ST Andy Serkis (Supreme Leader Snoke) in the ST

...or to have ever existed.

So you believe him when he says that there was this guy named Plagueis, but you're skeptical when he says that he killed him...

 

I said, that the person who replied on here and told me he's dead, that that was not an on screen explanation. That is all. They arrogantly proclaimed it to be.

 

Oh. Okay.

Yeah, so...

"Arrogantly?"

Okay.

"Arrogant" because they believe Pablo's statements on the matter? I mean, it's not as if he's equivocating or being noncommittal in the many answers he's given.

Why would you think this throwaway, ancillary non-character might be alive if Palpatine (on-screen, at that), Pablo, Serkis, Kasdan, and others have been plain in saying either "he's not" or "who now?" Are you waiting for Gary Fisher to raise a paw and.chime in?

Dear child, whomever you're waiting for...

 

I'm not interested in talking to you and the other person who replied to me earlier. It is clear to me that this thread, once a forum for reasoned debate without ganging up on someone, is not what it once was. I pray someone will bring compassion and sanity back to it, without resorting to browbeating someone who has a different opinion that yourselves into submission. Hint, it didn't work. And your arrogance blinds you. Goodbye, I shall not be entertaining your nonsensical arguments which don't even respond to what I say, and instead quote random OFF THE MOVIE SCREEN items that you purport as official movie screen canon. That is that. Finito.

 

Maybe I just lack the knowledge about Lucasfilm storygroup people like Pablo, but why does he get to confirm that Plagueis existed and was killed? I thought there was no canon confirmation of this. If we only have Palpatine's word to go on, we have 3 options:
1. Plagueis never existed at all and Palpatine made up the whole story
2. Plagueis did exist and Palpatine did kill him
3. Plagueis did exist and Palpatine thinks he killed him, but nobody can confirm that

Why does Pablo get to make up what he wants for this?

 

I think mostly because Pablo Hidalgo is a creative executive in the Lucasfilm Story Group, primarily within story development. His job is to literally create and maintain a cohesive canon within the story.

Basically, if anyone on twitter has the authority to decide and confirm story points about Plagueis, and whether or not he is alive, it's Pablo.

 

So if hypothetically a new director wanted to come along and have Plagueis be alive, could he/she do that?

 

I'd imagine that's a topic that would be discussed in the story group directly, and the decision would be made there.

My personal thoughts on that would be, since Pablo has been so vocally adamant about that particular topic on twitter, probably not.

 

Fare thee well, Sir Rational Debator, sir.

 

I watched The Last Jedi again a week ago, and I now think my previous leading theory no longer holds any water. Snoke is far too powerful to have been an advisor to Palpatine who rose to power politically and in the Force only after the Emperor’s death. He must have already been strong with the Force by the time of ROTJ, and likely before.

In the TLJ, we see his ability to exert his power over great distances. He can grab Hux like a doll while in a different star system, and he creates or manipulates the strong Force connection between Kylo and Rey that spans light years, an act that Kylo says would kill an untrained Jedi. Finally, his power is mighty in person too, since both Rey and Kylo are virtually powerless before him, and the latter only overpowers Snoke through trickery. Snoke was powerful, and it’s the kind of power that he likely did not simply develop from nothing.

Snoke’s ability to use the Force across the galaxy makes me think that he had truly not ever met Leia, Luke, or Han in person. I think he reached out to Ben through the Force throughout Ben's youth, corrupting him slowly and fostering the darkness in him. So that threatening presence that Leia sensed in Aftermath likely was Snoke, but she may not have realized this until much later. I suspect they did not find out about Snoke until Luke went to Ben’s hut on that fateful night when he sensed the depth of the darkness in him, and the corruption Snoke had already worked under their watch.

Why did Luke exile himself instead of sticking it out with Leia and the nascent Resistance? I think TLJ explicitly says that his shame at not being able to prevent Ben’s actions likely shook his self-confidence and his belief in the role of the Jedi as protector knights. With Luke feeling like his presence would cause more damage than anything, possibly fearing falling to the dark side himself, it makes a kind of sense for him to choose exile from the galaxy and from the Force.

This would be around the time when the First Order made itself public, and along with it Snoke as their leader. I do not think most people knew what Snoke looked like, possibly not even Leia or Luke, but certainly the expanded material makes it clear that by the time of TFA he is well known throughout the galaxy. Leia, Luke, and Han could have learned that Ben joined the First Order as an enforcer and concluded that it was Snoke who had been the dark presence they had recently sensed more clearly, and who had targeted Ben from his youth.

But what about before Ben joined the First Order? Snoke seems again like the best candidate for the dark side call that the Emperor sensed toward the end of his life. If Snoke had been hiding from Palpatine before, why would he reach out then? My only guess for now is that maybe he sensed the end of the Sith was near, and his only true intention was for Palpatine to seek him out with the Empire, so that Snoke could take over it himself once the Sith were finally killed. And so he was in a good position to find the Imperial fleet and save them from what may have been certain death in the Unknown Regions.

Of course, I'm not saying this was Snoke on his own. I look to figures like Maz or Bendu, Force wielders unaffiliated to anyone else but seeking their own place in the galaxy, as an archetype for early Snoke. Being a wielder of the dark side, though, Snoke would have had no qualms with using his power to control and enslave others. We know his closest attendants in TLJ were the insectoid navigators who at some point in the past had mapped much of the Unknown Regions. Perhaps they were, along with other races and beings, slaves and servants of Snoke even then. We do know that it was them that the Empire encountered in the Unknown Regions, so it’s easy to think Snoke was also their leader at that time.

His past beyond that point is harder to picture with what little we know. All we know is that he was a seeker of lore and knowledge, and that he was old enough to remember the rise and fall of the Empire (and powerful enough to have perceived it from a safe distance). That’s probably all we really need to know, since at this stage he is more like the independent Force users I mentioned above. The fact that he’s an alien means he is not constrained by a human life span, so even if he isn’t ancient he could have already been a dark warlord in the UR by the time of the Clone Wars. That also means that it could have been the Republic that was originally responsible for his wounds, or at least some part of its military.

Anyway, that’s what I extrapolated from re-watching the film a second time, especially after reading expanded material and interviews in the two months between my viewings.

 

@Sauron_18 Really cool fan fiction, but the reality remains that Snoke is nothing, came from nothing, has no story, and was just used as a puppet for the story and other characters' development.

In fact Kylo should've used his "You come from nothing, you are nothing" line on SNOKE right before he killed him. Would've been a fitting end.

 

If it's an homage, then it's poorly done. Again, Lucas did that much better when Maul, Dooku, and Grievous echoed Vader.

 

Yep with how powerful Snoke was in Ep 8 I would think there is no way he was ever an underling to Palpatine. Until I see something to discount it my best guess is he was that Prime Jedi character and somehow got stuck in the unknown regions and kept himself from dying all those years. That would go with him looking for dark side artifacts once he returned to the known galaxy again.

 

You could have said the same about Palpatine. My guess is Snoke's background dates to a pretty big time when it comes to the history of the Jedi. I wish they would have at least quickly touched on his background however instead of leaving that for books etc. to come out later.

 

I disagree. but hey that's ok cant always agree on everything.

 

JJ Abrams created the character, left it wide open to go wherever the next director wanted it to go, and Rian Johnson decided he wanted it to go nowhere and just die. That was his decision in full.

 

Agreed. I don't think what that person says really means anything.

What Lucas wrote, and what is shown on screen are canon.

 

but again we still haven't seen episode 9 Abrams could surprise us where this story goes.

 

Or
Snoke is a force projection by Kylo himself.

Kylo has awesome powers like stopping the blaster shot mid air, freezing people like he did with Poe and Rey both, mind reading just like Snoke.

Kylo said the force projecting effort would kill Rey and it literally killed Luke but when Kylo force projected himself to touch hands with Rey in the hut scene, he did it SO easily.
And nothing happened to him at all.

I think Luke stayed out of the fight bcoz to kill Snoke, he would have to kill Kylo, which Luke would never do bcoz Kylo is his beloved nephew.

Kylo created the force bond b/w him and Rey in the interrogation scene.
Thats why Snoke said he bridged their minds.

Also Snoke doesnt allow anyone in his presence except Kylo and Hux,so many people havent actually seen him.

We never saw Snoke train Kylo bcoz Kylo cant actually train himself.

Snoke keeps taunting Kylo for his failures bcoz Kylo is full of self-loathing, insecurity, doubt, fear etc and these are his own feelings.

Kylo and Snoke both were afraid of Luke and wanted to kill him.
Why was Snoke afraid of Luke when he was SO powerful? Bcoz Kylo was afraid of Luke.

Snoke wanted Kylo to kill Han to end his weakness and he did.

But Snoke NEVER told Kylo to kill Leia, why? Bcoz Kylo doesnt want to kill his mom at all.

Kylo created Snoke when Leia sent him off to train with Luke bcoz he was lonely.
So he created Snoke like an imaginary friend/other personality.

Its like fight club movie situation.

Thats why despite Snoke being so powerful Kylo killed him so easily bcoz Kylo created him in the first place.

Watch both TFA and TLJ with, Snoke being a force projection by Kylo himself, mindset NOTHING will contradict it.

 

#1 is not an option because DP as Sidious' master was canonized in the Tarkin novel.
#2 or #3 could be true......

Pablo isn't really confirming anything, but rather repeating what is know in canon.

 

Interesting how Plagueis gets more respect than Snoke because he exists forthe most part in the heavens of the imagination of those who aspire to be of the Protector of Faith. Snoke is more concrete and easier to criticize for violating head canon. Sorry folks, canon, which Pablo has the most knowledge of, more than GL as canon has grown since, trumps head canon.

 

Thanks for clarifying; I'm not a reader of novels outside of the movies.

 

This article is a little older, but there’s a few more quotes about how the model was updated for TLJ.

http://www.artofvfx.com/star-wars-t...verall-vfx-supervisor-industrial-light-magic/

Another interesting quote below once again refers to Snoke as being more human than alien.

“At the start of pre-production on THE LAST JEDI, Rian came to me and said he wanted to “bring Snoke out of the shadows and make him real”. This meant scaling him down to a more human sized 7 feet tall and redesigning the look of his face/skin/body in order to create an old aged, photoreal human character.”
​

I’m guessing by “human” they mean that he looks more like a real, believable person, rather than his being an actual human being. Especially because one of the changes they made was to make him taller (8 feet) than his original TFA model (7 feet.) But coupled with Rian’s quote that he saw Snoke as essentially a “messed up human,” it does make me wonder.

Unrelated to this, I also saw this comic book cover featuring Snoke. It would be nice if he appeared in more extended material (this just seems to be a variant special cover.)

 

That's disappointing...he was to be an intriguing alien, and was changed to be a straightforward human-like old man.