This post is written for anyone who still keeps one eye on the state of science fiction in movies and television. If you have followed Star Wars or Star Trek even casually in the last decade, you will probably find something here worth your time. If you could not care less about sci-fi, feel free to skip it. No hard feelings.
Some friends asked why I quietly traded my old Star Wars fandom for Warhammer 40K. At first I had not given the switch much thought. Once I sat down to unpack it, the reason surprised even me. It was not burnout or boredom. The stories I once loved simply stopped feeling like the stories I once loved.
Let me take you back. In the mid to late 1980s through the mid-1990s I was a solid Star Wars geek, above casual but well short of convention-cosplay level. I owned a handful of action figures and vehicles. Then life handed me the perfect side gig. In the mid-1990s I took a seasonal job at Bookstar in Woodland Hills. For those who never worked book retail, here is the dirty little secret: unsold books do not usually go back to the publisher. They get de-booked by slicing off the cover. The rest becomes landfill or employee swag. The back room was basically a library of current releases with their faces missing.
I made a beeline for the Star Wars Expanded Universe paperbacks. The Thrawn Trilogy, the Black Fleet Crisis, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, and the Han Solo Adventures. I devoured them. They came out at a nice steady pace, so I could keep up without feeling buried. Those books expanded the galaxy in ways the films only hinted at. Mara Jade, the politics of the New Republic, and the sense that life continued after the credits rolled. It felt lived-in.
Then the publishers got greedy. Jedi Academy, the X-Wing series, the Hand of Thrawn duology, and half a dozen other lines all dropped at once. I had just started college, so time became a luxury I no longer had. I stepped away for a bit.
The prequels brought me back. I will not pretend the writing sparkled, but George Lucas kept the universe consistent. You could see the connective tissue. Star Wars in general stayed relatively quiet for a while. Looking back, that quiet period might have been a mercy.
Then Lucas sold the franchise to Disney. At first there was cautious optimism, even after Kathleen Kennedy took the reins. The first big misstep landed immediately. Disney announced it would ignore the entire Expanded Universe to create its own continuity. That single decision told longtime fans that their emotional investment no longer counted. The new owners valued a fresh start more than the loyalty of the existing audience. In hindsight, it was a huge blinking early warning sign.
I decided right then to dial my own investment way down. If the owners were willing to toss out large parts of the story I cared about, I would keep my attachment minimal. That turned out to be fortunate. What followed under Kennedy felt less like an expansion of the saga and more like a framework for something else entirely.
To see the full picture I also need to mention Star Trek. I never loved it the way some people did. It always felt a little too polished for my tastes. Still, I respected Gene Roddenberry’s ambition. He created it during the Cold War and imagined a future where humanity got its act together. That alone earned my respect.
My interest clicked with The Next Generation. The writing carried a hopeful future even as it raised the stakes with villains like the Borg and Q. Deep Space Nine added depth by turning the show into frontier Casablanca in space, full of intrigue and moral gray areas, yet the good guys still tried to be better. Voyager and Enterprise kept the same basic tone: decent people trying to do the right thing. The Prime Directive stood as a real principle, not a suggestion.
That brings me to the present. I have largely stepped away from new Star Wars and Star Trek releases. The reactions to announcements have become more entertaining than the shows themselves. My real enthusiasm now lives in the grim darkness of the far future where there is only war.
I had actually been introduced to Warhammer 40K back in the early 1980s by a friend, but at the time it felt more like a quirky oddity than a serious setting. Even among fans the early version came across as a bit goofy, a strange blend of far-future warfare and religious fanaticism with clear satirical elements. The developers themselves have admitted in interviews that it started as kind of a joke.
Over the decades Games Workshop refined the lore, tightened consistency, and dramatically improved the visuals. When I circled back many years later, it hit me at exactly the right moment as Star Wars and Star Trek were losing their way. I started tentatively with Dawn of War and Space Marine, figuring I would just dip my toe in. Before long I was fully immersed.
I will admit the tabletop game itself is not really for me. Moving static little figurines around requires too much imagined bad-assery on my part. I have to picture entire epic battles in my head, and that kind of mental heavy lifting is not my style for something that would occupy a good chunk of my time. Space Marine 2 and Dawn of War hit the sweet spot perfectly. They deliver real-time action and visceral brutality without forcing me to do all the imagining myself.
The more I understood the lore (big shout to Majorkill videos), the more I appreciated how unapologetically consistent the setting remained. The Imperium of Man is flawed, brutal, and often monstrous, yet it knows exactly what it is. There is no pretense that the galaxy is suddenly fair or that every faction deserves equal sympathy. Choices have brutal permanent consequences. Loyalty matters. Sacrifice matters. And the universe does not care about your feelings. Compared to the constant course corrections and identity-focused rewrites in recent Star Wars and Star Trek, 40K felt refreshingly honest. It did not try to lecture me. It simply existed on its own terms.
Star Trek, Star Wars, and Warhammer 40K once sat on a clear spectrum. At their heights each franchise knew exactly what it was, and that clarity helped them build loyal audiences for decades.
Star Trek offered a hopeful future in which humanity had moved past its worst impulses. Nations no longer fought one another, and old enemies could, with time and reason, become friends or at least respectful neighbors. Gene Roddenberry envisioned a world where humanity had solved many of its earthly problems and turned its attention outward. The heroes were largely squeaky clean, making mistakes that usually stemmed from good intentions or understandable human flaws. Villains were often conniving and somewhat obvious in their evil, though a few had sympathetic goals that still led them clearly down the wrong path. The Prime Directive stood as a genuine principle, demanding respect for other cultures even when interference would have been easier. At its best the show celebrated competence, exploration, and the belief that rational beings could solve problems through diplomacy, science, and shared values. Captain Kirk embodied decisive leadership mixed with intellectual curiosity and physical courage, while Picard brought calm reason and moral clarity. Crews solved problems through expertise in science, engineering, medicine, and tactics on a merit-based hierarchy where rank came from skill rather than identity. Episodes focused on the thrill of discovery, the tension of first contact, or the difficult choice between non-interference and saving lives. It was about outward expansion, rational analysis, and heroic agency in the face of an indifferent or hostile universe.
Star Wars gave us something different but equally distinctive: a lived-in universe crafted by George Lucas. The original trilogy delivered grand adventures set in a dirty, used-future galaxy where ships looked beat-up, planets had distinct personalities, and life continued after the big battles. You could believe people actually lived there, raising families, running shops, and arguing about politics. The good guys were mostly good, with room for a few lovable rogues like Han Solo, who shot first and asked questions later, and Lando Calrissian, who betrayed his friends under pressure but earned a redemption arc that felt earned. Good characters could be tempted strongly by the dark side. Luke Skywalker began as a restless farm boy on Tatooine dreaming of something greater, rose through trials involving ancient technologies, mystical training, daring rescues, and epic space battles, and ultimately stared into the abyss on the second Death Star yet still chose the light. The struggle between light and dark carried mythic weight. The Force was a spiritual power that rewarded discipline, focus, and moral courage. The story reveled in tactical ingenuity and mechanical wonder. The Millennium Falcon was a beat-up hunk of junk that still outflew TIE fighters because its pilot and mechanic knew every bolt and wire. Lightsabers felt like learnable skills. Han Solo added roguish competence and quick thinking under pressure. The Rebel Alliance showed ordinary people using strategy and sacrifice to topple tyranny. For many viewers these films tapped into the satisfaction of mastering difficult systems, overcoming impossible odds, and uncovering hidden knowledge in forgotten ruins or ancient orders.
Warhammer 40K took the opposite end of the scale with its unrelenting grimdark tone. Everything is bad and nothing is one hundred percent pure. Even the closest thing to good guys, the Imperium of Man, is a bloated, xenophobic, theocratic empire in decay, locked in eternal war. The Salamanders might come closest to genuine heroism, yet even they must operate where pragmatism often trumps idealism. The good guys are forced to make hard choices because they cannot save everyone. The bad guys are bad because they made terrible decisions and refuse to accept the consequences. Chaos offers shortcuts to power, but those shortcuts always end in corruption and ruin. The far future offers no easy hope. The universe is vast, indifferent, and hostile. Survival demands discipline, strategy, and collective resolve. Loyalty, honor, competence, and meaningful sacrifice for something larger than yourself sit at the center of the appeal. Those who act on genuine moral principle when cold pragmatism would counsel otherwise often pay a heavy price. A good and honorable death that advances the survival of humanity or the Imperium carries profound weight. Disloyalty invites fates far worse than death, and honorable souls lost to treachery are avenged with brutal finality. In this setting competence is not suspect. It is essential. Hierarchy earned through merit keeps the Imperium functioning against impossible odds. The thrill of charting dangerous frontiers and confronting existential threats still exists, but it comes wrapped in stoic endurance rather than wide-eyed optimism. The setting does not apologize for its grim tone. It simply leans into it.
These three properties succeeded for different reasons, but they shared one important trait: they respected their own guiding principles. They did not constantly second-guess what made them unique. They trusted their core identity and let the stories flow from there.
Classic science fiction, at its strongest, spoke to something wired deep in the human psyche. It invited audiences to explore the unknown, confront vast challenges, and imagine pushing the boundaries of human capability. That pull felt especially strong for many men, though it was never exclusively a male domain. Plenty of women have always genuinely enjoyed these stories for the very same reasons: the thrill of discovery, intellectual rigor, technical mastery, and heroic competence in the face of cosmic-scale challenges. They did not need the source material altered to emphasize classic interpersonal drama or emotional introspection in order to connect with it. In fact, most women who loved classic sci-fi appreciated it precisely because it focused on bold exploration, rational problem-solving, and individual excellence rather than reshaping the genre to fit more traditionally feminine storytelling sensibilities. Hollywood’s later attempts to do exactly that often resulted in losing the broad existing audience while failing to attract a large new one, since hard science fiction and grand space opera were never domains that most typical women naturally gravitated toward in large numbers. Think of the way kids naturally gravitate toward building things, figuring out how complex systems work, or testing their limits against imaginary foes. Sci-fi simply scaled those instincts up to galactic size. The appeal crossed gender lines without needing forced lectures. Characters like Uhura, who earned her place through skill, and Leia Organa, a sharp-witted leader who strategized rebellions through merit and resolve, resonated because they contributed real value to the mission. Even Warhammer 40K has its Sisters of Battle (AKA "nuns with guns.) The stories valued individual excellence and rational problem-solving over interpersonal drama as the main driver.
What tied all three franchises together in their classic forms was coherence. The universes felt consistent. Characters behaved in ways that made sense within their worlds. Moral questions had weight because right and wrong were not treated as entirely subjective. Heroes faced real temptation and sometimes stumbled, but the stories usually pointed toward growth or redemption. Villains made understandable choices that still led them down wrong paths. Audiences could invest emotionally because the rules stayed steady. You knew what the franchises stood for.
None of these approaches required perfection. Star Trek could be preachy at times. Star Wars could lean on coincidence and mystical destiny. Warhammer 40K can feel overwhelmingly bleak. Yet each stayed true to its central promise. That consistency built trust with audiences. Fans knew what they were getting when they picked up a book, turned on an episode, or sat down for a movie.
The shift away from these strengths did not happen by accident. Decision-makers at Disney and Paramount consciously set aside the guiding principles that had defined their franchises for decades. In their place they installed serialized personal drama, unearned moral ambiguity, and heroes who seemed more interested in therapy sessions than in saving the galaxy. Under Kathleen Kennedy, Star Wars moved away from kids films with redemptive arcs and the lived-in galaxy George Lucas built. The new approach treated the mythic struggle between light and dark as outdated. Heroes gained flaws that felt injected rather than grown through actual struggle. Villains were reframed as misunderstood products of broken systems, turning conflict into lectures about society rather than personal accountability.
Star Trek under Alex Kurtzman followed a parallel path. The hopeful Federation ideal gave way to fractured crews defined more by interpersonal grievances and identity than by professional excellence. Exploration and rational diplomacy took a back seat to emotional catharsis and heavy-handed social commentary. The Prime Directive sometimes felt like an inconvenient relic. Plots that once celebrated competence and outward expansion now felt smaller and more cynical.
This reinvention was sold as necessary evolution. Yet the changes often felt ham-fisted. The “modern audience” became the fictional construct used to justify the leftward turn. Executives imagined viewers who demanded their particular ideals reflected back without challenge. In practice this meant bending plots, characters, and themes to fit a narrow set of viewpoints. Storytelling stopped trusting the audience to draw its own conclusions and instead delivered sermons wrapped in space battles. In reality this promised new demographic never arrived in sufficient numbers. Viewers who might have been open to fresh takes still expected the core promises of the franchises to be kept. When those promises were broken or diluted, casual fans simply moved on while the dedicated old guard quietly reduced their engagement.
It is the kind of approach that makes you chuckle in hindsight. Executives bet big that a shiny new demographic would flood in if only the franchises looked sufficiently up-to-date. They ignored the simple fact that the audiences who made these properties cultural giants were showing up for adventure, wonder, competence, and moral stakes that felt real.
The data bears this out. Star Wars on Disney+ enjoyed huge peaks with The Mandalorian Season 2. Later series like The Acolyte posted some of the lowest sustained viewership numbers, with rapid drop-offs. Disney scaled back plans to roughly one live-action series per year. Star Trek under Kurtzman saw new shows generate early interest followed by quick declines. Starfleet Academy struggled and is being cancellation due to ratings. Doctor Who embraced the same approach and watched its audience shrink to fractions of previous seasons.
Warhammer 40K offers a useful contrast. The setting briefly flirted with similar territory when Games Workshop introduced female Adeptus Custodes in the 2024 Codex and claimed they had always existed. The backlash was swift and vocal from parts of the fanbase who saw it as an unnecessary retcon. Unlike Disney or Paramount, Games Workshop did not expand the change aggressively across multiple factions or storylines. They kept it largely contained to the Custodes, released supporting models in 2026, and have since refocused on delivering content for their dedicated hobbyist base. That relatively measured approach likely helped them avoid the kind of widespread audience abandonment that Star Wars and Star Trek experienced. Good on them for reading the room and not pushing the issue further than necessary.
The pattern is clear: when a franchise fully commits to the reinvention playbook, the broad audience does not expand. It contracts.
The audience was never opposed to change or new voices. It is just that those characters, like all the others, are required to earn their place through competence, not have it bestowed because of their identity.
What fans resist is the sense that the franchises were being rewritten from the ground up to serve purposes unrelated to their original DNA.
Other properties remind us that audiences still respond enthusiastically to lived-in worlds, pragmatic characters, and moral complexity grounded in real stakes.
Firefly created a tight-knit crew of likable, flawed characters who operated as the good guys at heart. Jayne Cobb’s gradual redemption arc grew organically from shared dangers and quiet loyalty rather than sermonizing.
The Expanse delivered hard-edged realism, intricate politics, believable technology, and characters who solved problems through intelligence and engineering skill rather than lectures.
Both shows honored the timeless appeals of competence, camaraderie, and principled struggle that made earlier Star Trek and Star Wars so enduring.
Warhammer 40K never chased the invented viewer. Its grimdark tone holds firm. Loyalty, honor, competence, and meaningful sacrifice define its appeal. This consistency has paid off. Games Workshop has reported steady revenue growth and an expanding core community even while Star Wars and Star Trek hemorrhaged viewers. In a media landscape full of constant course corrections, that honesty feels refreshing. Fans know what they are getting, and they keep showing up. (However, if Amazon screws this up.....)
People remain deeply hungry for good science fiction that recaptures bold exploration, competence, moral clarity, and human striving against the cosmos. Audiences do not need perfection. They need consistency. They need stories that trust them to follow along without constant hand-holding or moral updates. They need universes that feel lived-in and characters whose arcs grow naturally from the world.
Star Wars and Star Trek are not failing because they tried to reinvent themselves. They are struggling because they forgot what their guiding principles were. They chased a fictional modern audience at the expense of the hopeful vision and mythic heroism that once defined them. The data reflects the cost of that choice.
The path forward is not complicated: remember the core promises.
For Star Wars that means restoring mythic heroism, earned redemption, and a galaxy that feels vast and lived-in.
For Star Trek it means recapturing hopeful unity, merit-based competence, and rational exploration.
Evolution is fine. Course corrections are healthy. But setting aside the soul of the franchise to chase trends that have already proven unsuccessful is a recipe for continued disappointment.
Warhammer 40K knows no fear because it refused to make the same trade.
Firefly and The Expanse show that the hunger for authentic sci-fi is still there.
Audiences will show up when storytelling respects its own guiding principles instead of bending to a demographic that exists mainly in marketing presentations.
The lesson for creators and executives is straightforward. Tell the story you promised. Keep the soul intact. Celebrate competence without embarrassment. Allow moral stakes that feel real. Trust the audience instead of lecturing it. The franchises that remember these basics will find the broad coalition of fans still waiting. The ones that keep running from their own DNA will keep wondering why the seats stay empty.
So here is my quiet hope. Maybe one day the people steering these ships will look at the data and decide to steer back toward what made their properties special. Until then I will keep ripping up Tyrannids in Space Marine 2, listening to Jonathan Keeble read the latest tome of galaxy-spanning Ultramarines in grizzly engagements, and enjoying the grim darkness of the far future.
Because in the end consistency matters. Principles matter. And sometimes the simplest lesson is the hardest one for big corporations to learn: if you forget what made people love your story in the first place, do not be surprised when they quietly walk away and find something else that still speaks their language.
May the Force be with you, or the Emperor protect you, whichever feels more honest these days. And if the mood strikes, go dig up one of the old Expanded Universe novels or give a Warhammer 40K audiobook a try. Whether you crave mythic hope or grimdark endurance, the best stories are still the ones that stay true to what they promised.
