Space Battles

Yeah, yeah, I know, those 'space battles' are so 'cool' and 'nice action' and all that.

There's something unrealistic about them, though. I can accept sound, although in space, there wouldn't be anything audible (it can be explained in many ways, I suppose). I can accept 'aerodynamic ship design' although there's no air resistance in space - after all, a ship's gotta look 'cool', right?

Now, if we direct our attention to regular Earth battles and our 'primitive-by-comparison' aircraft, and how they operate, we can notice a peculiar thing.

Back in the early days of air warfare, 'dogfights' were common. Planes would fly near each other and shoot. Pilots could see each other's planes clearly and directly, without any equipment.

When technology advanced to the 'jet era', and long-range radars, air-to-air (and air-to-ground and ground-to-air) missiles, flares and such became the norm, targeting equipment became more sophisticated and so fort, the distances expanded.

Suddenly you could destroy a target without ever being close enough to see it. You could send a missile from miles away and it would obliterate your target, that only your targeting computer and radar system was keeping track of. Your eyes never saw what happened.

Ships could send missiles to destroy airplanes and vice versa, and neither side ever saw each other.

Now, if we take this knowledge as a basic thing to consider that happens whenever this kind of destructive technology advances, wouldn't it stand to reason that space battles would have even LARGER distances between ships?

I mean, if you can shoot a missile from a Hornet to some other airplane miles away on this primitive planet, wouldn't you be able to send even faster, longer-distance missile (or equivalent) in a 'space battle'? There's NO WAY anyone would ever see each other in proper, 'realistic' (or even logical) space battle.

We ALWAYS see the advanced, super-high tech ships DOGFIGHT like they were WWI biplanes or something. Why is this?

Why can't we ever see a normal, realistic space battle?

Also, when someone wants to obliterate a base on the ground, on the surface of some planet, they never do ORBIT BOMBING (which would be logical), but instead, they send some 'walkers' 10 kilometers away from the target, to slowly advance to the base, and mostly be destroyed by the 'rebels' before they even reach the base.

Surely there must be more intelligent way to fare space battles, even in fictional stories... surely something more realistic could be done?

Why is it that we always see these cringy Ivanova threats happen in a VERY close-proximity warfare, when they have really fast and advanced ships with capability of producing 'portals' in space?

Just look at this, how long can you resist slapping yourself in the forehead and rolling your eyes while groaning, watching this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8gHtX6d2wg

I don't get the reason..when you invent a cannon, you don't bring it 10 m from enemy camp and yell some threats about being 'death incarnate' (what the F does that even mean?) and then shoot.

You shoot from as far away as possible for your own safety and for maximum destructive impact!

Why can't these advanced space races do the same?

EVER??

(It's not just Babylon 5, you can look up almost any 'space battle' (fictional anyway) and see this thing happen every time..)

Why do space battles degrade the 'advanced spaceships' to the level of WWI biplanes when it comes to 'dogfight' vs. 'advanced air warfare'?

Because it LOOKS COOL??

Isn't it time to stop dumbing down things for audiences, worshipping stupidity and at least assuming there could be enough intelligence in the audience that their intelligence doesn't have to be insulted every time there's a space battle?

I guess 'looking cool' and catering to the lowest common denominator is better business than making a great story with realistic space battles.