ST Snoke/Andy Serkis Discussion Thread

So what would that have meant for Snoke? How can a villain be shown to be more powerful than the Emperor? Is it a matter of the powers shown, the history of the character, his ultimate goals?

 

Maz Kanata is apparently over a thousand years old. I bet JJ pictured Snoke as at least that old. He might have been around when the Sith first disappeared and the Republic was reformed. It wouldn't have surprised me in the least if he had turned out to be what some Snoke theorists called a "Force vampire"; someone who had been lying dormant for centuries and had now risen to take over after the Sith and feed off other Force users by stealing their energy and adding their power to his own.

 

One reason I have doubts about Rian Johnson being the one who came up with the idea to kill off Snoke in TLJ is that I have a hard time believing that someone who had no involvement in Episode IX would be allowed to make a decision with such a big impact on IX.

 

Well, if the idea came from Rian, he probably asked them if they'd allow it. The point was to make Kylo the new "Emperor" of the story and it seems like they thought it was a fresh idea with a lot of potential (with him being the last Skywalker and everything).
...but then they still wanted a main villain who wasn't Kylo (or Hux), so they messed that up too.

 

Everything we know about the development of the ST points to the plot entirely being a relay race by the directors. Lucasfilm had no idea what the stage for episode 9 would be until Rian gave them the story of 8

 

You really overestimate Disney-Lucasfilm's competence. We know they had no plan and very few things in mind for their trilogy, we see that in how they let Treverrow put together a draft for the finale then throw it all out and they still wanted Episode IX out by the end of 2019.

The higher-ups probably also had a huge Kylo blind spot, in regards to how stupid and irredeemable he was, so that they still didn't see him as the final big bad by the end of TLJ, but forgot to come up with a replacement villain for him, whereas Treverrow thought he was already set to be the big bad. Hence the rush to fire him and then find a replacement and further leech off OT nostalgia by bringing back Palpatine.

 

This. Kennedy has been clear that they were hands off with each director. And Rian has been clear that it was his decision to off Snoke. And it simply doesn’t read like a conventional, risk-averse studio decision because most studios wouldn’t want to kill the Big Bad in the middle of the second movie. But the myth of studio interference persists.

When in doubt…studio interference…

 

We never saw Palpatine levitate someone into the air and search their mind, that was a pretty boss scene:

 

...shrug.

Ultimately Palpatine's on screen actions were much more powerful, even if restrained or subdued. He could read Luke's mind just sitting around casually talking. He didn't need to throw people across the room and scream like an imbecile to make subordinates fear him. Snoke's 'power' is showy and flashy. Which reads insecure to me. Palpatine's assuredness and quietness was incredibly more threatening. And because he was built up over three films the fact that he was 'just' this old man, and being forewarned by Yoda not to under estimate him, made his presence all the more powerful.

Palpatine also had a grip on the Skywalker family drama. Here's the guy who seduced Anakin and has him on a chain. And now it's Luke's turn. The realization he could end up just like his father, being Palpatine's apprentice was dire. Nothing about Snoke really had the same dramatic impact on Kylo, or even more importantly, on Rey.

 

Subdued indeed, and cackling like a cartoon villain.

 

So, before he was retconned as a clone, Snoke was clearly a very old being, possible centuries or more old since he didn’t seem to be human. What would that have mean about where Snoke was during Palpatine’s reign? What, if any, could there relationship had been?

 

I think he may have been poised to be one of the survivors of the Brotherhood of Darkness Thought Bomb, other than Bane. It could explain his forehead, the Thought Bomb caving it in.

 

JJ Abrams doesn’t know what the thought bomb is

 

Ummmm. Nope.

When does he cackle like a cartoon villain? He smiles, laughs and teases Luke. That’s about it.

Or do you mean Snoke when he’s nothing but a cartoon literally.

 

If Palpatine is a cackling cartoon villain that makes Snoke positively ridiculous

 

Abrams was probably not familiar with the EU. Lucas didn’t bother with it either. But it’s established in the movies that the Sith went extinct a millennium earlier. So it’s possible Snoke could’ve been another Sith who survived that conflagration, much like Darth Bane did.

Trevorrow had a surviving Sith Master in his drafts for Episode IX, Tor Valum. So that does suggest a backstory like that could’ve been considered for Snoke before TLJ killed him off.

 

You sure? Darth Bane is more well known of Legends Sith, and he was in middle of thought bomb. Bane is in TCW, which means he is in consciousness of Lucasfilm, more so than Revan.

 

Would Abrams have gotten away with retconning GL’s Sith backstory?

Exegol was called the “hidden world of the Sith.” And if Abrams was considering making Snoke a former Sith from ancient times, then could he have been given Bane’s role as the sole Sith survivor? He could’ve then been the master who trained Darth Plagueis, as it was implied Tor Valum did in the Trevorrow drafts.

This would’ve been a very different interpretation of the Sith backstory we’re more familiar with. But it would’ve set the stage for Snoke as a more powerful villain than Palpatine.

 

That is the problem with Disney reclassifying canon and legends. The backstory pf the Sith in what is now deemed legends is so rich and well written, it is a shame to start from scratch, as they were trying to do in ST.

 

I doubt Abrams was thinking of Bane at the time, but I have a feeling the Story Group would have redirected Snoke toward being another survivor in addition to Bane. Part of another Sith lineage, or even a descendant of the Bane line that survived. After all, Bane had already been canonically established through TCW.

I do think that a lot of the ideas Abrams incorporated into IX, like a Sith cult and a hidden Sith world, could have been ideas that may have been vaguely floating in his mind when he was conceiving TFA. But given Abrams' comments at the time where he explicitly stated Snoke was not a Sith, but a "figure on the dark side," I think Abrams, if he did have these general ideas during TFA's production, thought of them as dark side-aligned cults and individuals, and not necessarily Sith. Something new, although I don't think their being something new was going to be the point; as in, I don't think Abrams necessarily intended to make a clear distinction between the Sith and whatever he may have been thinking of in regards to Snoke and his background, but rather, they were simply not going to be Sith.

By the way, was Tor Valum ever explicitly stated to be a Sith? I know the script says he trained Darth Plagueis, but I always assumed Valum was sort of like a dark side-Yoda figure, and Remnicore the Dagobah equivalent. Someone that Plagueis may have sought out for knowledge, as Kylo Ren did in that script. Not his actual Sith Master in the Bane line.

 

Dark Side Adepts. Abrams couldn’t use that word because that would make a direct legends group canon.

 

I agree that Abrams was setting up a non-Sith group per his interviews. Though I don’t think he would’ve really made them that different. It’s possible that was a concession to canon, or just him trying to keep things more like the OT, which never calls Vader or the Emperor “Sith.”

The script for Duel of the Fates only calls Tor Valum a “Sith Master.” So he could just be a teacher of Sith without being a Sith Lord, much like Lucas intended Yoda to be during the OT. But he’s also in a world full of Sith ruins, so I think that’s more about skirting around the whole “all the Sith must be dead” conundrum.

Ultimately I don’t think Abrams or Johnson cared too much about making Snoke notably different from the Sith. Johnson even has Kylo Ren implicitly call him a Sith toward the end of the movie. So they could’ve gotten around the issue—which may have been pressed by the Story Group (the only ones who care about canon) or by prequel-phobia—by having him be tangentially related to the Sith, as you said. A survivor from Bane’s time who abandoned Sith teachings could’ve done the trick.

 

Some thoughts on the matter (some of which I've talked about before, so sorry if I'm repeating myself):

The Knights of Ren seem to me like a recycling of the idea from the 1975 second-draft script that the Sith Lords arose when a Jedi Padawan called Darklighter fell to the dark side, ran away, and taught the Force to "a group of Sith pirates". That is, the Knights of Ren are a bunch of scruffy, not terribly well-disciplined marauders who can wield the Force and are basically one step removed from space pirates. The styling of their name also reflects how the Sith were called "the Knights of Sith" in the 1974 rough draft.

So the 1975 second draft suggests the "Sith" were perhaps an alien race before they were a group of knights (and the knights might not have been drawn solely from that species). Who were these Sith aliens, then? I kind of suspect they were a race of space Elves, perhaps a bit like the Umbarans in the High Republic comics. Maybe they drew some inspiration from the Melnibonéans in Michael Moorcock's Elric stories, who are basically a race of evil Elves.

That draft also mentions the "Boma" or "Bomerwrights", a race of short, fur-covered aliens who are extremely good at smithing and lightsaber-making - basically Space Dwarves. Luke mentions that some of them live on the planet later known as Tatooine (then informally called Utapau, perhaps ironically, and officially known as Sullust. Not all the serial numbers from Dune had been filed off yet, clearly.) In fact, in the second draft, Han Solo actually lives with a female Boma named Oeeta who cooks for him, Chewbacca, and Luke!

Interestingly, George Lucas' 1973 story synopsis, which was heavily based on Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, mentions "two Imperial bureaucrats" in the roles of peasants Matashichi and Tahei in the Kurosawa film. These characters were replaced by C-3PO and R2-D2 in the 1974 rough draft. I wonder if there was a stage at which Lucas considered replacing the bureaucrats with two aliens instead of droids, making these characters a Sith and Boma instead - basically a Space Elf and Space Dwarf, bickering in the manner of Legolas and Gimli in LOTR.

 

I agree that Kylo and the Knights of Ren are based on Darklighter and the Knights of Sith. It’s all part of TFA being a reboot of ANH, but with its elements dialed back to the original archetypes. But the drafts never imply that the Sith were a race. At most they are called a people. And it’s the same basic idea that developed into the Mandalorians over time. So I think it is meant to refer to a group of fearsome warriors that were conquered and empowered by the fallen Jedi apprentice Darklighter.

This is not too different from Paul Atreides leading the Fremen in Dune, John Carter of Mars, or even the story of Lawrence of Arabia. But I don’t think Lucas ever intended for the Sith to be a species. And indeed in his backstory for the Sith, which differed from the EU’s or the new canon’s, he may have even eventually done away with the idea of the first fallen Sith Lord conquering a warrior people, instead focusing only on making them fallen Jedi.

But I do think it would’ve been cool for Abrams to explore the original archetypes that Lucas developed in the OT. The multiple and more warrior-like Sith Lords. The younger and more impetuous Darth Vader. The more mysterious and cosmically evil Emperor.

 

Space Sith Pirate Marauders.. we need a series of them!

Hey Disney, your new Treasure Island in AGFFA.