Isn’t it a little weird how in the first movie, Han says that he’s never heard of the Jedi or the Force, but the Jedi only went extinct twenty years earlier?
He just said he didn’t believe in this stuff. This is also consistent with what he said in TFA.
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. It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.In any case, I think Lucas originally wanted the Jedi to be extinct for much more years for the original movie, but this later changed with the next two.
No. Luke’s father was a Jedi, and Vader reportedly murdered him and helped hunt down the other Jedi. And Ben knew Anakin personally. Han’s and General Motti’s (“don’t try to frighten us…”) skepticism of the Force aren’t so much an indication of a previous storyline as much as a possible minor plothole.
Han’s skepticism can be validated to a degree, but I don’t know what justification Motti would have for willfully baiting Vader like that.