Well, no. That last part is completely false, because you are falsely equating your experience to a universal. I’m quite engaged in how the work will play out, and experience the release of tension regardless of whether I know what comes next.
Dude, I am explicitly speaking about
differences in experience - so clearly, I am not saying it is universal. You are barking up the wrong tree there.
You may have a critique about my claim as to
WHY there is a difference. I'm leaning on my collegiate studies of film and fiction there, in which we discussed it - for example, there's a difference in putting on a brand new play, and putting on a revival or reworking - which is important for, say, performances of Shakespeare, in which large portions of the audience know not just the story, but often most of the relevant lines.
That there is a difference, your own question allows for. In your reaction here, you sure seem to be insisting that
YOUR experience is universal, when I claim it isn't. You experience
A release of the tension, and that's fine - consider my point a little overstated and inaccurate there. I'll accept that.
However, are you absolutely sure that your experience is the same as what others feel? If you are sure, then your question is not really in good faith. If you are not, then don't accuse me of universalizing experiences yet, okay?
I can assure you, knowing the how Han dies in The Force Awakens beforehand did not make seeing it any less upsetting for me
Well, yes, that's the point. I'm saying that, for some folks, there is a
qualitatively different experience in the release of dramatic tension for some moments between when they do, and don't, know what is going to happen. You, by your own admission above, do not experience a difference. I often do.
I was (thankfully) unspoiled for that moment you speak of, and it was different the first and second times I saw it. That first experience cannot be relived in the same film, unless I completely forget that it happens (which is unlikely in the extreme, barring memory loss in old age).
We are not well-situated to describe subjective emotional experiences (indeed, this is part of why we have poets, I think). There was a shock, confusion, and uncertainty to it that is not there in the same way when you know it is coming.
The human mind
processes emotions, and you can't stop it from doing so - when you know the result, you've already had time to think about it, have formed opinions, and preprocess the information. For some, unspoiled, they have an experience of feeling the moments before processing, and feeling the process of processing, if you will, which the spoiled cannot..
I've got a friend who finds those moments... distinctly unpleasant - she likens it to an anxiety attack. She almost never goes out to a movie without first reading a complete plot synopsis for that reason. When we discuss afterwards, there is very clearly a difference in the emotional experience of the film.
So, no, I am not universalizing anything.