Well, I am mainly interested in digital photography these days, but the rendering work has always impressed me also.  I mainly grew up reading science-fiction and developed a passion for the hand-drawn cover art back in those days.  As time went on and the software became more and more common, well this is when I noticed the rendering.  The original, "TRON" and "Last Starfighter" movies were state-of-the-art back then, even though they do not compare to modern renderings.
That is about it for me for now.