Fighter planes in space. I don't know if they are lazy, being "artistic", they don't know, or are dumbing things down for viewers. "Babylon 5" got it right. Of course I say that while watching "Wing Commander" on Netflix.
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Mostly I think it's because true zero-G space combat would be confusing as hell to audiences. There's no real orientation (no "up" or "down" or whathaveyou), everything will keep moving in a single direction until some other force changes that, and even then, it depends on how much force is applied, there's no sound, lasers aren't (or shouldn't be) visible beams but rather burned holes in enemy ships, etc.
It's a stylistic choice in most cases, I expect, to keep things more familiar. In its modern incarnation, I'd say Star Wars is to blame, but this stuff goes as far back as, like, old Flash Gordon serials, because space combat in film developed before actual spaceflight (and without input from scientists). So, everything ended up looking more like naval/aerial combat, which is entirely dictated by the environment in which you're fighting.
Incidentally, this is one of the things I appreciated about Enterprise's first season (what I watched of it, anyway). They made it clear that sub commanders tended to be the ones who took command of starships, because they were best able to adapt to the tactics required.
Babylon 5 did a good job with it, but even that show had some errors. Showing lasers in space, sound, etc. Galactica did a pretty good job with this, too, showing the Vipers being able to maintain forward momentum while spinning around to shoot a pursuer, etc.
Mostly, I give this one a pass. The closer you get to real space combat, the more you end up being "hard sci-fi" where the scientific element of it is stressed to attain greater "realism." That means you end up having to justify -- often in unsatisfying, convoluted ways -- the things that don't track. I mean, even faster-than-light travel is INSANELY dangerous, because...what if you hit something? I mean, you think a head-on collision at 30mph is bad, try imagining it at +C velocities. And just because there are no planets or stars in your path doesn't mean that there might not be other dark matter lying in wait. So the notion of "Go to Warp 9" is, itself, totally batspit crazy. Wormhole manipulation makes far more sense.
