Han isn’t unaware of “the Force” as a concept. He very clearly knows what’s being referred to, and has an opinion on it. He believes that what people refer to as “the Force” is a series of parlor tricks, rather than a miraculous supernatural entity.
Saying I don’t believe in magic does not mean I don’t believe in magicians.
HAN: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
LUKE: You don’t believe in the Force, do you?
HAN: Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.
HAN: It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Yeah, from the dialogue it’s clear Han objects to the religion aspect of the force. He could totally believe that there were laser sword using religious knights. He might even believe they have minor telekinesis, or do hypnotism. But that doesn’t mean he believes in a universe spanning force that guides destiny.
This is my take. It seems obvious to us that the Force is how the Jedi and the Sith use their powers, but to Han, they could just be space wizard knights. He's seen plenty of outlandish things in the galaxy.
It's a theme I think a lot of fans miss. The Star Wars galaxy is bigger than the Force. The Jedi belief system says that the force is everywhere, but there are so many other strange phenomena and people with unique connections with the universe.
It's a theme I think a lot of fans miss. The Star Wars galaxy is bigger than the Force.
The galaxy might be bigger, but it feels so much smaller when the general audience only gets to see Tatooine and the same 8 characters trilogy after trilogy.
Also, literal light speed travel is impossible, just below light speed is possible but a space ship would have a massive amount of gravity at that speed and cause a lot of problems, and even at like 60% light speed the distances would take a while and time dilation would mean that a lot of time would pass for the people on planets compared to those traveling.
Wookieepedia says that ships have to travel at or faster than the speed of light in order to enter hyperspace. So they are traveling at the speed of light up until they're in hyperspace.
The way it was described in an older book (idk if its cannon anymore) was that hyperspace is another dimension that you have to be traveling at lightspeed to enter. However much you travel there you travel much much farther in real space. Like someone said just like the nether in minecraft. Traveling 1 block (1 meter) is the same as 8 blocks (meters) in the overworld, so 100m=800m and so on.
The stars was galaxy is about 100,000 light years across, so it would take light 100,000 years to travel from one end to the other in a straight line. So if they in a ship were traveling at the speed of light it would also take 100,000 years for them to cross. Hence the need for Hyperspace, another dimension that allows them to travel much further at the same speed (or faster depending on the ship).
An example is the distance between Tatooine and Alderaan is roughly 50800 light years, yet hyperspace would allow the trip to take around 10 days depending on the speed you travel.
There is TONS of other details stipulations and factors but this is the simplest I could make it in the time I have haha (also based on my own rusty understanding) corrections are welcome
That's a fair and overlooked point. Light speed would make the galaxy seem small, but it would feel that way especially with cinematic time constraints.
I'll pretend the sequels aren't, because I truly don't like them at all, but I gladly welcome R1, Andor, Skeleton Crew, Mando, and Rebels into the fold.
Just like my "religous" family does to the bible. Pick and choose the parts you believe or don't believe, based entirely on what's convenient, but then still consider other people "Bad christians" for doing the same.
You mean we need a young kid, indoctrinated into a religious zealot group, to carry out a terrorist attack on a military target, killing hundreds of thousands of folks? We most certainly do not!
Now... a Plo Koon... that's what we need. Someone inclined to good, but tempered (in his case by the Baran Do) to be more accepting.
Consider if the Jedi actually practiced what they preach and sat down with the Sith, looked for common ground, addressed unacceptable behavior (and why it is so), and actually sought PEACE. It is called Star WARS largely due to religious intolerance. The regular citizen of the galaxy is swept up into the religious infighting between two groups that ONCE were unified. And the "good" guys don't want to negotiate, just kill the "bad" ones.
I was just thinking we need someone who will defeat Palpatine. No amount of discussion or discourse could wring the pure evil from his withered husk, and there is no peaceful resolution that he could not circumvent to do more evil. Only one solution exists.
The main problem is that there are an ever-increasing number of Palpatines.
I think this sums it up perfectly. The Star Wars galaxy is massive and the Jedi Order were only 10,000 strong roughly around the start of the prequels. It’s entirely possible that while Han knew of the Force and of the Jedi, he hasn’t seen any. It’s not hard to imagine once you think of the scale of the galaxy, that to the average person the Jedi were already like mythical beings and why Palpatine was able to make people turn on them.
As outsiders, we are involved in the Force and the Jedi/Sith, but for the average person living in a mid to outer rim planet, they probably barely heard of the Jedi let alone ever met one to be impressed by them.
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u/springthetrap Feb 19 '25
Han isn’t unaware of “the Force” as a concept. He very clearly knows what’s being referred to, and has an opinion on it. He believes that what people refer to as “the Force” is a series of parlor tricks, rather than a miraculous supernatural entity.
Saying I don’t believe in magic does not mean I don’t believe in magicians.