ST Snoke/Andy Serkis Discussion Thread

Well, I found something interesting.

Palpatine made Snoke a galactic gardener years before episode 7.(And for some reason Snoke managed to destroy Luke's jedi temple via the force)

He also Voldemort hugged Kylo Ren.

 

They really ended up blowing it with this character. Its clear they told the guy that wrote the novel for Ep 8 that he was basically Palpatine as you can tell that with his thoughts in the novel. They are Palpatine's thinking about his past.

Now we are told some mumbo jumbo about him having some free will but likely being an avatar of Palpatine almost.

 

If he was a strandcast, there must have been a template, some kind of original host. Jango>clones; Palpatine>'son'.

Plagueis kills and resurrects Venamis several times in the Plagueis novel. (The book alludes to genetic templates and the Kaminoans) Jurassic Park is not far from those ideas, and inhabits the same HG Wells continuum.

 

I don't think there was any one template. The implication was that Snoke is a genetic abomination begotten of the same processes used to grow Palpatine a new host body. I just think it's humorous that Snoke is essentially Rey’s uncle.

 

The better question; and one I don't know the answer to having not read many of the books/comics... Does Snoke know what he is?

 

Spoiler

 

The implication from The Star Wars Book is that he does not. Palpatine likely implanted him with false memories.

 

You gotta give props to Andy Serkis for providing a great voice to Snoke.

 

The behind-the-scenes documentary for TFA shows bits and pieces of concept and design boards for characters and sets, and in one of those there’s a clearly visible label that reads “Father Snoke.”

Because it includes the character’s actual name, I don’t think it’s just a placeholder title. My thinking is that this was his title before they decided on “Supreme Leader.” So I wonder if the First Order was, for a time at least, going to be something closer to the Sith Eternal? Essentially a dark-side theocracy.

Considering that’s where Abrams took things when he got back on the helm, it doesn’t seem too farfetched. And in that case, I can see Snoke’s original backstory having him be an Imperial advisor-like figure who had a prominent/leading position in the Sith-worshipping cult and eventually took over the remnants of the Empire.

 

"Supreme Leader Snoke was one of the last characters finalized for the film, alongside Maz Kanata in October 2015 (10 weeks before the release of the film). Neither J.J. Abrams nor creature creative supervisor Neal Scanlan wanted Snoke to be old and decrepit like the Emperor.."- Slashfilms

As for the mutated humanoids in the tanks, while cranial malformations and twisted bodies are very similar, the "scar" like pattern is not identical to Snoke or the Snoke clones seen in TROS.

Its also likely that Snoke was strandcast created from Palpatine's blood(or some other Sith or a combination), and not some random human or clone human body injected with Midiclorians from the Child. But what we see in this Imperial complex does not look like the work of the Sith Eternal.

 

I kind of prefer the idea that Snoke, once upon a time, might've been an independent darksider or some such similar figure who get ensnared by Palpatine and used eventually for this, than some genetic Frankenstein. The former idea matches more with the early hints we got that he was 'very old' and 'had seen the rise of the Empire'.

 

This would be such a sad turn of events. The onus should not fall on Favreau and Filoni to explain Snoke and dead Palpatine. If Mandos key story involves Gideon trying to bring back Palpatine, and thus his motivations are hardly his own, not only does that kill all hype for the character (for me), but it means we are going round 2 on the “explain this” front. Last time this happened, the onus fell on Rian J to write a reason for why Luke ignores his sister and the galaxy during the First Orders genocidal regime for almost a decade, and look at what we got. It did not work. Mando should be given the freedom to tell its own story.

 

I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen in the TV show. What’s there left to explain? That story is pretty much tied up. It could, of course, add to that side of the mythos. But I suspect it’ll stick to its own story, with maybe a few hints or parallel here and there.

I’m personally more interested in what story they originally had in mind. There have been so many different stories, changes, retcons, etc. It’s a bit of a mess, truly. Not as simple as there simply being Lucas. But in lieu of that, like to see what those who started a story had in mind for it originally. Though I know the answer is often disappointingly vague.

 

Not sure what they were thinking though most things in the Ep 7 and Ep 8 books match up with Snoke having Palpatine's thoughts most of the time. The same with Serkis saying how the rebels/resistance had caused him injury.

As far as his physical appearance it was kind of odd they jumped from a non-deformed snake man at one point to a fully undead snake man skeleton body before finally settling on his final appearance. The undead snake man appearance that actually was used for some screen shots would suggest something with fully unnatural life and literally raised from the dead which I guess is similar to some things about him.

 

While I don't love Snoke being a strandcast/clone, I still think something interesting can be culled out of this idea. I want to start off by saying I don't think Snoke ever needed (or needs) a complex backstory tied in to the Saga. Would it be interesting? Absolutely, but unnecessary. In the end, Snoke is another pawn of Palpatine, just like Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and General Grevious. But that doesn't mean his character can't be expanded upon. Snoke has alot of mystery behind him that (sadly) probably won't get expanded on because Lucasfilm is nervous to expand and build on any of the Palpatine plot predicaments in TROS. To be fully realistic I expect them to say in some book that Snoke is just a Palpatine clone gone wrong who he then repurposed as the First Order figurehead and Ben Solo's mentor (boring!). Hopefully I'm wrong, but we'll see.

 

I heard some rumors and murmurings about a snake man but unless I missed it, I never saw any real art or shots indicating it?

 

You do realize that's exactly what they did right?

 

The part about Snoke being a Palpatine clone gone wrong is not what they did. In fact they've done nothing yet when it comes to who Snoke was based on/how he was created.

 

It is indeed not yet clear what exactly Snoke was up to in his early years, or even when precisely he was made. Recent reference books have confirmed that Palpatine had experiments going on in Exegol since at least as far back as ROTS. The wording in one of the books could be interpreted as confirming Snoke was not made until after Palpatine resurrected, but honestly that’s far from confirmation. The curtain is slowly being pulled on Exegol, though. And 2021 will see it come to relevance in Vader’s comic series, so we might learn more there.

Regarding concept art, I’m similarly unsure that the reptilian concepts have been confirmed. There’s one from Dermot Powers that matches some descriptions that were leaked early on, but Powers hasn’t confirmed that was meant to be Snoke, and he published it along with random alien concepts on his website. Similary, the concept in Lawton’s thumbnail is sometimes described as a reptile, but that art also looks like a regular humanoid face at times. It’s hard to tell without higher resolution images. So outside of those, I’ve only ever seen concepts fairly similar to the final product, an individual deformed and scarred by the dark side.

 

The Star Wars Book by Pablo Hidalgo indicates that Snoke was created as part of Palpatine’s scheme to craft a suitable host, and lumps Uncle Snoke in the same category as Palpatine’s son. While it isn't confirmed outright, I think it's very likely that Palpatine’s DNA was part of Snoke's genetic blueprint. He wasn't a clone based on any one person in particular, and neither was Palpatine’s son, who isn't a direct clone of Palpatine.

Why Snoke wasn't a viable host remains unclear, but I think we can infer that Snoke's malformed body wouldn't have been much more successful than the clone body Sidious currently inhabited.

 

I think Snoke/Plagueis is the False Prophet of Star Wars whereas Palpatine is the Antichrist of Star Wars. In Revelation, the False Prophet wants people to worship the Antichrist beast. Snoke sort of had this role in a sense. Palpatine suffered a fatal wound causing Snoke to take control of the Empire by reorganizing it into the First Order. I think Snoke is also a clone of Plagueis. Maybe Snoke, Palpatine, and Plagueis are one in the same. One in the same in that they are Dark Side clones of each other. A Triad.

 

Snoke's first apprentice is still unknown. We learn that the character of Ren did not serve Snoke, nor even Clone Palpatine. The Knights of Ren only fall into the Sith Eternal's service cause Kylo their new leader had at the beginning. And he later betrayed them and the Dark Side . So the KOR just sided with them at the end to basically kill Kylo. They're like independent Dark Siders, but just never developed their powers even after years under Kylo's leadership.

Snoke's scar was claimed to have been a wound received from Luke, but that does not appear to be the case judging by the clones of Snoke. Unless clones quickly died and needed exact replacements to keep up the charade. But storing multiples of Snokes didnt really make any sense in the movie anyway, when they would've been ideal guardians of the Sith Eternal and their Emperor instead of just Sith Troopers in robes. While Snoke had more formidable guards,lol. Its like they were there for the audience/Kylo. Also the amount of work that went into Snoke and Snoke's years in service does not lend itself much credibility to him just being a disposable character as the movies made it to be. He was not even a Sith, and they went through great pains for the first two movies to make that clear.

 

Snoke was just a clone of Palpatine and Plagueis in my opinion. He was not a Sith.

 

I’m sure Lucas Publishing will come up with something to fit the various vague claims made about Snoke over the years with what Abrams ended up deciding on for TROS. But to look at this plainly, we need only remember that his confirmed backstory is based only on what was actually shown in the movies. So even deleted lines present in novelizations or additional info given by authors in those novelizations are truthfully no longer as solidly dependable as they once were.

The bit about past apprentices came from a line cut from TFA where Snoke said he had never has apprentice with as much promise as Kylo. But that line isn’t there in the movie, so no director was actually responsible for making more of it. And Abrams seemed to have taken advantage of the lack of info provided in the movies to explain away Snoke as a clone. Of course, it’s not clear if he and Terrio thought he was just a puppet to Palpatine. Some interviews seem to imply that. But the movie itself treats them as separate beings, and that’s what Lucas Publishing has confirmed since in their own products.

It’s really a matter of clashing “canons.” As much as Disney wants to have a single canon for their works, the directors clearly were not obligated to stick to whatever was written based on their movies. And when you realize that you start to notice how differently a director’s vision might be from what Publishing presents to readers. So it’s hard to say what the answer to a question like this might be when it depends on whose story you’re interested. But Publishing will have the final word, as much as a retcon as that may be.

(As an example of these shifting canons, consider the Battle of Jakku. TFA itself does not mention this battle, and only really presents Jakku as a dumping ground for wreckage from the old war rather than the site of a battle. Later TROS highlights this when Abrams has Finn say Endor is where the old war ended, not Jakku. As far as Publishing is concerned, there is still one canon, and they’ll find ways of making things fit as they always have. But the directors, like Lucas in his day, clearly have their own vision of things.)

 

I don't see much that's contradicted when you consider that it's been confirmed that Snoke is unaware of his origins, which means he has fabricated memories. Anything he says or thinks about his past in the novelizations is preserved.