When a prequel is made with ultra-modern filmmaking technology—CGI and the like—the visual effects are “held back” when illustrating the in-universe technology to match its look and feel. This only seems to affect prequels, not sequels or reboots, since prequels necessarily take place in the in-universe’s past.
I tried Googling some things, but I’m coming up short. There may already be a term for this but the algorithm gods have it in for me.
One of the biggest example of this phenomenon (dilemma?) is the ending of Revenge of the Sith (unable to embed it). There’s three scenes in the closing montage that have sets shown in a A New Hope, which was filmed nearly 30 years prior: the all-white interior of the Tantive IV with Bail Organa and the droids (from 0:00 to 0:14), the interior of the Venator-class Destroyer with Vader and Palpatine (1:04 to 1:37), and, to a lesser extent, the moisture farm on Tatooine with Obi-Wan passing off baby Luke to Owen and Beru (2:25 to 3:21, the very end of which is one of the greatest visuals in the prequels, in my opinion).
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It’s one of the dangers of making films out of sequence; the synchronicity of the fictional technology, cast against a presumed rate of advancement has to make some kind of sense. Everyone is going to have their own idea of how it can and should come out on film. It requires some discipline to start from the beginning and fill things out when writing the story line. Star Wars was pretty messed up in that respect. I noticed that with some fictional universes, a precious few writers understand that technology can be lost as easily as developed.
Sepia-toned? I have no idea. It seemed you were talking about filtering, but maybe you meant technology, as Ed Hurst suggests.