Interesting topic and I agree with the OP and other posters as well. Mostly it comes from writing and how all the trilogies have been written in different eras. In the 70s and 80s if you left your hometown without a map you really were lost, and the world was a big place just behind a corner. Now when you have Google Maps, GPS and you can track anyone around the world, this place has gotten a lot smaller. And it shows as the writers are living in this world, everything is a click away so that is how they also write, unintentionally.
The same could be said about many aspects regarding 70s vs. now. Many people for example had military background or at least grew up with people who did. It showed on screen, people respected each other, standed correctly and silent, made no extra remarks or stupid facial expressions, had formal announcements (Death Star, rebel hangar, in combat). Contrast to now when everyone acts like they’re on YouTube, as it’s written.
+2.
Absolutely. The way new places and settings are shown in modern films doesn’t quite have that wonder, uncertainty, the unknown, maybe even a mystery quality, that many earlier pre-digital stories did.