I agree that the sense of wonder and discovery has been absent since A New Hope, to a certain extent. But it’s hard for me to understand how Darth Vader being Luke’s father shrinks the Universe. I agree lots of things after that revelation started to shrink the Universe, from Leia being the sister, to C3PO being built by Vader, to Yoda and Chewbacca being college roommates or whatever.

But the Vader being Luke’s father thing never felt like it had a “universe shrinking” effect to me. The reason is that a “universe shrinking effect” happens when two characters who we originally assumed had no reason to be connected, turn out to be somehow connected. For example, we never expected that Vader and C3PO had any connection whatsoever - why would they? But then Phantom Menace comes along and shows us they did. So stupid.

But Luke and Vader were ALWAYS directly connected - even before the ending revelation in Empire Strikes Back. In A New Hope, we’re told Vader killed Luke’s father. So Luke and Vader are already personally connected. Vader then turning out to actually be Luke’s father doesn’t really do anything to “increase” this pre-existing connection. The Vader/Luke relationship went from “you murdered my father, therefore I want to kill you”, to “oh shit - you are my father, now I want to redeem you.” This doesn’t change the fact that some deep personal connection between Luke and Vader always existed on an emotional level, and thus the “I am your father” revelation doesn’t “shrink” the Universe, in my opinion.

But yeah, I agree everything else after that certainly does shrink the Universe. And I agree with Vladius that the majority of the “shrinkage” occurred in 1999-2005.