I feel like it was probably the fans that pushed the designs in the more realistic direction. You’ve got hyper-vigilant fans looking over every fucking frame in a show/movie, taking measurements, making calculations, writing to the network/studio, asking obscure questions at conventions, and not to mention many may be somewhat well-educated, it’s just gradually pushed modern designs in that direction. When I see all the little details in a show like The Expanse, it feels real and I appreciate the attention to detail.

When something seemingly awkward happens on-screen, like a spaceship doesn’t stop on a time, or their boots are magnetic because antigravity isn’t a thing, or whatever, and then you have to think about it for a moment, like, “Oh, that’s because of XYZ, now that makes sense!” I like those little moments.

I love sci-fi designs so much more when whatever technology they have is completely illogical and looks like something completely fictional.

I don't want to see/read about futuristic vehicles that look like they took a modern vehicle and just gave it AI self-driving capabilities or planes that look like something you'd see made today.

Science fiction presents a vision of the future - it is, I think, an effective mirror for the collective thoughts and beliefs about what is to come. For much of the 20th century people were strongly optimistic about the future - postwar and into the tech boom in the 80s and 90s it seemed like everything was only going to get better.

Nowadays though... we don't have that optimism anymore. We have climate change rapidly escalating, corporation's sucking us dry, states doing fuck all about it. This is reflected in those grim police robots and dark themes, just as the shiny space ships and friendly aliens of the past reflected the optimism of the time.

N.b. I do agree with the other commenter who said audience expectations of "realism" play a role - but I also think audiences have a pretty warped idea of what is realistic.

So my headcanon for Star Trek TOS is that it's actually a stage play done by the arts department of Starfleet Academy. Pre-holodeck so probably done right after 1701-A retired. It's why Strange New World's/Kelvin/Enterprise looks more.advanced as they had to scrap some shit together to build sets and props. They probably did some artistic license as well, going for a retro-futuristic look. Not to mention the very over the top acting.

Now I know what you're gonna say. "What about Trials and Tribulations?" Well it's all a flashback scene anyways, Sisko is telling the whole story and the Temporal cops are imagining it based on the stage play they probably saw a holo recording of.

"What about TNG Relics?" Shut up lol

Personally I think the modern stuff is way, way better.

To my mind the old way is sometimes actually more "realistic". The future evolves in unpredictable ways. Look at all the past predictions of the future that just look like that same time period with bigger buildings and flying cars. Today's "hard" design approaches will likely evolve as poorly. Nothing is more futuristic to me than a design that is completely incomprehensible by current logic.

I can go with either extreme or anything in the middle, depending on what fits the story, tone and aesthetic.

At the same time, either one can look stupid when there's no thought put into it. We don't necessarily need to know how any futuristic stuff works, but it helps if the people designing it have some vague idea of why things are there and what they are supposed to do. It doesn't have to be realistic, but it can help it stay internally consistent. And it helps avoid the pitfalls of lazy or obviously impractical designs that can plague sci-fi. It can be very distracting when the set is a bunch of random plastic tubes, half the contents of a Spencer's Gifts, and recycled props that have been bouncing around for decades despite having no apparent function.

Virgin: Well the old design didn't make sense, so this new design has updated looks for the exhaust, tubes, and all monitors are replaced with....

Chad: Its a show not a documentary, I don't care how the wires are routed.

"The shuttle prop is too expensive, let's use some camera trick to move people from the ship to the planet set."

"THE TECH MAGIC IS THE ULTIMATE WEAPON AND SHOULD DECIDE EVERY BATTLE BY TRANSPORTING PEOPLE/WARP CORES INTO SPACE"

I find it interesting that some "realistic" sci-fi is basically just limited thinking constrained by the technical limitations of the present.

'You wouldn't have a building like that because you'd need supporting pillars for a roof that size' - c.14 Sci-fi critic

Aw, I like playing designer, except with no actual constraints if I think something looks cool.

Both have honestly existed for a long while. The term is hard SciFi and soft SciFi.

Hard SciFi is concerned with making sure that it's rules are self consistent and the ramifications are clear. Early examples include Perry Rhodan, which had schematics for technologies in the story on the silver books.

Soft SciFi however is not concerned with those issues, it wants to tell some specific story but if the FTL they used has consistent and realistic rules is not that important.

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I like old Sci-fi concepts better than modern ones anyway. I would write a retro sci-fi story but I'm shit at writing.

Virgin Arthur C. Clarke vs Chad Stanisław Lem