Compare the writing of the PT with the writing of most generic scifi in the 90s, it's not worse.
We didn't have the well-written scifi till the 2000s really, in the middle we had stuff like the matrix sequels. We had some Phillip K. Dick in the 80s and 90s too.
You're comparing everything to the OT, yeah that was an epic classic, but also unprecedented (literally invented the blockbuster scifi genre), and there wasn't really anything close to their level afterwards, which is why TPM was such a huge event in 99.
written in the 1960s IIRC.
Seems partly inspired by Brave New World in the era of genetic sequencing.
Those were incredible Treks though (TUC is my favorite by far). Still, Trek wasn't really mainstream at this point, definitely not a blockbuster, even though First Contact probably broke the threshold.
I honestly haven't seen Dark City yet, never got around to it. The Matrix was part of the change and came out the same year, my point was we'd had a major drought till then. I'm arguing we went from a time of dearth to a time of plenty, and then walked face first into the MCU which recently imploded.