I do miss the “making of” features that showed behind the scenes but as computers got better and movie execs got cheaper it wasn’t that interesting to just be like “well we did it with a green screen and then in post.” for fucking EVERYTHING…
It was much more fun watching pure artists at their craft making models and explosions and trick camera work for practical effects.
My theory is that practical effects takes a monumental amount of knowledge and skill and as those people got more and more expensive it was cheaper for the vultures to just hire college grad artists and grind them into the ground than pay the union salaries.