> Star Wars spacecraft fly around as if they were aircraft in an atmosphere, which isn't surprising given that older war movies were an inspiration for its battle scenes.

Indeed, the following youtube [1] shows how much the original Star Wars borrowed from old WW2 movies, in particular, from "The Dam Busters" [2], 1955.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046889/