I think Yoda is a good example of the original effects of the first three being better than the special effects in the last three.

In Empire and Jedi Yoda was a real thing, a real entity that the actors could look at, the lighting fell correctly on, and he just looked real to me. In the last 3, he was not "real." His presence was not as impactful to me because he was not a real character in the scene. Yes, he could run and jump and flip (what was up with that, anyway?) and yield a light saber BUT he was a computer and that bothered me. I would rather have seen a muppet with limited movement than CGI with lightsabers. But that's my personal feel.

Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Shrek are all GREAT movies. I enjoyed all of them immensely. But did the CGI make Finding Nemo a better movie? It was gorgeous, I admit. But I think the comedy is what made the film. Same for Shrek. The CGI there didn't do anything for me. Maybe it would have been equally great in traditional animation, I don't know.

I really miss the old days of "real" special effects and muppets and people wearing costumes rather than computer animation. But that's just me. I did enjoy the Death Star battle scene in Return of the Jedi more than the opening scene in Episode III. I thought the forest speeder scene in Return of the Jedi was much cooler than the pod racer scene in Episode I. I think sometimes they go a little overboard with CGI and I can't keep up with everything that's going on in the screen ;)

I am however pleased to see the evolution of CGI in films. Compare the first Jurrasic Park to the last, I think you'll see a big difference. Even Episode I versus Episode III showed an improvement imo. One of my favorite CGI scenes of all time is the scene in Hitchhiker's where they zoom out over the planets being constructed in the workshop. How beautiful was that?!

This is all my opinion. But I miss the days when special effects guys had to work to put a Yoda or a land speeder in a scene and make it work. Sure, it was clumsy and not as technically smooth as todays computer work. But I think the integrity of putting real objects in real scenes overbears the effect of having seamless lines and complex space battles.

All imo of course!

Rick