Star Wars has always been popular. I don’t even know how you could argue otherwise. The fact it wasn’t AS popular when it was just books and video games (even though those books and video games were almost constantly best sellers) isn’t a sign that it was unpopular, just that it’s MOST popular when its movies.

The idea that “Sweaty nerds” kept it alive has always benefited sweaty nerds sense of self worth more than anything. It’s not all that reflective of reality. Star Wars sold billions of toys, books, video games, and more between 1984 and 1998. Nerds don’t move billions of dollars of ANYTHING by themselves. It’s never happened. You hit billions because regular folks like it.

I don’t think the PT enhanced the OT’s popularity. It probably enhanced ROTJ’s reputation more than anything, I will give it that. But the OT, and more generally, STAR WARS was always super-popular. Probably always will be. Even if now it seems like it’s most popular as TV instead of as a Movie. But then again, you could argue TV is more popular than movies now. And at this point, pretty much everything IS TV right now. So Star Wars is probably in a good place in that regard - like it basically always has been.