The "line between stage and backdrop" argument is an old one. Yes, that is a common technique in theatrical design to convey a three-dimensional illusion of depth. But consider that it's a convincing technique because it mimics what occurs in real life. I live in mountainous country. Compared to the mountains in my home valley, the relatively minor fluctuations in the valley floor seem very insignificant. But in fact according to surveys they amount to a hundred meters or more. Even from my office, perched 100 meters above the valley floor, I can see across the valley only a few kilometers; the aptly named town of Midvale sits atop a gentle rise which nevertheless blocks everything behind it until you see the mountains rising 2,000 meters above the valley floor.
Your other allusion to theatrical practice guesses that the rover was carefully prepped. I was privileged to work on another program with the grip crew from From the Earth to the Moon, and their notion of "carefully prepping" the rover was to roll it into place on its own wheels, while wearing Apollo shoe coverings supplied by Global Effects, the company that made the space suit costumes. On the program I worked on, we had a desert location and a single bright light source, much as there would be on the Moon. What I noticed was that the tracks of the various pieces of equipment were variously visible depending on what angle I looked at them from.
Basically it comes down to the expectations that rover tracks should be seen in all the photos depicting the rover. You have to be prepared to consider good and valid reasons why that expectation may not hold. And if you're going to propose your own affirmative reasons why instead the tracks are not easily seen -- i.e., that it was all carefully set up on a film or photography set -- then you will be asked questions about how you tested that hypothesis.
