Nobodies killing anything. They may not have done it well, but they didn't kill it. Sci-fi was stagnate and almost forgotten until the first Star Wars came out and broke the mold. It was different. Until somebody comes along with a new story and a vision of how to present it to the audience like they've never seen it before, everyones going to have to live old ideas.

I personally am not satisfied with the space scenes in moving starships. Planets and suns and asteriods never get large and go by. Everything is just little white lights going by or like in Star Wars when they jump to hyper space that smear of lights in the window. Maybe it's time they try some different ideas of the concept of what it might look like instead of carbon copying old versions. Try some new sounds to go with the lazers. Everybody is copying old ideas. It gets old!