Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side."

This quote from episode 4, makes me wonder. Does Han Solo know of Order 66? Did he see it happen. Did he hear rumors of how many of the Jedi were slain by blasters and that their force power and sabers didn't save them? (Vader showed the true power to Han in ep. V, one of my favorite moments of the saga, just awesome)

Thoughts...........

 

I don't know how much of this Lucas intended; but that line seems to show just how quickly the Jedi were wiped from the memory of the common culture. Han belongs to the generation just after or perhaps just prior to Order 66 and likely grew up with the Anti-Jedi propaganda. With little to no exposure to other Jedi, Han probably saw the former guardians of peace and justice as weaker than those with blasters since they had been wiped out by such.

Considering that the Sith were experts at training and discovering 'trainees' in secret; they knew how to discover and eliminate future potentials or at the very least recruit them for non force using positions in the empire.

Because of these things, the idea of a 'force' seemed hokey to him; because seeing is believing and he himself couldn't feel it and so it muct have been false.

This always reminds me of how Malcolm X used to say that the key to changing public opineon is to integrate that opineon into the media; basically the media sets the tone for what people believe. Don't quote me on that; I didn't actually read his bio and I certainly never had the fortune of meeting him. The truth is I think I saw that in the movie.

 

As the saying goes; history is written by the winners.

Even today in our world, there are people who doubt that the Holocaust occurred. Most, of course, know that it was sadly an all too true, horrible reality. But, imagine a galactic government re-writing the history books and actively cultivating the image of Jedi as traitors, madmen, and or misguided religious zealots. It wouldn't take long at all for people to start believing what they are told. Especially since most people never had direct contact with the Jedi anyway.

 

You know I read somewhere that Vader's gloves were actually what deflected Han's laser blast. I think I read that in the Star Wars OT Visual Dictionary. Vader's gloves were laser proof. I'm not joking, but I can't remember where I read that, but it could of been Vader using the Force. You would think it was Vader using the Force to deflect the lasers.

 

That could be, but... they certainly weren't lightsaber-proof.

Also, what was the deal with his arm bouncing Luke's saber off in ESB? He does react like it hurts, but it doesn't sever it.

 

I think it's simply an example to show us Han's cynicism. I doubt it had anything at all to do with Order 66.

 

Han's comment definitely showed his more sarcastic and cynical side when it came things related to the Force. At their peak the Jedi numbered only in the thousands and the Old Republic encompassed thousands of worlds, each with millions or billions of inhabitants. As a result few people ever came face to face with a Jedi Knight. They were things of legend; their exploits extraordinary and almost mythical.

Citizens of the Old Republic would hear tales about the Jedi's exploits during the Clone Wars and would whisper about their feats even though they might be on the outer rim and had never seen a clone or witnessed any of the ill effects of the Clone Wars. This fact of life in the GFFA made it very possible that some people, if not many people, just never believed that the Jedi existed at all but were a bedtime story to tell their children at the end of a long day.

I don't think anything within the canon of the films suggest that Han knew the intricacies of how the Jedi Knights fell from grace. To many, the Jedi never really existed; it's the old "out of sight, out of mind" notion. Few people, if any, understood what really transpired during the downfall of the Jedi and those few people were not discussing it openly. Of course, perhaps Palpatine had his own Scooter Libby. Ultimately, I think that Han's comment demonstrated the faithless and denigrent society the galaxy had become without the Jedi Knights performing mythical feats to perpetuate the bedtime stories for citizens to tell their children in order to inspire them to reach for the stars of adventure.

 

Interesting thought. I think that's just Han being Han.
That statement also shows how much thier 'hokey religion' has been
forgotten in such a short period of time, hence ancient weapons.
20+ years hardly constitutes ancient!
But I like that observation all the same DVBob.
Intended or not, it works quite well.

 

I agree with NoOne. The Jedi mainly died out 20 twenty years before the OT. The only thing that was left was their tale of treachery on the Chancellor. They just died out of existence and thought. Everyone lost faith in the Jedi and knew they would never return, nor did they really want them to return if they believed what the Emperor told them.

 

20+ years hardly constitutes ancient!

It depends on the context. I'm not good in weapons, but - for example - if sb was trying to impress you with the computer from mid 80s, I guess it would be quite likely for you to say that it's ancient (of course it's hyperbolic, but maight be used).

 

I think Han is refering to the ancient heritage of the lightsaber; not the ancient use of them. Since they were in use some 20 years before his statement; he's essentially saying that blasters are the modern weapon of choice because they have stood the test of trial and error; ie because the Jedi had been wiped out. One of the main internal conflicts Luke deals with in ANH is faith in the unseen force vs trust in the seen technology of the times. This conflict reaches it's climax at the end of the trench run when Luke turns off his viewscreen and uses the force to blow up the death star. Han's statement is mostly engineered to bring that conflict to the surface for the audience.

Han's line "great shot kid! That was one in a million." shows that he has not grown in terms of faith but sees it as a fluke stroke of luck; whereas when the film cuts to Luke and we hear Ben's words "The force will be with you always" it shows that Luke has changed and has gained faith in the force.

I dunno if you're on the same page as me regarding this, but after I wrote my view on the context of Han's use of the word 'ancient' the post sorta ran away from me hehe. Too much coffee

 

Its interesting coming on that - since almost all the "losers" in recent conflicts were the villains...