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For me, the painted backgrounds of TNG still look amazing.

I too love a good background painting. Some of them look beautiful.

I like FX, they're great, but after soo many crappy uses of CGI sets, the Star Wars prequels, GI Joe, and Sanctuary, I think I can safely say that we are not to the point where people can create CGI sets that don't immediately scream, CGI!

Huh, Spartacus : Blood and Sand had CGI sets?

I honestly did not know that. I mean, I assumed the wide angle shots showing the building on the edge of the cliff were CGI... but the actual sets themselves? Nope, didn't have a clue.

Guess that's score one for the CGI sets then...

Sorry, I should probably have put "background" instead of "set". The buildings, rooms, streets, etc are all real. Everything else is not. And it looks spectacularly fake.

Well, stuff like that never bothered me too much. I grew up on Blake's 7 and Doctor Who, where half the time the physical sets were made of tinfoil and wobbled every time an actor moved and where ships and even characters were sometimes portrayed by cardboard cutouts. CGI sets look pretty damn good to me.

I suppose there is a point in not using a physical set. Most sets seem to be constructed to last as long as the series, as mostly the series don't get a follow-up and thus the sets don't need to last much longer than that. Keeping the sets after such a period wil cause the set to break down hard, so much in fact that rebuilding it would be more costly than building a new one. A similar thing happedned at several world expo's. Most buildings wouldn't last more than a year because they wer made out of wood and plaster and were not made to last longer than that.
Making the sets out of CGI would be cheaper and more useful as in that they will not decay while stored digitally, and can be altered far easier.

I remember when the coolest set in existence was the interior shot of KITT

Mark wrote:I remember when the coolest set in existence was the interior shot of KITT

Still is.