Can you imagine what it would have been like if the internet had existed back then? Empire wasn’t well received by a lot of people who loved the first film and people forget this. Being a teenager when Empire came out i saw a lot of this. Before the film came out there were about 8 of us that were fans. I was the first to see Empire (in Birmingham in 70mm) and i didn’t think it was as good as SW but still enjoyed it. Once the film finally came to Oswestry (where i was living at the time) it divided all of. A couple decided to get rid of all their figures & merch because “they ruined Star Wars”, one said he wouldn’t bother going to see the next one as there was no point and only 2 of us remained fans in the months after (the others just thought they didn’t like it because they were probably too old now). They hated that the battle was at the beginning and that the rest of the film is boring until the lightsaber duel and that it was not fun, but depressing. But then there was also the other side when people who didn’t think much of SW liked ESB. Then you had the usual " I don’t want a black guy being a main character" than ran rampant back in the late 70’s/ early 80’s. But it seems that section hasn’t changed much with the angry fanboys hating the diversity in SW now.
The difference between now and then is that most of the time you were discussing SW, you were discussing it face to face. Now the anonymity of hiding behind a keyboard, along with the change in society, just brings out the more vapid side of the fandom.