ST Andy Serkis (Supreme Leader Snoke) in the ST

Yes.

And I meant to call him a delegator in the above post.


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I agree, that seems an accurate description. Snoke looked like he was content to leave most of the details of military planning to his generals. To him they were just extensions of himself, after all. He only came out of the shadows once it was time to start conquering the galaxy in full, and to display his authority in the process. I'd imagine he would fear letting conquering generals feel too powerful in those circumstances.

Snoke's general focus on more mystical matters also seemed to be a trait that he shared with Kylo Ren to some extent. Ren was invested in both Vader's helmet and former lightsaber. It would be interesting to see Ren using Snoke's store of artifacts and knowledge to improve his own knowledge of the Force. If we have a significant enough time gap before Episode IX, it would be interesting to see a more tempered and mature version of Ren taking on the role of leader of the First Order and nascent master of the dark side. He could be becoming a version of the master he killed.

In a slightly unrelated note, I wonder if the vision that Rey saw of the Knights of Ren hunting for the Skywalker lightsaber in TFA is from before Ren joined the First Order. He seemed wilder and more involved in that battle than he did in the attack on Tuanul. More like a gang member than a military enforcer. This seems to fit his evolution so far.

 

Han Solo (Solo film): I'm gonna be a pilot. Best in the galaxy[...]See the galaxy, all of it.

Lawrence Kasdan: It had been 30 years since we saw Han. We’d all gone through 30 years of life, and what it tells you is, you make the same mistakes again and again. I’d gotten older. But my personality hadn’t changed, and I didn’t think Han’s would change. But what do you learn, one way or another? What does life teach you? How does your experience make you a more interesting person? And all the regrets you have, and all the disappointments? That was the basis of Han"

Visual dictionary: "After the Galactic Civil War, Han Solo’s life took unexpected turns as he became husband to an influential New Republic politician, a family man, and — for a time — a successful racing pilot"

Bloodline: “Han often raced for charity, and he was as likely to sponsor a match as he was to compete in one. He’d travelled to Theron to oversee the prestigious piloting championships known as the Five Sabers, which tested skills on everything from starfighter atmospheric runs to hyperspace orienteering. In other words: Han Solo was in charge enforcing the rules. Although he ran his shipping company on the go, he was a far more responsible owner than he liked to let on"

TLJ novelization: "Ben as a toddler, forever following Han. Carrying the dice from the Millennium Falcon — the ones his father had used to win the beloved, battered freighter — and promising anyone who’d listen that one day he would be a pilot, too, like his daddy"

Han Solo (Solo film): My dad worked the lineat the CEC plant before he got laid off. He built these. He wanted to be a pilot, but...

Remember little Anakin in the pod races ('I want to be the first one to see them all[stars]). Later, Ben/Kylo would build his own TIE fighter, its thrusters being somewhat similar to those of the Falcon.

Perhaps thats how Snoke approached the toddler/boy, teaching him little 'tricks' in order to impress his father and gain his (Snoke's) trust. 'Just dont tell Han, ok?' ('Awakening' him. Rey's awakening, in part at last, had taken place while piloting the MF)

'The supreme leader is wise'. That also would be the link, I guess, between Snoke and the decanonized Snoke Loroan. It was stated that Loroan was a better (Corellian) pilot than Han. Someone in the story group came up with the name while developing Ben's backstory, probably, because Kasdan and Abrams are not versed enough in that stuff.

The scarred, pitiable, better-pilot-than-dad veteran, like the John Rainbird character in Stephen King's firestarter. So everyone in the galaxy would be calling him by the name he adopted to brainwash a kid.

That would explain why he didnt drop the name later, once he had become Supreme Leader. The kid was still there, and the role had stil to be played by him ('youre just a child in a mask')

Or perhaps Snoke is his name. PH: [Snoke Loroan] By far the hottest Snoke take. But before you speculate, you MUST read all 6 Jedi Prince books. That's the deal.'

But Im not reading them, so perhaps someone could help with that.

Edit: Although, I found this. The glove of darth vader(!):

"We know who we are, kid," Han said. "What we don’t know is who you are and what you’re doing here."

"I’m Ken," he replied. "And I’ve always wanted to meet you, Mr. Solo, for just about my entire life. You’re one of the best Corellian pilots in the whole galaxy!"

"What do you mean one of?" Han replied. "You know anybody better?"

"Snoke Loroan made the trip from here to the Bespin system in fifteen standard time parts," Ken said, without even batting an eyelash. "The best the Millennium Falcon has ever done is eighteen standard time parts. I looked that up in the Jedi Library."

Snoke, Bespin, Millenium Falcon, Jedi library, the glove of darth vader. Snoke and Ben on a trip to Bespin? The boy in the hallway?

 

Andy Serkis: "[My reaction to finding out about Snoke's death was that] it was a bit of a shock, but I could see exactly why they were going that route, and I think it was a huge surprise in the middle of the film. But I really loved the scene where Rey plays with Snoke. That scene was a fantastic. I just wish he'd survived, but who knows?" (December 13, 2018)

 

So I've been thinking about how the Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural, and that got me to thinking - have we written off Snoke too soon? After all, Maul endured the same wound due to channeling his hate through the Dark Side. In Legends, Sion survived worse for the same reason. So if those two scaled-up thugs evidently knew enough about the Dark Side to indulge in some blasphemous death-cheating...

...surely an aged scholar of the ancient Force like Snoke would know these techniques, if not more, right?

 

I still suspect he may be alive.

Assuming he wasn't lying about bridging Kylo and Rey's minds, their minds are still linked at the end of TLJ. Unless he was lying, or either Kylo or Rey allowed the bridge to remain, I think he may have survived. Or that wasn't really Snoke (think the Wizard of Oz and "don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain").

It may depend on who Matt Smith is playing.

 

Maul is a ''well trained'' Sith Lord, not sure how he is a ''scaled-up thug''. Also they made it clear that Maul used the Force to survive right after taking that injury, Snoke on the other hand was lying on the floor without even flinching.

If he is going to survive then it must be something different, such as using a puppet or a clone body from another place.

 

Or he's a spiritual being that has somehow learned how to cheat death, a concept that may have nothing to do with how you're killed or the fact that your body has been split in half.

What does cheat death mean? Your same body reanimates? A new body reanimates in a grave? A clone of you emerges somewhere? We currently don't know if this was ever achieved by Plagueis or Palpatine.

You think you know this saga, but it is insignificant next to the power of the force.

 

They already told us how to cheat death, Plagueis was able to manipulate the midicholorians inside of a living being, once he can do that, he can heal or resurrect other living beings as well. But Palpatine also said ''Ironic, he could save others from death, but not himself.'',



What Maul did wasn't the midichlorian manipulation that Plagueis had. Maul simply survived by hanging into life with his injury, didn't heal himself. And until Talzin and Savage found him, he was mentally unbalanced creature.

Sidious killed Plagueis, and Plagueis couldn't save himself from death.

No. You don't know the power of the Force.

 

Nowhere in that entire clip does it specifically state that the midichlorians "need to be manipulated inside of a living being." Palpatine could not have been more vague there.

And just because Palpatine says he killed him does not mean it actually worked. Right now, Kylo believes he killed "Snoke" too. Easy retcon if they want to go that route. Heck, maybe this is a part of Plageuis' game, making apprentices think they killed him as the final part of their training.

You don't know the powaaa of the dark side of the force.

 

When in canon was it first established how powerful Snoke was?

If Snoke wasn't so powerful, I probably wouldn't care so much to know where he comes from. Just like I don't care much about where Maz Kanata comes from or what she was doing during the PT, because she isn't shown to be super powerful, just wise in the Force. If Maz demonstrated incredible power in the ST, I'd raise the question of what she was up to during the fall of the republic and the dark times that followed.

 

All we really know about Snoke is what the movies showed us. He was shown to be a powerful master of the Force. Ren only defeated him through subterfuge, by using his master's overconfidence to trick and kill him. Though it was a fatal mistake by Snoke, it also proved his success as a teacher of the dark side, since defeating his master was a dark apprentice's ultimate test.

The movies showed us that Snoke was able to sense changes in the Force, to foretell general shifts in its balance, to perceive his apprentice's thoughts from a distance, to physically injure people from across light years, to incapacitate with lightning, to interrogate and rip information from others' minds, and to create a powerful link between people through the Force. Indeed, Snoke's ability to exert power from a distance may have been the biggest indicator of his knowledge of the Force. Based on Luke's own experience using the Force from a great distance, this was clearly not something that anyone could do. That did not mean Snoke was more powerful than Luke, but it did show us that he had true power and perhaps hinted at how he preferred to exert that power: from a distance and brutally. Snoke was physically weak, but he was strong in the more spiritual aspects of the Force.

As far as his origin, who knows, but I don't get the impression that he was Jedi or Sith. He was neither austere in demeanor nor trained in the physical arts of the Force, like the Jedi and Sith were. If anything, he reminds me of what Sauron was like in the Lord of the Rings, before we knew his origins: a threat from a distant place and from a time long past who had been nearly destroyed centuries earlier and who had since then slowly rebuilt his forces and his strength. Snoke, like Sauron, was wise enough to wait until his enemies were mostly gone (Jedi and Sith) and until he had built up an army that could defend him, fight for him, and allow him to conquer. And, like Sauron, he was undone by his blindness to his greatest weakness, and that proved to be his end.

Mind you, nobody knew precisely who or what Sauron was before the Silmarillion was published, or even where he came from. There is something to cherish about characters and fictional worlds that are so unexplored that they are rich for the imagination. This is what Star Wars was when it first came out, and I think it's what Abrams and other storytellers were eager to recreate for a new generation. It was a way to unlink the franchise from the large mythology that had been created around it, to some degree, anyway.

 

Except Sauron had a clear backstory. He was a Dark Lord from a bygone past who is now on the verge of recovery. He once ruled with terror, was defeated by Elves and Men, and it would be very bad news if he ever got his One Ring back. And he is the undisputed Big Bad of the Lord of the Rings. No amount of Saruman's schemes can overthrow the Dark Lord of Mordor. That was all in the books (and film). You don't need to know more about him anymore than you need to know about Darth Sidious before he became Senator of Naboo.

The problem with Snoke is that he came literally out of nowhere with no one explaining the where, why and how of his being. Was there some dialogue of Luke alluding Snoke as some ancient Force user? No. Did they elaborate what Snoke was doing when Emperor Palpatine ruled with an iron fist? No, never mentioned in the films. Does he have ulterior motives that distinguish him from the Sith? No and if there were, he's dead so it doesn't matter. It's less Sauron and more Doomsday from Superman. This is why you don't see people making fan tributes to Snoke compared to Sauron and Darth Sidious.

An interesting speculation. Unfortunately, we are entering head canon territory. There was nothing in the films that suggested Snoke to be "from a distant place and from a time long past who had been nearly destroyed centuries earlier." There was for the Sith in TPM, but Snoke is not supposed to be a Sith. As far as anyone could tell, Snoke could easily be a bank accountant who got scarred by the Death Star II explosion, discovered he had Force Powers, vowed revenge on Luke, and used his money to finance the First Order. Either that or Snoke is really a failed attempt to clone Palpatine after the original died.

 

All we know officially from JJ is that Snoke is not a Sith, and neither is Kylo Ren. So if he's not a sith, I want to know how he is any different from a Sith. And where he comes from or how he ruined the state of the Galaxy so fast.

 

These are all good points. The comparison was not meant as a complete parallel. I partially wanted to point out that Sauron's deep backstory (his origins, etc.) was not explored in the original books and was thus a mystery for some time. I mainly wanted to point out some possible similarities, which I found interesting. But you are correct, the LOTR books and films do provide a much better introduction to the character by telling of his past conflicts at the end of the Second Age. Sauron does, of course, get much more exposition and is better explained to Frodo.

By contrast, no one sat down with Rey to explain to her who Snoke or the First Order were or where they came from. Snoke doesn't even get the sort of quick explanation that Ben Kenobi gave for Darth Vader's origin. That was reserved for Kylo Ren. Indeed everyone seems to already know who Snoke is and who the First Order are, to some degree. Snoke and the First Order are treated like the Emperor and the Empire in the original Star Wars. They have quick introductions that don't have much detail. We know that the First Order rose "from the ashes" of the Empire, and we know that Snoke is its leader based on his title.

That not much more is known is frustrating, yes, but admittedly it also adds a good dose of mystery. Say what you will about Abrams' obsession with mystery but much of the content I've seen come out recently does make me appreciate what little is left to the imagination of the reader or viewer. This isn't a comment on quality (necessarily) but rather on the sometimes misguided thoroughness in depicting so many things that are mentioned as happening offscreen. Indeed my main complaint with TLJ is not that it didn't cover enough material but rather that it happened right after TFA, leaving no room for the imagination.

Correct again. That was just an example of a story that fits to some degree with what we've been told. And that's part of the fun of not getting everything told or narrated to us. We can discuss it and imagine what is not shown or explained. Of course some theories can be wild or silly, but some may actually seem right and somehow change the way we see the movies next time. Even if it's only temporary, there is great value in that.

 

Folks, could we chill with the LotR spoilers? I'm currently reading through them for the first time.

 

So Emos-Edud's cloner theory may come true after all...<shudder>

 

I really don't think Snoke is THAT powerful given everything we saw in the first two movies of this trilogy. All he and the First Order have done is taken projects and ideas the Empire was already developing and making them a reality. Hyperspace tracking, a bigger, badder Death Star, more varied superweapons...hell, the thing that Snoke has over Palpatine is the fact that he has applied his knowledge to sustain the First Order machine while hiding himself away through layers of defense like a Matryoshka doll--something which Palpatine was planning to do for himself with the second Death Star effectively making him untouchable. Snoke has only done everything that Palpatine ever did and with that in mind, I wouldn't say he is more powerful than the beings that he and his apprentice idolize.

That isn't a knock against his character either. I grew up in the Bantam era with the Dark Jedi of the Week. Jerec, Kueller, C'Baoth, etc. I'm glad to see the "true" events of the post-Jedi universe follow suit. I love Snoke and he's one of my favorite new characters.

 

Maybe he was super-obsessed with World of Warcraft and couldn't get out of the house. He didn't like the latest expansion with the new PC costumes for female avatars, rage-quit, and decided to take over the galaxy.

 

Well, he’s pretty powerful at the time of the movies, though I don’t think he’s supposed to be more powerful than Palpatine or anything. But he does play the same role as Palpatine, that of corruptor and ruler.

Thinking about it some more, I realize that the movies plainly treat him as though he were simply a part of the original Empire, like the older officers in the First Order. Additionally, if you consider that Rian Johnson knew the backstory that JJ and Serkis had developed for him and still felt it wasn’t truly worth exploring in his movie, then that fuels the idea that the simplest explanation is the most likely and he was a member of the Empire before its fall.

If that is the case, I truly don’t think he was as powerful then as he is during the sequel trilogy. The books seem to hint at this when they talk about how his strength in the Force grew as his body weakened. It’s more likely that he grew in power during the post-ROTJ period. The TLJ novelization hints that he found whatever Palpatine had been seeking in the Unknown Regions, knowledge of the Force that gave Snoke the edge he needed to become Supreme Leader and manipulate the Jedi into near extinction.

Even ignoring the expanded material, that may seem like the simplest explanation. He was a former Imperial (perhaps a noble due to his luxuriousness) who grew in power after the Emperor and Vader died.

 

He was the Senate candidate from Naboo who lost the election to Palpatine, and retreated in shame to the Unknown Regions.

 

It would make sense for Snoke to be an inquisitor, though maybe none of the ones we’ve seen. That would place him where he needs to be to take over the Empire’s remnants. Another big connection is Kylo and Snoke’s interrogation technique, which we first see performed by the Grand Inquisitor. It stands to reason that there would have been a new Grand Inquisitor to replace him. Of course, the inquisitors seem to be gone by the time of ANH, but he could’ve easily been part of Palpatine’s force exploring the Unknown Regions.