I don’t buy this ‘TESB was just as polarising’ argument. Sure, you can find detractors of just about anything if you look hard enough. I bet there were fans of ‘Meet the Beatles’ that thought ‘Sgt Peppers’ was pompous garbage.

Of course I only have my own perspective, but as a SW fan in 1980 I recall nothing but rapture at how awesome TESB was. It may have been jarring to some - it took risks in establishing a saga rather than just retreading the original - but overall people were just thrilled that the whole thing had been ramped up to 11. It’s not like people were claiming that TESB had killed the series or split the fanbase (and I’m pretty sure Kenner and Marvel suffered no ills).

The only reason anyone could’ve had a beef with TESB is if they were annoyed at it’s ‘middle chapter’ status and/or possibly that it was too dour compared to the comic-booky original. TLJ is derided because it messes with established canon, has plotholes you could drive a Star Destroyer through, and confirms the notion that JJ Abrams didn’t give a hoot about all the ‘mystery boxes’ he used to seduce us into liking the previous one. I’m not saying this to be a troll - I quite like the movies despite all this stuff. But sitting around and referencing Joseph Campbell and postulating world-building that simply never occurred to the writers of these movies is doing their work for them. We did it for Lucas when he couldn’t even make prequels that lined up with his original films, and we’re doing it now. Which is fun of course, but let’s not kid ourselves.