So Star Wars does have a kind of philosophical elegance, but it has to be appreciated from a different mindset than Star Trek.
Being born in the mid 80's I think I think I "missed" Star Wars, by the time I watched the original trilogy in the mid 90's it was still enjoyable but already dated and when the prequels released I was old enough to see the many obvious flaws of the movies through the thick CGI layers. I expect younger generations might have a different relation towards the Star Wars "brand", having it fed to them almost non-stop since birth.
The newer movies do not have those memories attached, so I am more critical. It's the same with Indiana Jones - the fourth movie was not really bad, but without the warm glow of childhood memories it does not have that same magic.
Battlestar Galactica worked out very well, but that was mostly because they turned the original show completely inside out and turned it into something that could stand on its own.
Didn't Star Trek essentially pioneer the concept of technobabble?
> eschewed scientific realism in favor of hyper space or whatever
Warp travel? Subspace? Q? Accelerated human evolution into lizard people?
There's a lot of bad Trek out there. But also a lot of good Trek. The best of it is like a slice of speculative fiction - like a mini District 9, Interstellar, Her, or Arrival. The worst of it is pure melodrama with technobabble layered on top.
I think what the parent is getting at is that Star Wars never, ever goes the speculative fiction route. It's all "character drama in space".
Star Wars has more political and interpersonal conflicts lead to shifts of power. Palpatine gained control of the Galactic Senate through political maneuvering - letting the Trade Federation apply political pressure through shipping fees, and then manipulating weak-minded senators while their stronger-minded companions are fleeing the Trade Federation. Rarely are technical details relevant to the plot - starship fuel or reactor operation details are vague at best, an executive summary. They don't goto Watto for engine parts, but a whole new engine, and Jedi aren't trained on starship repairs as they have astromech droids.
Star Trek has more situations where mechanical failure or damage leads to interpersonal conflicts and shifts of power. During the Klingon Civil War, you get a pretty good idea of how Geordi keeps the Romulans away. Ship fuel was a main plotline through the entire Voyager series. Everyone on every Starfleet ship has taken a college class on how the warp core reactor works, and they flaunt that knowledge regularly.
That's mostly the 1-3 trilogy. The original trilogy is mostly fantasy in space/space opera
Hell, no. Technobabble has been a staple of science fiction all the way back to its origins.
The point remains: Star Trek's science is frequently either nonsensical or laughably bad. Hard sci-fi it's not.
The scripts for TNG often simply said "tech" when "technology" was supposed to "happen" because the production crew didn't care about the spec-fic element as anything more than a means to drive melodrama[0] which couldn't offend sponsors or the morals of American viewers. There's a good reason the term "technobabble" originated with Star Trek, and why, despite the Federation's implied diversity and progressivism, there has only ever been one openly gay character depicted in its history. Star Trek is about as deep as a saucer of milk.
The Force and hyperspace are no less plausible than a warp drive running on dilithium crystals and subspace (arguably more, since there are actually mathematical models for hyperspace, but what even is subspace?) Both franchises have alien races and cultures which consist of a few generic traits, and Klingon bat'leths make about as much sense as lightsabers, which is to say, little beyond their relative cool factors. The only difference between the two franchises that Star Trek has somehow gained pretentions of being something more highbrow than it ever really was.
What I took away from that and always echoes in these arguments is how Star Wars lionizes and celebrates the superhuman whereas Star Trek (especially TOS) almost pities them.
Whereas if you're looking for philosophical questions of humanism, sentience, and scientific plausibility: then what the heck are you doing watching Star Trek? It's watered down tripe. Go to the library, you turkey.