I do agree that Star Wars has always been rather generic in its concepts, ideas and world building (Hamill said Lucas once confessed him he took the idea of the Force from hundreds of pulp fiction stories)
Oh yeah, just look at ‘new type’ psi types, Albert Bester’s The Demolished Man, Lucas combined the psi fi and classical magic, which is what’s most unique about the Force is it’s both sorcery and psi.
and I do think that’s partially the reason why the post-RotJ films doesn’t work for me: they have tried to build an entire franchise (with some takes on morality and politics and with more complex stories) from a set of movies that were about an evil masked guy being evil, the good guy being an uncorruptable good guy, and the hot chick being a hot chick, the plot being a mere excuse to watch exciting adventures.
While I like a lot of Star Trek up to DS9 it’s the same sort of thing, it went from Horatio Hornblower IN SPAAACE using random sci fi authors to self conscious Star Trek shows with staff writers. The more you write ‘in the style of’ the less variety and originality you have.
You’re probably aware of this, but there was a 1979 paper about Star Wars (I haven’t read it yet, though) where the authors basically said the massive success of the first movie was the result of the lack of any kind of political message or philosophy there: everyone could make a different reading of the movie and insert their own narrative into the movie
This is how most popular mythology works, by necessity stories leave things out which is filled consciously or subconsciously by the audience. That’s also why you get people demonizing it, ie Harry Potter is Satanic and Batman is a fascist. People respond to the symbols and impose a meaning based on how those symbols resonate with them.
Empire certainly was more scifi-ish than the first movie,
Which is part of the reason it’s my favorite by far, the Empire is a credible menace with massive resources instead of the Apple Dumpling Gang.
even in extremely limited systems like DOS or the early 3D consoles you can make space simulators or 2D platforms.
X-Wing v. TIE Fighter is one of my favorite fighter sims, I love how all the ships have inertia except for the TIE, which makes them impossibly agile.
in a world where the concept of parallel universes would be part of Star Wars, you could have sub-franchises, each one appealing to fans of every parallel universe
One nice thing about Star Trek is that alternate timelines are Canon!
Perhaps the franchise could have taken the original path Lucas had in mind in the last weeks of Star Wars’s production: that every movie could have been unconnected from the rest, set in different eras, with only some aspects that would define them as “Star Warsy” (perhaps the presence of the Empire or the Jedi or “lazer swords”, but that’s it).
Conan pulps are a lot like that.
Sadly, Vader’s massive retcon in Empire, as fantastic as a twist and climax for that movie, set the movies in the Trilogy/Saga direction. I still don’t understand why the main franchise “needs” to be about the Skywalkers
The same thing happens in most series fiction, for marketing, simplicity and authorial one upping reasons eventually every thread is tied into a knot with the original cast at its center. In Star Trek, Star Wars and comic books it’s patently absurd how the fate of galaxies always seems to come down to the same 12 guys.