Han didn't seemed very surprised, or even impressed by Luke having a lightsaber. He rolled his eyes at Obi-wan's training style. Han's more use to luck given how things went down with the Falcon, so the Force as a thing doesn't mean much to him. That the Jedi were a thing isn't out of the question at all, especially given what Chewbacca has seen. Plus Han would have been a child during the Clone Wars. If one assumes that Corellia was part of the Republic, than he would likely have heard the various propaganda reels that ran during the war and probably from time to time about the Jedi doing one things or another. With the Jedi/Republic poster boy showing up from time to time....Anakin Skywalker, with the name Obi-wan Kenobi coming up now an again.
The line from A New Hope would seem to preclude that he knew the Force controlled Qi'ra's destiny. I guess he never liberates his Khaleesi from Darth Maul. That's a job for Kenobi: A Star Wars Story.
Well the Hutts didn't get along with Maul's Shadow Collective, so I can foresee a rivalry between Jabba and Qi'ra over Solo.
"...I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all powerful force controlling everything...it's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense." This to me says he may have seen some kind of force user in action and probably heard a lot of stories of varying accuracy, but has written off their abilities as charlatanry and the associated mysticism as hokey religious nonsense. Ergo: he doesn't believe the force exists. he believes in magnets and force fields and the power of a really good con. Spoiler: Solo: A Star Wars Story How much do you want to bet the one he saw in action was Maul? He's certainly theatrical enough that an old con artist would assume the whole thing with the twirling and things flying across the room is an act to keep the gullible and superstitious in line.
This is what Lawrence Kasdan seems to think, he said in a recent interview that Solo is still skeptical, even in TFA, which is weird if you consider his line about 'it's all true'.
Well knowing for an objective fact that the force is a real thing isn't the same as wholeheartedly buying into the Jedi religion of the cosmic force. So yes, when Han says "it's all true", he's referring to all the stories Finn & Rey were mentioning. He still thinks it's all crazy, but now he knows that it's not just tricks and hokum because he's experienced enough of it to know it's real but has no idea what "it" really is exactly. Also, here's the thing: the Jedi aren't the only force religion, and like real world religions they don't all agree with each other. Even the Sith (which are essentially a breakaway Jedi sect) don't even agree with the Jedi as to the fundamental nature of the force. They don't even believe in the cosmic force, or the existence of anything beyond death. Han can believe the Jedi and their abilities were real without having to subscribe to their belief system or philosophy.
Is brother-in-law is a Jedi master. His wife has the Force in her. His son uses the Force as was being trained as a Jedi. He shot his Father-in-law to be on Bespin and witnessed at least of few things there. While he can be skeptical about the Force controlling everything, he can know that the Force exists and that it does work like the old stories said it did back in the Clone Wars.
I think that's mostly *why* they're so obsessed with living forever. They're convinced that the material plain is all there is to existence and only oblivion awaits the dead. This all tracks with the Sith being fundamentally selfish in their outlook, which is how they all but wiped each other out. Indeed even after Bane, I suspect every single one of them were sure that they'd be the Sith Lord to conquer death and rule the galaxy forever.
Indeed. In fact, as much as I don't enjoy ROTS, the novel sheds some light on the fundamental difference in the viewpoint of the Sith and the Jedi in Qui-Gon's dialog with Yoda. It is so interesting to read.
^Exactly: not a Sith. We don't know what, if any doctrine he subscribes to but it's a safe assumption that the Sith outlook isn't the only one for a dark side user (see also: the Dathomirian Witches.) That said, believing in the cosmic force doesn't mean he also believes that an individual consciousness can survive it. Perhaps he believes the cosmic force is both a creator and a destroyer, consuming the energy of the dead and using it to create the new. Looking at him, it seems as though like the Sith he's similarly determined to cling to a physical existence long past the point where he should have moved on. So believe in the cosmic force/not believe, believe in it's existence but disagree as to it's nature: these are exactly the kind of dogmatic and doctrinal disagreements that religions get into all the time, especially between religions that stem from a common source and the points of discord are both trivial and fundamental. (see: the Abrahamic religions)
According to Lucas, Sith/Dark Side users don't get force ghosts, I don't remember if he gave an exact reason why.
That discussion could revolve around "why did he even need a bandolier?" and "did he ever need to reload that crossbow looking thing anyway?"
Yet it happened more than once in old EU materials that were approved and published while Lucas was still in charge. Kor
Because he hardly give a shit about the EU. It only came up on a project he cared about and was involved with (Rebels). He also said nothing can exist outside of the force, which would completely invalidate the existence of the Yuuzhan Vong (which I'm 150% fine with) and the Ysalmari.
It came up in the planned Qui-Gon scene for ROTS which ended up not being in the film. As such, both the script and the novelization discuss the rationale for the idea.
Lucasfilm didn't Canonically change Han's age anyway, at least as far as I can tell, making this question moot.