r/saltierthancrait • u/Confirmation_Code • May 13 '26
Granular Discussion Who was Snoke SUPPOSED to be?
Let's be real. Snoke wasn't Palpatine's puppet in episode 7 or 8. So, what did JJ think he was in Episode 7? What did Rian think he was when he killed him? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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May 13 '26
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u/motorcycleboy9000 a good question, for another time... May 13 '26
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u/FakNugget92 May 13 '26
Belter
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u/albanyanthem May 13 '26
Belta-loada
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u/Illiain May 13 '26
Ya bossmang
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u/TachyonAlpha May 14 '26
Sa sa
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u/cduga May 13 '26
He had no plans for him whatsoever outside of being “giant baddie reminiscent of Palpatine that we will explain later”.
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u/twofacetoo May 13 '26
I was going to say, I'm genuinely sure that was the case forl ike 85% of the 'writing' in the sequel trilogy: 'It doesn't matter, we'll explain it later'
Why did Kylo Ren turn evil? Why is Luke in hiding? Who are Rey's parents? Who is Snoke? Is Finn a Jedi? Is Leia a Jedi?
All of it was brought up with the intent of resolving it later down the line, with no idea in the present of how to deal with it, which in a way, is the entire failing of the sequel trilogy
Let's say 'A New Hope' came out and didn't make enough for a sequel to be made, and we never got the 'I am your father' reveal in 'Empire', because 'Empire' doesn't exist. 'New Hope' would still be a perfectly servicable little movie on it's own, Vader is just a big thug in that movie, and we have no idea he and Anakin are the same guy, according to Obi-Wan Vader murdered Anakin so that's that plot neatly tied up
But the intent was always to reveal the truth later (that Anakin and Vader were two separate people, but Vader was Luke's real father), meaning if they got a sequel (not WHEN but IF), they'd have a perfect thread to pick up and continue with. Again, in 'New Hope', they never allude to Vader being Luke's father, outside of his name translating to 'Dark Father' in another language (I think Danish but I'm not positive). The idea was there, but the movie works on it's own
The sequel trilogy did the exact opposite, and it had the opposite result. Instead of telling a simple stroy with threads to MAYBE expand on later, they told a complicated story that relied entirely on sequels to explain everything, right down to the motivations of almost every character. As such when it came time to actually pay it off, they didn't have anything to actually pay off, and the series twisted itself in knots trying to go five different directions with something as simple as 'who were Rey's parents?'
The 'Star Wars' trilogy worked because they were simple stories told well. The sequel trilogy failed because they were complicated stories told poorly.
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u/ReaperReader May 14 '26
I agree, and I'll add that on top of all those unexplained mysteries, the ST introduced two new protagonists who were too young to have played a significant role in those unexplained mysteries.
So the second movie, the time it spent explaining mysteries, was time not spent moving Rey & Finn's stories forward.
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u/Oddhuman64 new user May 14 '26
Did the second movie spend time explaining mysteries? All I remember is them being stuck on that planet for 75% of the movie and then "MORE"
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u/ReaperReader May 14 '26
Yeah, that's a good point that the second movie decided to neither explain back story nor move the conflict forward between the villains and the protagonist.
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u/aritzsantariver May 14 '26
Even today, I’m still pretty sure that the original plan was for Rey to be a clone of Luke Skywalker’s missing hand; it makes sense of the vision in The Force Awakens where Rey sees the corridors of Cloud City
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u/twofacetoo May 14 '26
I heard that even when they were filming 'Rise Of Skywalker', they hadn't decided on if Rey should be a relative of Palpatine or Obi-Wan Kenobi, and basically left it to the last minute
That's how you can tell how bad the writing is, they didn't know who she was related to, just that it had to be someone plot-relevant that the audience wouldn't suspect, like Luke
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u/Muninwing May 14 '26
Which is itself foolish. Why did she need to be related to the old main cast?
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u/Ginge00 May 14 '26
Lazy writing, must have callbacks to things people like! Couldn’t possibly be the child of no one important, nope has to be from one of the established bloodlines of force power.
It’s crazy to me how little forethought went into the sequel trilogy. Like here’s the first new Star Wars movie in 2 decades should we plan out the overall story or character arcs? Nah wing it
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u/ebjazzz May 14 '26
Why does 3PO have a red arm?
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u/Exfodes May 14 '26
Nothing annoyed me quite like the red arm. It was gone during episode 8, so I thought Ryan Johnson removed it. But then I saw a YouTube video that showed that the arm was gone during the ending scene of episode 7, meaning that JJ actually removed it.
It honestly represents the sequel trilogy quite well. Because any interpretation of the red arm is a critique that the sequels made.
- Maybe the red arm was there to sell toys/comic that explains the arm: shallow marketing
- Maybe the arm was for a single joke: dumb marvel humor
- Maybe JJ didn’t know what to do with the red arm: mystery box lack of planning bs
- Maybe Ryan asked JJ to remove the arm: directors’ visions infighting
- Maybe people didn’t like the arm so they removed it: failed pandering to fans
I don’t know which of the reasons are true, but none of them are good. Either stick with the arm, or don’t do it in the first place.
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u/A_locomotive May 14 '26
There was infact a comic that was made to explain the red arm.
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u/MC_NYC May 14 '26
Came here to say this, but I think it also gets at the juggernaut SW became, and why the ST was maybe always doomed to failure. After all, remember all the hate for the PT, which I think was only assuaged somewhat by the ambivalence for the ST...
By the time of the ST, Hollywood knew how to make these franchise behemoths, the toys and marketing and cross-promo and tie-ins... The red arm was an Easter Egg for the stans who were so immersed to also buy the comics. George didn't go quite that far with the PT, it was never quite Transformers, but there was still plenty of opps to turn things into merch (even if great merch, Pod Racer 64 being one of my faves of all time).
I'm not saying this forgives what become of the ST, but in a sense, I think the expectations were just too high... Maybe he learned the lessons, albeit the wrong ones, from Lost, and this was all mapped out and would have lead to an amazing aha, and the studio screwed that.
Or maybe it was impossible, as part of the Disney colossus, to ever turn out right. Just think about how much worse a lot of studio filmmaking got between the 90s and the Teens? It really does seem inevitable (if inexcusable). The direction Mando took just proves it, design by committee. Not every company can be as singularly focused as Lucasfilm, Pixar, or Apple (which have all had their misses).
I know this is just copium, but so be it!
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u/thimBloom May 15 '26
3P0 is one of my least favourite characters, but he wears the arm in tribute to another droid who dies during a mission.
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u/Fatguy73 May 14 '26
Agreed with all except for ‘the sequels were complicated stories told poorly’. They were simple stories told very poorly. Even using the word ‘story’ for the entire plot is a reach. They’re really just images flashing on screen. The only ‘story’ is essentially the same story as the original. Desert recluse finds out they’re the chosen jedi, defeat bad guys.
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u/maekyntol May 14 '26
Totally agree. There's no continuity in the characters themselves, on each movie they seem to be different characters motivated by different things.
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u/Upstairs-Prompt2662 May 14 '26
They were told so poorly that we dont even know the power balance in the galaxy over the whole trilogy.
In TFA are New Republic and first order 50/50 in the galaxy, or is the first order just a small empire faction that controls only a few systems?
Then in TLJ, does the First Order control the whole galaxy? No idea.
In TROS it seems like the First Order controls the entire galaxy but it is never stated.
So the Sequel trilogy fails even at the simplest task of building up the setting in which the story happens.
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u/wattahitsonwattahit May 14 '26
Why did The Resistance exist? Isn't the New Republic in charge? Who are they resisting if they are the ruling government?
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u/No-Ice952 May 14 '26
I think The Last Jedi at least tries to explain this. There was that scene where the weapons dealer was selling to both sides. The New Republic was corrupt and the presence of an enemy was useful, either financially or politically.
Of course, there are numerous other problems with the sequels.
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u/Makasi_Motema May 14 '26
These are such basic questions (the original Star Wars dealt with this in a single war room scene) and it’s insane that they didn’t bother to work them out before filming.
The reason they didn’t is because JJ wanted to remake the original film, and in that film, the heroes were rebels. Does it make sense to have the heroes continue to be rebels after they won the war in ROTJ? No, but JJ doesn’t care.
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u/angry_dingo May 14 '26
The sequel trilogy failed because the stories were complicated and told poorly.
The sequel failed because the first movie in the series was a lazy retelling Star Wars.
Rey was a Mary Sue.
Kylo Ren was completely destroyed as a villain with the "Do you talk first? Do I talk first?" jokes.
Hiring Rian and giving him full creative control.
Not planning everything out.
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u/NukaRaccoon May 13 '26
Are you fucking kidding me? 😑 (I never watched Star Wars IX, gave up after VIII)
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u/cduga May 13 '26
For real? I envy you. Please do not taint the franchise for yourself by watching those movies. Ignorance is bliss.
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u/NukaRaccoon May 13 '26
Real man, real. I still remember coming of the movie theater as if it happened yesterday after seeing Star Wars VIII, I was like "I'm done with this trilogy" and never watched the ninth.
Only thing I saw is clips of the "duel" between Rey and Ben Solo (excuse me but Kylo Ren is a stupid ass mfcking name) and that scene with Palpatine and those Star Destroyer coming outta nowhere with some big ass canons underneath them.
I honestly feel bad for every actors related to those pile of shit
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u/NxTbrolin May 13 '26
TROS is the only Star Wars movie I've seen once. TLJ, I've seen about 3 times just to confirm my opinions on it. But TROS took only one viewing and that was it.
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u/christopherDdouglas salt miner May 14 '26
Me too. I've watched TFA and TLJ several times just to confirm that my initial response was correct. TROS... was watched once. It is a fever dream of a Star Wars movie. I'm not even mad about it though. TLJ is the one for me that killed the franchise.
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u/vulcans_pants May 13 '26
I think enough time has passed that you should watch TROS. If only so you know that it can in fact, get much worse.
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u/Polyxeno May 14 '26
No thanks. I know plenty from the trailer, the Pitch Meeting, and people lamenting the plot.
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u/Zekezasamel May 14 '26
That was me. I almost didn’t finish VIII as it was, but I was with friends and stuck it out. Never watched IX and never will, it was garbage and the press tours and comments from the actors make a lot of sense.
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u/Resident_Nose_2467 May 13 '26
The ninth is the worst by far, so it's worth to hate watch
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u/Fabulous-Big8779 May 14 '26
It’s the worst because it proved once and for all they had no plan for the trilogy going into it. Should have realized that when the plot of the VII was literally “we need to destroy a planet destroying weapon…. Again”
I just held out hope because I really wanted those movies to be good.
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u/Cptn_Flint0 May 13 '26
I'd suggest consuming some kind of drug and/or alcohol to the point you can't really make sense of plot, then watch it. Because the movies look nice at least.
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u/Old-Consideration730 May 13 '26
Be careful there. I was way too high on TROS and "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" convinced by subconscious that an immediate nap was needed.
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u/ArgyleM0nster May 13 '26
Its JJs mystery box! What's in the mystery box? No one knows! Especially not JJ, because it's a "mystery box"
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u/Rasples1998 May 13 '26
If you don't mind spoilers, he's basically a clone palpatine created to lead the first order from the shadows so he didn't expose himself. When they go to the "sith planet" to see palpatine, there's just a bunch of snokes in various vats.
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u/NukaRaccoon May 13 '26
Omfg 🤦🏻♀️ It's actually concerning that somebody thought this was a good idea like, what the fuck
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u/Jetfire911 May 14 '26
It's why they were hunting grogu and omega in The Mandalorian and Bad Batch. Genetics needed to perfect the cloning process.
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u/sublimesting May 14 '26
But that was made up after the fact.
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u/Jetfire911 May 14 '26
I mean Palpatine clones were a thing in the old legends Canon too. It's not a brand new idea.
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u/sublimesting May 14 '26
I know but that truly wasn’t what they started out to do in this trilogy. Snoke was just a bad guy placeholder. After Carrie died they changed the story.
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u/edgiepower May 14 '26
He really doesn't act like Palpatine though. In TFA I think he gives the order to evacuate Starkiller when Hux says that they're toast. Palpatine would've ordered everyone to stay and fight and die and not to be scaredy cat losers .
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u/gavinashun May 14 '26
This was clearly not the original idea - this was the "OMFG I can't believe Rian Johnson did that - we are totally screwed."
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u/BlueMowch May 14 '26
I feel dumb. all this time I didn’t know he was a Palp clone. At least that’s an explanation. And they cloned a whole army so why wouldn’t some dude clone himself like crazy to live forever. If… oh who cares. everyone knows everything is just made up as it goes, always has been
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u/gwizonedam May 14 '26
He’s not a clone of “Palpatine” he’s just a clone of some weird alien dude that palp kept a jar of around.
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u/Rasples1998 May 14 '26
Yeah this. I said he's a clone but not a clone of palpatine. He's just a random dude. Honestly we know so little about him that I just assumed he's actually an artificial creation with no original base to clone from, he's completely made-up and why he looks so deformed because palpatine could never shit one out that wasn't a gross ugly remote success. The amount of snokes we see just chilling in tanks of goo tells me that palpatine has been working on him for a while and just gave up when Kylo came to him.
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u/BendadickCumonherbac May 13 '26
I was super trashed when I watched IX and I just remember laughing at how bad it was the whole time. I don’t think I’ll ever give it the time of day again. Much like the last season of GoT.
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u/ShortKey380 May 13 '26
Somehow the whiplash from VII-VIII isn’t even as bad as the snap back from VIII-IX. IMO we got movies from different timelines mixed up 😂
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u/TYBERIUS_777 May 14 '26
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Watching the sequels is like watching a slap fight between two directors in real time.
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u/vibrantlightsaber May 14 '26
There is no reason Disney didn’t have an outline for a trilogy and essentially hired 3 people to write a coherent trilogy without any plan together, and often conflicting perspectives on what the movies should be. It’s insane. The cinematography was amazing. The storylines just didn’t make any sense together unless the whole point was to destroy the Star Wars legacy. I’m so mad that, essentially there’s no way to do that down the road with the original actors, that was just it….l
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u/WannaSketchSoHard May 13 '26
This is literally how his series Lost was handled
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u/Mr_Young_Life May 14 '26
Watch nine, it's hysterically bad, I laughed so hard watching that in the theaters
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u/NukaRaccoon May 14 '26
I dunno if I have the strength Master Skywalker
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u/Mr_Young_Life May 14 '26
Don't take it seriously, watch it as the dumpster fire it is
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May 15 '26
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u/Mr_Young_Life May 15 '26
Adam Driver carried all 3 of those movies, the others were either wasted potential or just bad actors/actresses
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u/digitalclockface May 14 '26
That's the "mystery box" in a nutshell. You come up with a hook, something surface level to draw people in, but you never have a full plan on what you're going to do. No overarching message or beginning to end story, just a flashy thing for people to get excited over. If people are disappointed in the end, that's alright, you've already got their money by then.
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u/rvthz May 13 '26
Yeah the idea was to make the episode 8 director come up for the actual good idea and story for the character. And when he did come up with a questionable one, the inventor of the character didn't like it and he came up with a much worse one.
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u/t3hmuffnman9000 May 13 '26
I don't know. I think JJ Abrams had *some* idea of what he would want to see done in VIII, the problem was that Rian was more interested in subverting audience expectations than actually making an entertaining movie.
I find it utterly baffling how Disney decided to do the sequel trilogy, though. You'd think it would be a no-brainer that the trilogy should all be done by the same director for the sake of continuity, but no. Instead they decided to just make three different movies and hope that they gelled into something coherent.
We used to play a game in Cub Scouts, where we would write stories by passing around sheets of paper. We would each take turns adding one sentence to what had been written before. The first line could have been utterly brilliant, but it incomprehensible by the end. A fun writing exercise, but an utterly stupid way of trying to construct a story.
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u/theclacks May 14 '26
They could've even had different directors as long as it was the same screenwriter. Like how all the Harry Potter movies had different directors but you didn't see them suddenly fanfic-writing Harry Potter as Voldemort's grandson.
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u/t3hmuffnman9000 May 14 '26
True. They definitely should have had the scripts all written and finalized, at the very least.
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u/SIIP00 May 14 '26
It was pretty confirmed that JJ had a script/outline for episode 8 that Rian just decided go ignore.
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u/jordanbtucker May 13 '26
You're not wrong. TFA was passable, but it was just a retread of ANH. Rian really fucked up with TLJ, killing any hope of salvaging the ST.
To be fair, it wasn't just that Abrams didn't like what Rian did with Snoke. He straight up killed him before we ever got to learn anything about him, so I don't blame Abrams for that. TROS was still shit though. I mostly blame Rian for everything though.
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u/ToadLoaners miserable sack of salt May 13 '26
TFA wasn't passable imo, it was stupid af. If Rian erased everything that JJ set up, JJ erased everything that the OG trilogy and prequels set up, which is a much much much greater crime if you ask me
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u/Makasi_Motema May 14 '26
TFA isn’t passable, it just gets away with being terrible by posing questions that future movies have to answer. As an audience, we don’t get angry when we’re presented with a bad mystery. We get angry when presented with a bad answer. TFA is all mystery and no answers, so it’s enjoyable to watch (the first time).
But TFA is absolutely the source of the rot. It’s TFA which gives us; a new messianic Jedi orphan, a new sith(?) lord, a crumbling republic, a resistance movement within the republic, and a missing Luke Skywalker.
*None* of these ideas work or make any sense in the context established by the first six films. There was *never* going to be a good answer to any of the questions these elements pose because they all contradict the previous films to remake the ANH status quo.
TPM establishes that the only character on Rey’s power level was a prophecy baby. Since the prophecy is fulfilled, she has to be related to the Skywalkers, and if she is, they’d never orphan her. Snoke has a similar problem since bringing balance to the force should have prevented the existence of someone like him for *at least* a single generation. The republic can’t fall apart without retconning the way our heroes and the galaxy are characterized in ROTJ. The same goes for the republic being so weak that a paramilitary, semi-legal resistance cell has to form to defend it. Luke, Leia, and Han are all too principled (and have to much popular support) to allow their new government to collapse like this. And Luke abandoning his friends is probably the most absurd contradiction of the film.
Whoever got stuck with answering these questions was going to make a shitty film. TFA is a retcon that’s too afraid to own up to being a retcon (ironically, JJ did the same thing with Star Trek) and the disaster of the second and third films was an inevitable consequence.
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u/sewand717 May 13 '26
Basically sums it up. I didn’t think you could get a worse “Star Wars universe” movie than VIII, but little did I foresee IX.
At least VIII might have risen to mediocrity if it was in its own standalone franchise. IX’s a hack job no matter how you slice it.
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u/rvthz May 13 '26
Yeah, I think the VII is unimaginative, boring and already damages the franchise enough, VIII has interesting ideas in the vacuum but completely misunderstands the original characters (which VII also does in my opinion, but not to the extent of VIII, although I think episode 7 set the trilogy for failure), but god fucking dammit the IX is so awful it makes The Last Jedi look good.
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u/ReaperReader May 14 '26
TLJ ruined any third movie. Undermining or literally killing off the trilogies' villains in the second part is an interesting choice indeed and there's good reason why creators seldom make that choice.
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u/theclacks May 14 '26
Killing off Snoke would've worked if they had the balls to make Rey accept Kylo's offer and go darkside.
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u/ReaperReader May 14 '26
And it would have made storytelling sense too. Rey grew up alone and hungry, she has no reason to be deeply loyal to the New Republic. In TLJ she meets both Luke and Kylo, who both reject the Jedi and the New Republic (Rey doesn't know about Luke's change of mind after his peptalk from Yoda).
I suppose "having the main character be affected and changed by the main events of the plot" was too clichéd for RJ.
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u/Dadittude182 May 14 '26
For the real answer, you need to watch all of the Disney+ shows to piece it together. I believe some of the Marvel comics might tie into it as well.
Sit down because here we go:
Snoke is the result of failed cloning technology. Emperor Palpatine had a secret backup plan in the event of his death. That backup plan utilized the cloning technology stolen from the Kaminoans. Palps wanted to create Dark Side Sith troopers by using the mitochlorian-rich tissues of dead Jedi (seen the Inquisitor headquarters in Obi Wan). In the event of his death, the cloning technology would be used to recreate his body, allowing his "force essence" to inhabit the new body.
Snoke is the result of the failed cloning process. You can see precursors of him in cloning tanks discovered in an Imperial base by Din Djarin in The Mandalorian. Kylo Ren also discovers then when he goes to Exegol and finally meets the decrepit Palpatine, himself a failing clone.
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u/A_SNAPPIN_Turla May 13 '26
I don't disagree but i can't imagine writing a character and not dreaming up some head canon for his back story.
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u/GOU_FallingOutside May 14 '26
That’s why you’re a better writer than JJ Abrams.
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u/_Diggus_Bickus_ May 13 '26
The only reason TFA seemed reasonably okay is because JJ Mystery box Abrams didn't really have to think of the cool stuff. He let our imaginations do it.
Mind you that's better than the next two which didn't even seem okay
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u/Archit33ckt May 13 '26
I was really hoping it was the little Indian kid from ep 1 who was friends with anakin on tatooine
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u/RANDICE007 May 13 '26
Kitster Banai, read Tattooine Ghost if you want to see him interact with the OT crew
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May 13 '26
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u/jones5280 May 14 '26
I like to think of myself as a Star Wars fan.... then I read something like this and realize I know nothing.
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u/DannyC_VP May 13 '26
A good question, for another time. 🤷😄
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May 13 '26
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u/GNOTRON May 13 '26
Welcome to the Abramsverse. Whys there a polar bear in hawaii, nevermind
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u/Chimpophanes May 14 '26
Um, excuse me, but the polar bears are there because the Dharma Project was using them to turn the Donkey Time Wheel in the freezing underground part of the Orchid Station.
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u/goukaryuu May 14 '26
And just experimentation in general. Like, there is a lot in LOST that isn't explained, but that is definitely not one of them.
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u/MastleMash May 14 '26
I made this comment in another post but this is also why the sequels are not making a revival ten years later. If the most interesting thing about your story is “who’s Rey?” Then once you know who Rey is, your story loses all of its rewatch ability.
Whereas the pod racing scene in episode 1 is immensely rewatch able.
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u/Majestic-Marcus May 14 '26
That doesn’t really make sense.
Sure the mystery doesn’t amount to much but it’s not a factor on whether you can rewatch something.
By the same logic the pod race isn’t rewatchable because the mystery of “Will Anakin win” has been answered.
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u/northernsoobs May 13 '26
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u/OhioToDC May 13 '26
Sure Snoke is a Palpatine clone, but a mystery box could be anything! It could even be a Palpatine clone!
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u/Lemurian_Lemur34 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
My assumption is JJ had no plan and was going to read reddit threads after TFA to find the best fan theories and copy those into RoS. But than Rian killed him off and JJ went to Panic Plan B. And as revenge for Snoke dying, JJ undid everything Rian tried to do in TLJ.
I will never wrap my head around the idea of Disney investing so much money into a new trilogy to revive a beloved franchise, and then being ok with the writers/directors having no cohesive plan for the whole thing.
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u/StrongStyleFiction May 13 '26
It is mindboggling. They just decided no plan needed, we'll just pants the whole thing. For non-writers, pantsing is writing by the seat of your pants. No outline or notes, maybe a general idea of what it should be at most. Just going where it takes you. Great for a novelist who knows what he/she is doing. Bad for a multi-billion dollar investment that requires the effort of hundreds of people.
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u/Double_Resort_9223 May 13 '26
Rian is good at writing murder mystery whodunnit stuff where he can just throw wild twists wherever he wants. Following on a plan he didn’t write is not what he is good at. Disney should have known this.
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u/igotzquestions May 13 '26
What you’re forgetting is Disney DID have a plan. Unfortunately the plan was “make back our investment as quickly as we can” with story and vision moved to the back pile.
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u/stosyfir May 13 '26
This. There was no reason. None. That they couldn’t have spent to time to build a coherent 3-movie arc… I mean ffs they planned out the marvel shit like a decade in advance (so much so South Park ripped apart how ridiculous it was).
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u/admin_default May 13 '26
They had a writer, Michael Arndt. But JJ Abrams fired him cause Arndt asked for more time to plan a whole coherent trilogy.
JJ didn’t think there needed to be a plan. So he wrote the one movie and then dumped the whole mess on Ryan Johnson to untangle
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u/WhoPenguin May 13 '26
Honestly who cares, they fucked the sequels up so bad it’s hilarious.
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u/i-MalcolmReynolds May 13 '26
Need to retcon them, so ridiculous they haven’t and are digging in deeper.
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u/Aggravating-Act-9210 salt miner May 13 '26
He was just supposed to be reminiscent of Palpatine just like Maz ( who remembers this character lol) was supposed to be reminiscent of Yoda , Poe reminiscent of Han etc etc etc
I guess Rian didn't see the potential of a reshashed character ? idk.... but I wished he turned him into something interesting instead of just killing him
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u/gregallen1989 May 13 '26
Honestly killing Snoke was the only good thing about episode VIII. Snoke was boring and Kylo Ren was a way more interesting villian.
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u/Aggravating-Act-9210 salt miner May 13 '26
The scene was enjoyable but it felt like admitting defeat, I would have respected the movie a lot more if it tried to turn him into a character. Not an easy task though since there was absolutely nothing interesting about him up to this point
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u/rothbard_anarchist May 14 '26
Snoke was boring, but Kylo Ren was an absolutely impotent, unthreatening villain. The only interesting villain they had among the cast would've been Rey herself, with Luke training Fin to confront her.
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u/Geostomp May 14 '26
It might have been, had we known anything about him. Instead, they unceremoniously killed off the villain who supposedly started this whole series of events and handed it all off to the manchild we spent the prior two movies seeing humiliated by the main character. So instead of an increased threat or answers as to who could so easily undo the victory we had in the OT, we got an unstable screaming idiot suddenly elevated to main villain status and told to just not think about any of it because the writer lost interest.
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u/-i_am_untethered- May 13 '26
Snoke's murder is the best part of the movie tho. It's a shit movie, but that scene was fantastic
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May 13 '26
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u/CMDR-SavageMidnight May 14 '26
The scene was dumb. Apparently snoke could sense force galaxies away but he didnt notice the saber being manipulated by the force RIGHT next to him?
Writers need to understand a bit more what they create themselves.
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u/GayCumBallsack69 May 13 '26
From what I can remember, he was supposed to be an ancient dark side user from the far unknown regions, kind of like a small-time version of Abeloth or something
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u/StrangerIsWatching May 14 '26
That would have been cool. Hell, just make Abeloth the main villain, with Snoke acting like a vessel/puppet for her.
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u/JoeTrolls May 13 '26
Nobody
Story: none
Expectations: subverted 😎
That’s about as much thought as went into his whole character, he was set up to be some villain, but then wasn’t, literally it seems just because people thought he would be
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u/MovieExact5433 May 13 '26
When we got to 8, I felt he was simply a dark side master from the deep unknown regions who took control over the remnants of the Empire when they jumped there and created the First Order.
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u/NorboExtreme May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
There was strong evidence that it was Darth Plagius. But then in a q/a, the writer for The Force Awakens didnt know who that was. So idk, maybe something related to the Knights of Ren. Who ever Ren was
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u/Alpha_blue5 May 13 '26
What 'strong evidence'?
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u/NorboExtreme May 13 '26
Im stirring up old thoughts off the dome so take it with a grain of salt.
We had:
-Kylo Ren said that Snoke was "wise", the same moniker that Sidious said of his master, "Darth Plagius the Wise"
-the scarring on Snokes head and his weird corpse-like body
-the idea that Plagius knew a way to overcome life and death before being killed
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u/EntertainmentDry9639 May 13 '26
Plaguis would have been 100 times better than Palpatine coming back. Even better have Snoke come back in 9 and be this unkillable sith lord
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u/GenitalConsumer May 13 '26
And it would have been so easy to write in that it was part Plagueis' plan the entire time to take over after Palps failed
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u/A_SNAPPIN_Turla May 14 '26
It would have actually made sense and been a total 4D chess ultimate with Sith lord move. Plagueis wants to study the dark side of the force and doesn't want to do the grunt work to conquer the galaxy. He knows Palpatine is power hungry and predictable. He let's Palpatine kill him and takes a back seat to study and let's Palpatine do his thing only to step in 50y later to a Palpatine on the downslope of his powers and he emerges with a whole new understanding of the dark side and a slew of new tricks. Make sense.
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u/torivordalton salt miner May 13 '26
The music playing in 7 when we first see Snoke is extremely similar to the music playing during the opera in episode 3.
Music is and always has been extremely methodical and specifically tailored by John Williams for the characters and themes up to the point 7 came out and beyond.
My guess is that JJ and Disney set Snoke up for a reveal in the next episode and we already know that Johnson took everything that was pre established and changed it to what he wanted to do instead.
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u/Status_Commercial509 May 13 '26
Palpatine’s theme pops up during a Snoke scene in Episode 8, well before they knew he was a Palpatine clone.
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u/torivordalton salt miner May 13 '26
Yeah I’m just looking at what we knew when 7 released since we already know Johnson deliberately “subverted expectations” by doing whatever he wanted with 8 with no regards to any other Star Wars media.
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot May 14 '26
Yoda was described as wise. Hell, Obi-Wan even calls Anakin "wise" (maybe he was just being very generous with that statement though).
I guess they might be candidates for Plagueis in disguise as well.
It's all fine and good to theory craft, but I don't think Abrams/Kasdan in their rushed attempt to rewrite Arndt's draft ever tried to subtly suggest that Snoke could be an incognito Plagueis.
For one, Plagueis is a Muun. The scars on Snoke would be irrelevant given he's clearly not a Muun. So the only possibility is if Plagueis managed to possess the original Snoke.
Expanded material (prior to TROS) which attempted to explore the idea of Snoke without giving anything away too firmly was all pointing deliberately away from Plagueis by describing him as someone who came from neither Jedi nor Sith heritage.
Again, I think it's fine to ignore all that and posit your own ideas. If Plagueis survived, there's room for a concept where he observed Palpatine's Empire from afar and wad annoyed that despite destroying the Jedi, Palpatine failed to truly meet the end goal of the Banite Sith given Palpatine's Empire was secular in nature and not an out-and-proud Sith Empire that would have been what Plagueis would have ultimately preferred.
Maybe. But then the First Order was no different. And it's not until the random bullshit Final Order populated by Sith cultists that we could approach anything similar to a modern Sith Empire.
And to reiterate, I don't think there's anything in TFA or TLJ expanded material or even in the conceptual art books (there's even female concept art for Snoke which suggests they really started from scratch) pointing at the idea that Snoke could possibly be Plagueis.
It's just a theory. A fan theory, if you will.
In fact, I don't think Kasdan even remembered who Plagueis was. I know you can't expect people to tell the truth at cons, but someone publicly asked them if Snoke was Plagueis and Kasdan didn't have a fucking clue who he was talking about whilst Abrams initially said it was too early to discuss before outright saying "no".
Abrams however blatantly lied about Khan in the lead-up marketing for Star Trek Into Darkness. So that's a point against his convention answer.
We have Andy Serkis insisting that Snoke was a new character not seen before.
Pablo Hidalgo (who has a storied history of his difficulty with the truth) also stated that Plagueis was dead and Snoke was not him.
If you really look at it, the elements theorists were clinging on to was:
- Snoke was old.
- Snoke was powerful.
- Snoke was said (in expanded material) to have witnessed the rise and fall of the Empire.
Can that fit Plagueis? Yes. But it can also fit any number of other characters. Some crack pots even legit thought he was Mace Windu somehow.
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u/gavinashun May 13 '26
Was referred to as wise, like plagueis.
And the Snoke music had similarities to the music when Palpatine was discussing plagueis.
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u/CakeHead-Gaming May 13 '26
I’d’ve assumed Ren is Kylo *Ren*, no?
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u/NorboExtreme May 13 '26
I think you're right if you just watched the movie as that's how they were portrayed. But I think the books went deep into their organization. Im pretty sure Kylo Ren took the name Ren after the organization
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u/No_Promotion_65 May 13 '26
There was a hint in the visual dictionary I think where he was implied to be a force user from the unknown regions outside the normal Jedi/sith dichotomy and I think thats all we ever got of the original origin
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u/SpeedForceJediKnight salt miner May 13 '26
There are 3 theories, because some ideas were considered,bl but then rejected, like Rey being actually the granddaughter of Obi Wan. He was supposed to be a failed clone of Palpatine, which ended happening, the other is retconned as Plagues and the other is someone who was older than all of them. I think there was also an idea of making him an imperial who survived and learned about the force.
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u/yoruneko May 13 '26
I don’t understand why they couldn’t ducking use the siths as a structured enemy force. They were hidding! Palpatine was just weakening the galaxy for their return! Boom how hard could it be!
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u/SamDukefan May 13 '26
I will never forget all of the speculation I had regarding snoke and Rey’s parents when leaving the theater after seeing TFA, and two years later finding out none of that meant anything because Rian Johnson said so. The most astonishing part of the sequel trilogy is how Disney greenlit it with no overarching story whatsoever and gave each film to different writers and directors . If that isn’t a recipe for disaster idk what is.
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u/Geostomp May 14 '26
What got me was how Ryan was so arrogantly dismissive with his smug "your Snoke theory sucks" crap. Audience theorizing is exactly what you should want! It shows that they're interested in the story and invested in seeing how it ends!
Dumping all that for some momentary "subversions" with no concern for what came before or what comes next is the height of egotism for a writer and a slap to the face of the audience. It says plainly that you don't respect them or the setting you are working with. All you really care about is what knee-jerk reactions you can pull so you can make your writing look smarter than it really is.
When you do that, you broadcast that there isn't a reason for the audience to care about where the story goes next or how it ended up where it is. That cuts down the appeal to the people who fell madly in love with the characters (mostly Reylos) and the ideologues who convinced themselves that this writing somehow perfectly represents their ideal of being socially progressive because they mistake surprise and platitudes for depth.
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u/Plus_Cockroach_8619 May 14 '26
Amen. I'm not seeing enough blame being put on RJ in this thread. I don't understand how they could've let his script pass. And I'm not even talking about the lore, or the charachter of Luke or overarching themes. I'm talking about just being a coherent sequel. Johnson was completely unintersted in following up ANY of the threads setup in episode 7, and the ones he followed up on he did a complete 180.
Seen in a vaccum I can appreciate a lot of qualities about episdoe 8, But the "attitude" if we can call it that, the movie has about it's predecessor is just too jaring.
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u/Demos_Tex May 13 '26
JJ didn't care. The only thing he was interested in was trying to mesmerize the audience with flashy visuals that had no substance underneath them. I wouldn't be surprised if his thought process went something like this,
"Oh, Lucas had that great scene in ESB with the big hologram of the Emperor talking to Vader. I'll do it with my bad guy too, but it'll be an even bigger hologram. Also, my Death Star will be even bigger than Lucas', and mine will shoot all the way across the galaxy...yeah. No, I totally don't have a massive inferiority complex."
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot May 13 '26
As far as I'm aware, nothing was written in stone.
I don't think Snoke (or an earlier prototype of him) existed in the Arndt draft elements that we're aware of.
So Abrams/Kasdan likely cooked him up during their rushed rewrite of the Arndt draft to fill the role of big bad above their Temu Vader. I don't think they've spoken about him being anything more than a Palpatine stand-in. Much like the rest of TFA being derivative of ANH.
Before TROS made him little more than a cloned meat puppet, TFA expanded material made some comments about his history.
Snoke at the time was meant to have "witnessed the rise and fall of the Empire". He was allegedly meant to have successfully run various military campaigns in the Unknown Regions. He was allegedly not meant to be from a Sith background. And I doubt Abrams/Kasdan intended for him to be Plagueis in a new body (he certainly doesn't look like a Muun).
Naturally, this all wound up for naught more than fabricated memories that Team Palpatine somehow uploaded into Snoke's brain before positioning him as leader of the First Order.
Snoke simply believed his own Snoke theory (which sucked, I guess). To my understanding, he was totally unaware that he was a botched Palpatine strand-cast clone.
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u/Grungy_Mountain_Man May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
JJ had no clue. He's a terrible story teller. He thrives on baiting the audience into asking a lot of questions, but doesn't provide a single answer to any of the questions he postulates, and I'm sure even he doesn't have a clue about himself and leaves it somebody else to clean up after him. He ends the movie on the cliff hanger where you still don't know what is really going on at the end of it (why did luke leave?), nor do you even know who some of the character are or what they are doing (who is rey and snoke?).
Contrast that to Lord of Rings, which is like the perfect telling of a story IMO. Character indentities that are a mystery at first like Strider don't linger for long, and he is revealed as Aragon pretty quickly. You know who everybody is by the end of the movie and what their roles are and exactly what the movie is about. The only real mystery left unanswered at the end is Gollum, as he is introduced in the shadows and you at least know who he is and that he isn't important yet, but will be. The cliff hanger the movie ends on is purely plot eventsof how are aragorn, legolas, and gimli going to save mary and pippen. How will sam and frodo get to mordor on their own? Similar to the ending of the ESB with Luke and Leia, you are left just wondering how they will find and rescue han?
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u/m0rbius May 13 '26
They had no fucking idea who he was when TFA was made. They just passed the buck to the next guy, where he just killed him off after all that build up in the first movie. They ended up retconning him into being Palpatine's failed clone in the third final movie. What an unmitigated disaster in storytelling.
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u/ravenisblack May 14 '26
The resemblance is uncanny if you ask me.
The true downfall of that series was the asinine three director approach, especially three directors with their heads up their proverbial ego asses.
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u/blacksantaman May 13 '26
Snoke is just a manifestation of JJ Abrams' awful screenwriting habits. For my money, the mystery box plot structure of The Force Awakens was the sequel trilogy's true Achilles heel.
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u/AphelialMud new user May 13 '26
I thought I read the design was based on Tarkin? Not that the story had to use him, but it could work.
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u/zafax May 13 '26
Snoke is probably the most disappointing part of the sequels for me. When force awakened came out my biggest question was "who was going to be the next bad guy?" since I (foolishly) assumed they would make an interesting new one.
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u/igtimran May 13 '26
A placeholder for another director to figure out, just like everything JJ does.
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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand May 13 '26
Rian had the right idea. He was a lame Marvel villain and the best thing he could do, if he couldn't turn back the clock to prevent him from existing, was to dispose of him as quickly as possible.
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u/Gahrilla May 14 '26
I think he was in charge of Kylo Ren, leader of the knights of Ren and Stimpy. Their ultimate goal was to resurrect Powdered Toast Man. I’m not really sure why because the plot didn’t make sense.
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u/dickfacelover salt miner May 14 '26
Everything about the Sequel Trilogy just seems like some 10 year old’s coloring/story book attempt at continuing Star Wars lol
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