started to feel off with the Falcon getting any bigger.
[Edit: the engine glow would be an easy adjustment, I just don’t know when I’d have a chance to go into the project. You could also isolate that hue with a secondary and tweak it.]
The second ties shot has always been a bit of problem for me, but mostly because of the compression artifacts and over-sharpness. It came from a Nat Geo source I believe (which someone posted here probably a year ago!). It may help to add some lava or tweak the trees, and you can find the prores renders (with and without color correction) in my Master Clips folder!