True about CG (Avatar has the most advanced CG ever, and it still looks very much cartoonish), but the examples I've posted are miniatures, not computer generated imagery. However, the closest anyone got to making CG look photorealistic was ILM with Davy Jones ("Dead man's chest")
Did we see the same movie? Star Trek 2009 was already completely full of digital set extensions, everywhere. Even the brewery was extended and altered. Given that, arguments against a digitally extended engine room closer to the concept art seem weird.
We're talking King Kong here? The ape looked good, but everything else on that island looked fake, especially the dinosaurs which looked less convincing than the ones seen in the first Jurassic Park, and that was in 1993! On the other hand, inanimate objects look far better in CGI than living beings. To me, JJ-prise and the Kelvin looked completely real.
I'm commenting on topic. And darn tootin' I'm thrilled that ENT is canon in both universes. I squee'd like the little ENT fangirl that I am when they mentioned Admiral Archer.
I'm just waiting for someone to make a crack about the crappy CGI Enterprise in "Trials and Tribble-ations"...
It wasn't that crappy, but was quite good for a couple-of- seconds-shot from the Defiant's viewscreen.