Also, there's the fact that there are so many grand stories to tell in a fictional universe. If "epic" events are happening in it all the time, then they're actually humdrum, and the stakes are pretty low, so the audience has no reason to care. At the extreme, you enter soap opera or monthly comic book territory, where the writers have to come up with new storylines for decades on end, and the result is that nonsense and self-parody becomes normal, because you've exhausted every possibility in the space of reasonable stories. Characters become empty costumes with no personality (because every possible story with their original personalities has been done), the same sequence of beats gets recycled over and over with new characters and props slotted in (the Star Wars sequel trilogy is a notorious example of this), etc.
And all this happens because, at the margin, new content is still profitable to make, but every piece of new "content" (gag) drains a little bit of the magic out.
I was talking about this with my gf last night, that Harry potter is much more interesting when it's not about some epic Voldemort whatever. That hearing small stories about these characters we like as they go to a magic school is actually interesting. Why does everything need to be so stressful?
What if han solo, get this, still owed people money and was running around trying to avoid them and pulling little scams or whatever. But now he's like 65. That doesn't sound awesome to you?
Yeah, and maybe he owes a fortune to a crime boss who's very large and disgusting, maybe shaped like a big floating orb. That pulsates, or something. Just as long as it's not a slug-like being, because then we'd be recycling old material.
And all this happens because, at the margin, new content is still profitable to make, but every piece of new "content" (gag) drains a little bit of the magic out.