The movies look good in the same way that a brand new AAA video game looks good, but can still be boring in comparison to an older game with lesser graphics but better game design and visual style. There’s tons of lighting effects and atmosphere effects etc etc. But the designs are boring. The sets are boring. The planets and landscapes are boring. The characters are boring looking and often take up way too much of the screen.

Lucas could have made the original 6 flashier. He purposefully shot in a formalist style, with limited camera work. The point was to make what the camera was showing impressive to look at without adding a bunch of stylistic flourishes, and to give an almost documentary feel to the film to make it more immersive. The more dramatic lighting, the more over the top camera movements, the more your brain thinks “I’m watching a movie” and not “I’m being taken on an adventure through another galaxy!” It’s just one of the reasons the ST feels so flat and lifeless, what you see is what you get and there just isn’t much there and all the flashy camera work feels like it’s trying to hide that fact (JJ Abrams in particular is notorious for this in all his movies, constant moving camera and shiny shit thrown in your face but absolutely nothing to the story below the surface). Meanwhile with Lucas’ style you got the idea there were millions of stories happening just off screen and we were merely seeing a slice of life in a greater galaxy because he filled his frames with interesting details not needless frenetic editing and constant over dramatic lighting.