No good space opera movies like Star Wars anymore?

Why is it that there are no movies made these days to rival Star Wars? The 1977 epic A New Hope was awesome, it dropped you right into the action straight after the opening credits with the Millenium Falcon struggling to escape an Imperial Star Destroyer. And then the apprentice Jedi Luke Skywalker, and the swashbuckling hero Han Solo rescue the princess and then together they destroy the Death Star. Nowadays, all space movies are just evil aliens that are hell-bent on destroying the Earth like in Independence Day or as it was shortened to: ID4. But I prefer movies like the Star Wars series with good and bad aliens that are fighting against each other and against the empire that is threatening the whole Galaxy. The three prequel movies to the Star Wars trilogy were not as good as A New Hope 1977, The Empire Strikes back 1980, and The Return of the Jedi, 1983. They are classic films that have been re-made with the help of Family Guy in the equally awesome animated version starring the Family Guy cast. And the robot chicken [imdb.org] Star Wars spoof. The Family Guy Star Wars film is the best remake of the Star Wars series and asks some very important questions, like why was the Death Star II deployed when it was only half-finished. And why there were holes in the space station that led directly to the reactor in the centre. The Death Star would have been more effective if the shield generator was built into the space station itself, the fact that it needed a shield generator on a convenient nearby moon means that the space station was unprotected on its approach to Yavin IV.

Something like the Galaxy Gun or the Sun Crusher would be a more formidable weapon, but the Death Star is large and imposing and therefore is a good choice for the movies. The Death Star looks exactly like the Saturnian moon Mimas, with the round hole where the impact crater is and all. You can see the rise in the centre of the crater where the molten rock rose back up after the impact, you can see the same effect when you throw a large rock into a pool of water. The rock will push a hole down into the water, then the water will spring back and shoot upwards.

This is the moon in question, Saturns moon Mimas. The gigantic impact crater is clearly visible on one face of the rocky moon. Another thing in the Star Wars movies is the unrealistic depiction of an asteroid belt. In reality, each asteroid would be so far from another that if you landed on one in our asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, you would be hard pressed to see another asteroid easily, they are actually widely dispersed in their orbits around the Sun. And if they were that close to each other their mutual gravitational attraction would cause them to impact each other and clump together into a larger object. But in our asteroid belt the immense gravity of Jupiter prevents that from happening. That is why there is no planet in the orbit between Jupiter and Mars, the gravity of Jupiter tore it apart. But Star Wars is such a fun movie to watch that this does not matter, you watch the movies to be entertained and things like this do not really matter if you are analysing the science and physics of the film and not getting into the action and storyline. Sure the laser bolts move slower than light, which is 299,792,458 meters per second. or about 186,282 miles per second.  But they could be some kind of energy instead of light beams. There is an episode of Star Trek Next Generation where Commander Data dodges a laser beam from a ceiling turret. That is a big WTF moment. The writers really did not think that one through. There was another Next Generation episode in the first series where William Riker and Captain Picard where able to dodge a phaser blast after it had been fired. Although the beam from the Phaser must be some kind of slower moving energy rather than a pure light beam. That could make sense as well, in the pilot episode of The Next Generation, they showed a very slow moving beam of energy that was shone down upon the alien lifeform composed of pure energy that formed Far Point Station and enabled it to regenerate its strength and escape to join its mate in space.