The interesting thing about warfare portrayed in fiction is that it's not only a very idealized model of warfare but it tends to be based on a zeitgeist which is easily decades if not centuries out of date.

For example, modern naval warfare, setting aside aircraft even, is of the sort where the combatants generally fire missiles at each other across the horizon (or would be, if there was any significant amount of naval warfare between first world powers). However, in scifi space battles you have warfare which tends to look more like naval battles in the 17th century than anything else. Inaccurate weapons. Point blank ranges. Etc. That sort of warfare was obsolete over a century ago. And even the close cousin in the form of long but still within visual range battleship battles were very rare even during WWII and terribly obsolete after that (the Falklands war being a decent example).

The idea that a laser at a range where the enemy is visible with the naked eye is going to miss is ridiculous. Similarly, the idea that any missile fired would not be guided, or that a guided missile would miss at such close ranges, is equally ridiculous.

But, SciFi isn't about predicting the future so much as it is about setting up a premise with which to tell a story, so I can forgive these shortcomings.