ST Snoke/Andy Serkis Discussion Thread

Rich, I’ll concede. But how well-written it is is highly debatable.

 

Well Legends flushed out the Line of Dark Lords, The Reason for The Rule of Two, and so much more.

 

Did it really “flesh out” the rule of two or make everyone misunderstand George’s simple intentions

 

Yes it did. It showed Sith Pre-Rule of Two, Sith committing intercide and cutting each other down in droves, proving the wisdom of the Rule of Two.

 

That’s all fine. I’m just questioning how great the writing was.

 

The Writing was mixed, it got better.

 

Revan Novel
Darth Bane Trilogy
Dark Lords of the Sith
Book of Sith
Lost Tribe of Sith

All great books.

 

I’m glad the EU explored Sith history, but I don’t think it always aligned too well with how Lucas viewed the Sith. So I don’t mind it being rewritten by the new canon, especially because there’s no point to repeating the same stories if you’re not going to try to make them better.

But even the new canon isn’t doing quite what Lucas imagined with the Sith or the Jedi. For example, as excited as I am for the Acolyte TV series, the interviews for it make me think the creators have some fundamental disagreements with Lucas about his universe, so like most of new Star Wars nowadays, it’ll feel less like something truer to his vision and more like a new EU.

So with that in mind, I would not have minded if the sequels had been more adventurous and simply followed a very different history for the Sith than what we got from the EU or from the few hints Lucas provided via TCW. It was already not gonna follow Lucas, so it might as have gone wild and had an old Sith Master survive for centuries. It could have been a good story if it had been well executed. (It probably wouldn’t have been well executed, but that’s a different topic.)

 

One reason I think the Sith in that draft were perhaps intended to be originally a race of Space Elf aliens is the fact that "Sith" is an old spelling of Irish "Sidhe".

In the 1974 rough draft, the Sith Knights weren't a specific alien race, but the second draft might have tried to better integrate the real-world roots of the name, by re-contextualizing them to originally have been a species before the Sith Knights adopted their name - rather like how the Sith Lords (including human Exar Kun) emerged from the Sith species in the Legends EU Tales of the Old Republic comics.

Likewise, the name of the "Boma" suggests "bomber", as in UK Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's famous 1930s declaration that "the bomber will always get through," and was perhaps meant to recall the similarly unbounded tunnelling abilities of Dwarves.

As for the Mandalorians, I'm pretty sure they were originally meant to be a race of clones, which the Republic fought against in the Clone Wars - in fact, a fascist society that practiced genetic purity through cloning, inspired by Norman Spinrad's darkly satirical SF novel The Iron Dream. Note that their name combines "mandala" and "Bangalore", two different words from India which suggest a pun on the various meanings of "Aryan" (ie, relating to either India or Nazi Germany).

 

I dislike the New Canon Sith. Basically its all Inquisitors and Cultists, with Palpatine, Vader, and occasionally Momin.

I want Banenite Sith. I want to see something beyond Vader and Maul.

 

I was listening to a recent interview with Timothy Zahn where he said he’d be interested in writing a book set in the post-ROTJ time period and focusing on the First Order and Snoke’s rise to power. That was interesting because he seems to be one of the few (or only?) writers or creators who even care about Snoke’s story. So, that would be interesting in its own right.

But on a slightly related note, I saw an online theory related to Zahn’s other canon books. Someone suggested that Zahn may have been setting up his own personal theory of Snoke’s origin as possibly being linked to the grysks. He did link them to the Attendant species seen in Snoke’s throne room in TLJ. And he also set up the grysk as operating very similarly to the Sith, infiltrating other races and finding ways to have power over them.

(The person theorizing also mentioned that the grysks deform one half of their helmets, which would be a visual link to Snoke (though probably only out-of-universe). But I seem to recall that the grysk did this to the trophy armor they captured from other races, not their own. So it’s probably not meant to be taken that way.)

Anyway, I’m not suggesting this is meant to be a real link or anything. But it would be cool if Zahn made some of these creative choices as a way of giving fans another possible theory for Snoke’s origin. In other words, it’d be like his own take on where Snoke could’ve come from, without it being necessarily what he thinks is canonically true. And it wouldn’t be too surprising, since it would essentially be a story similar to Thrawn’s, just going in a very different direction.

 

If Mandalorian/Ahsoka/Dave’s future film all conclude without even as much an a mention of Snoke, I’d be surprised, given that he was Supreme Leader of the First Order, and things seem to be moving in that direction for the Imperial Remnant as of the Mandalorian Season 3.

Even if Thrawn dies and one of his subordinates says something like “We’ll have to accelerate our plans with Project Snoke, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!” I would expect at least some reference to him.

If that film comes and goes and doesn’t utilize Snoke at all, then by all means open the floodgates and let a writer flesh all of that out with why Palpatine made him and how he took control of the First Order and subjugated the military leaders.


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Few things in Star Wars have genuinely offended me as the fate of Snoke. You build this guy up only to off him and only mention his origin as a through away line. What added salt to the wounds was in his few comic apperances he did more interesting things than anything he did on screen. For example the entirety of his Age of The Resistance comic.

 

I don't agree. Snoke, as he was set up in TFA, couldn't really work as a character. He would've had to have been set up very differently for them to take him anywhere interesting. As it was, he was always going to feel like a lesser version of the Emperor. The only way they could've changed that is by going way more in depth on him than the movies had time for, considering they had a dozen other major characters to juggle.

Rian Johnson absolutely made the right call by having him be taken out, though I understand why it frustrated some fans who got very invested in the theorizing around him.

 

I say it's a writers job to write, not avoid. If RJ can't find a way, I think that's his issue. JJ making a poor call doesn't mean RJ didn't make a poor call.

 

I’m not certain what you’re trying to say here.

There is no magical writer who can fully flesh out each and every aspect of the story while making it all interesting and deep. Writers tactically choose different aspects of a story to focus on given the limitations they face. This is not “avoidance”, this is the writing process. Killing off Snoke was not some cowardly attempt to “avoid” dealing with him, like your language implies.

 

It doesn't really change my point. If it can't be done, you have no reason to write the story.

I think to write would be to give the character an actual reason to exist and/or give his replacement a reason to exist as some type relevant character, none of which RJ does. Kylo's as meaningless as Snoke is, coasting almost entirely off being a Skywalker, but I'm supposed to care? Nah. RJ dances around character meaning like he's playing musical chairs where the tunes never stop. You've got 2 movies left. You can figure out what to do with him and Kylo, a set up for a payoff. RJ didn't do that. He killed Snoke pointlessly only to have a weak character, with just as little real motives and goals as Snoke, take his place, and expected me cheer for it. If Snoke had anything that really made him matter and distinct from Kylo (and vice versa) other than being stupid and fit throwing, maybe it would've worked, but he didn't. You don't have to be a coward to write it that way. You can just be unconcerned with actually trying to give characters weight. At least Snoke had gravitas. Kylo has nothing of meaning.

Snoke is a former jedi survivor of Order 66 whose become radicalized and thinks the jedi's balance lies in controlling both the light and darkness and embraces an extremist perception of no attachment. He destroyed the new republic because he thinks his vision for the jedi should rule and is grooming Kylo to represent the balance he percieves, because he's Anakin's grandson. I think that's a solid interesting pitch.

 

Again, I am really confused by this statement. What “it” are you referring to? The idea of giving every single character an intricate backstory? Just Snoke specifically? And if that’s the case, why is Snoke so special that not developing his backstory means there’s “no reason” to write the story?

He does have a reason to exist. Hell, he already had one in TFA. His reason to exist in TFA is to serve as an Emperor stand-in. His role in TLJ is to provide an obstacle for Kylo Ren to overcome in his own development as a character.

Kylo Ren is literally the central antagonist of the last act of TLJ. He is relevant. Again, I’m not sure what you mean by this because it seems so completely off base from what the film actually shows us.

You’re saying a lot of negative-sounding stuff, but once again, I’m confused and I’m not sure what you actually mean. What is “character meaning”? Why does Kylo Ren, a character who we’ve spent the better part of two films at this point getting to know, not have “character meaning”? Why does his character “not have weight” when his actions drive significant consequences in both films?

Your entire argument seems to rest on a set of premises that you take for granted. But these premises are not as self-evident as you think they are. As a result it’s hard for people who aren’t already in your mindset to understand your criticism.

And maybe it is. It’s also not immediately relevant to the stories of Kylo Ren, Rey, Finn, or any of the other main characters in this movie. In a film that’s 152 minutes long already, doing an in-depth character study of a side character is not a priority. This is called economy of writing, and it’s a sign of good writing, not bad writing.

 

Having a character that has an important role in the story to have weight in the story.

I think that's not a reason. That's an excuse. Kylo Ren doesn't overcome development. His development stops in his first scene. He already shows he's turned on Snoke by the end of their first scene in TLJ.

And Kylo matters not that much more than Snoke does, so what does it matter what Kylo gets anything out of it, if he doesn't matter that much more than Snoke?

You're basically arguing that him doing stuff makes him relevant, when Snoke could've done the same stuff and little would've mattered to it, the same as it does for Kylo. There is nothing that makes either of them matter as characters. If Kylo had died instead of Snoke, not only would that have been something that would've actually been unexpected, at least a character who had gravitas would be in the villain role. Kylo would also be dead, a sweet release from the agony of having to sit through that trash black hole of a character.

Real motives, depth, character based goals. We have no gotten to know Kylo at all. We have the same vague notions on his character that we had in TFA. He offers little as a villain and even less as a character.

Actually it is, if you write it that way. Kylo is someone who wants to live up to the legacy of Vader, "finish what he started" as is stated in TFA. In TFA you may assume that's in regards to being a sith, but that's never said. Snoke can offer Kylo the way to live up to his role as a Skywalker.

On the flip of this: How did Snoke meet Kylo? Maybe Luke recruited him to help him train the new jedi order, and Snoke recruited Kylo and betrayed Luke because he saw them as weak as the old jedi.

This plays into Rey's side of the story. Depending on what you do with her, whether she's a Skywalker or a Nobody, this opens up an opportunity to explore Rey's view of what it means to be a jedi. Rey is someone whose suffered loss, who just connected with people in TFA for the first time in several years of her life, and what happens? One is hurt and another killed. And what does she do? She runs away. Why? Because she wants control over her life, over the power she's discovered she has, she wants to hide from her emotions. And she thinks becoming a jedi is the key to that. She thinks being a jedi is to not feel, to detach. This is actually the perspective of the extremist jedi view that Snoke has. And it's one Luke opposes. This can be an ideological concept about the meaning of being a jedi and be used to actually explore Rey's emotions about her abandonment from her parents (if she's a nobody), to actually meaningfully explore it, her anger, resentment, repressed issues.

Snoke never mattered to Finn or any other main character in TLJ, as is, so what does it matter to this? And Rey is basically a tool to sit around and listen to Luke and Kylo whine about nothing in TLJ as is, and then she has a romance with Kylo so she can believe in him, with a vision she has no reason to buy into and no reason to even know what it is (in TFA she had to ask what those visions were), and then she ships herself to Kylo in a box like a toy so she sit around while Kylo kills Snoke and keeps on doing what he was doing before. The only thing she gets out of that is when Kylo just basically force feeds her the info about her parents, but she's fine about that after that scene anyway. She could've not been there, for all it really meant to her character, because the only real reason she is is to give Kylo a way to kill Snoke, making moreso Rey an object to be used for the sake of the plot and the kiddie pool that is Kylo's character.

 

Snoke’s story could be an interesting one for sure, maybe in Mando s4, or a Tales episode.

Mostly because I think he’s such a scary example of Palpatine’s abilities and methods, creating a deformed puppet on Force strings, peering through his eyes, and Snoke doesn’t even know it.

And you know Andy Serkis could knock that kind of stuff out of the park.

It’d also be interesting to have Palpatine verbalise his strategy of having another old master out there (ala Dooku), to both control and distract.

 

The issue with killing off Snoke was that he had an important role in the setup to the story of the sequels. He wasn't the only one either. When TFA starts, a lot of important things have already happened: Ben Solo fell to the dark side and became Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker went into exile, the First Order rose and began terrorizing the galaxy. Snoke was at the heart of those events. Maybe most new fans were OK with simply accepting the setup for TFA and moving on with the new story. But for fans of the OT, it really felt like there was a hole that needed to be filled in the narrative, and Snoke was a big part of that.

It's true that Abrams didn't provide too much detail about him. He was a deliberate mystery, one among many in TFA that are there to make audiences be curious about the story, be curious about what happened. The problem is that Johnson is not the same kind of storyteller as Abrams and didn't play off those mysteries as well as he could have. It's hard to do that in a meaningful way, and I won't disagree that it was questionable of Abrams to do this. But the fact is that other writers do know how to play off mysteries like Snoke and can deliver something more interesting based on the story seeds that have been planted.

Opinions vary widely, but I think this was the case with Lost, where the writers, for all their flaws, did know how to build a mythology out of what was initially a whole bunch of open-ended questions. And it's a way to build the story in two directions, exploring the future of the characters while also showing the audience more about the past of the setting and how things ended up being the way they were. I know many people hated how Lost evolved or how it ended. But the fact is that those writers were able to nurture that initial mystery-laden story into a complex world. For a less chaotic example, though also much more conservative in its ambitions, you can also look at Fringe.

 

Yes Snoke is important to setting up the new status quo that the sequels skip 30 years ahead to. But that problem would remain even if Snoke lived because his backstory wasn’t conceived as anything more than old guy who took power in a vacuum. Killing Snoke doesn’t ruin an opportunity to explain his backstory, the movies just never were interested

 

I'm not sure whether or not Johnson made the 'right call' in killing Snoke off, but I'd agree that some characters (like Snoke) were so thinly drawn and derivative that they were largely unsalvageable. I think the only thing that could have been done differently, in terms of Snoke, would have been making him Darth Plagueis... but two films in that's overly complex to re-position, and ultimately, Johnson's remit wasn't to fix what Abrams had broken. Ergo, as you allude to, Snoke is instead used as a stepping stone to Kylo's power grab.

 

I think Snoke would have served the exact same purpose that Palpatine had in TROS, had RJ not killed him off, or had JJ done all three movies. Snoke would have radio'd the galaxy to prepare for total take-over with his secret fleet. Kylo would have been doing fetch quests for him *still* and we would have finally confronted the mysterious Snoke in the flesh, only to see a very disfigured and weak individual, and he'd be all like "I created the dyad in both of you. I need to suck the force from you to heal." Or some lame BS plotting.