It would be an interesting experiment for someone who has never seen the OT to watch TFA.
It would most likely ruin his Star Wars experience. I would feel guilty simply if I did not try to convince a friend to watch OT first, let alone purposely do some “interesting experiments”.
Someone is bound to drag their non fan boyfriend/girlfriend or relative to see it. You’d have to be living in a cave not to be slightly familiar with the basics of Star Wars. There’s hardly anyone who doesn’t know of Darth Vader or what a stormtrooper is.
And lest we forget, the original film dropped us into the middle of a conflict we knew little about.
Believe it or not, my partner hadn’t seen the original trilogy when I first met her. Even her parents, who are of that generation (teenagers when ANH dropped) haven’t watched it. I uh, corrected this situation ASAP. Now she’s deeply steeped in both the OT and EU (ugh, “Legends”) stuff.
And, as odd as this may seem, as much as SW (specifically the OT) is part of the ‘public consciousness’, there are a lot of people who have gone out of their way to avoid seeing it, as if being contrarian and dissenting for the sake of it makes them cool.