ST What was J.J. Abrams’ understanding of Snoke prior to The Last Jedi?

Was he always meant to be a Palpatine clone? Do we know?

 

Pablo Hidalgo said that Snoke’s design was finalized until the last minute. Abrams probably couldn’t make up his mind on what he wanted that character to be.

 

In hindsight, given how TFA didn’t commit to who Snoke was, I would have preferred it if Snoke had been revealed as Darth Plagueis or some other ancient Sith Lord that predated Palpatine. That would have at least given his machinations and force power levels some context… Him being a clone, or biologically manufactured puppet, of Palpatine was (IMO), the least engaging possibility.

 

Snoke was just as bad as those CGI DC movie villains. And consequently, nobody cares about their story.

 

The evidence suggests Abrams did not have any specifics nailed down for this character. Most of what we did learn over the years, before TROS that is, hinted at a backstory that mimicked what the Emperor’s own general backstory before the prequels depicted it in detail. This is not surprising, since Kylo Ren also paralleled the original backstory for Darth Vader.

Based on that, Snoke was likely a former member of the New Republic Senate with ties to the former Empire and a desire to bring it back. He corrupted other members of the Senate, founded the First Order, and learned his dark-side powers by gathering arcane knowledge from across the galaxy. He corrupted Kylo Ren and had him destroy the Jedi Order, and he also trained the Knights of Ren to protect him and hunt down any other threats to his power.

Granted, that’s my piecing together things from the scraps that we got. It’s a mix of old OT concepts and the new context that the sequels provided. I’d say that both the ROTJ novelization and the Legends comic book Dark Empire are good depictions of that original version of the Emperor, before he made part of the Sith Order. He wasn’t part of any religion, but rather was a tyrant who learned the dark side to gain more power.

 

This is the answer to everything about TFA. I saw a JJ interview in early '16 and his answer to three questions- who is Snoke, why Kylo turned, and why Luke is hiding was "I decided to leave that to the next writer".

I'd believe Snoke's possible backstory didn't once enter his mind. 'He's a darksider we meet as a hologram' was the limit of his imagination.

 

The only bit I remember LFL or JJ saying was the he was old and had witnessed all the saga events. There may have also been something like, he has good reason to be against the Skywalkers/NR.

Other than that it’s all vague and noncommittal. Snoke seems vampirish, like he’s going to suck the force from Ben. Which is oddly what Palpatine does.

 

Snoke shouldve been one of the lost 20 jedi from AOTC, friends with Dooku who saw what happened to him but he gained power and was corrupted also as Dooku was it wouldve given Snoke a better backstory etc.

 

I remain committed to Lawrence Kasdan's befuddled response to a fan question from Comic Con:

"Darth....... Vegas...........?!!!!?????????!!!!!?????"

 

That’s probably about right. I’d like to think that Abrams gave it some consideration, but these characters were basically placeholders.

 

"He's like the Emperor, except he's called Snoke."

 

Pretty sure JJ was doing his whole mystery box thing and hadn't planned out Snoke much at all.
After Rian killed Snoke, JJ had some things to address. I suppose JJ wanted Kylo to become Ben again, so he needed an overlord. So instead of a new character, Palpatine comes back. And thus, Snoke is revealed as a pawn of Palpatine all along.

 

There were all kinds of stories about Snoke's look and potential origins, some alluded to above, i.e., he's an old, wealthy dude, perhaps a senator, well known to the galaxy. Another story said he looked like a sort of snake -- real subtle, there -- before his design was changed right before release.

None of the options for Snoke makes much sense, of course. He's just an old, unsightly, really powerful evil mentor dude. But the Darth Plagueis possibility might have turned out the most palatable. Plapy roughs him up, leaves him for dead, and what do Sith do really well? Play possum. So he takes on the identity of Snoke and lays low while he heals (at least somewhat), toys around with the Force some more, maybe tricks some corporate types out of tons of credits, and all of a sudden Plapy is dead. I mean, really dead. So Snoke reemerges on the galactic scene, and, in doing so, decides to mess with the family that did in Plapy (as a tribute to his old apprentice, of course), and, maybe, along the way, happens to create life by manipulating the Force, or at least discover that he has after the fact. Everything ties in (except for Snoke's apparent desire to kill Rey in TLJ), and what better badass moment is there for Kylo Ren than fatally tricking the man who trained, and was defeated by, none other than Emperor Palpatine himself.

 

The problem is, and this goes with many elements of the ST, is that DLF’s approach with the ST is to make everything bigger, badder and stronger… and this is something usually employed when writers don’t either have the time or talent to write anything worthwhile or substantial. So they bring in Snoke, and because Snoke must be bigger, badder and stronger than anything seem in the previous films, they actually paint themselves into a corner because having a bigger, badder and stronger version of Palpatine (Snoke) doesn’t really have any logic underpinning it. Palpatine is the result of a 1000 years of Sith evolution/planning… so by virtue of Snoke being more powerful, he couldn’t of just been some evil dude sitting in the wings…

 

Snoke was a poor man's attempt at the Emperor for a new generation. It's very evident by the fact that only Kylo Ren and Snoke are shown as the big evil force users despite the existence of the Knights of Ren. For all of Abrams' claims that they are not Sith, they certainly follow the Rule of Two. And cheapens Palpatine's earned status as the big villain of the Skywalker Saga that TROS's revelation that Snoke is actually a clone created by Palpatine was a major improvement for both Snoke and Palpatine.

And here I am wondering what's the point of hiring Lawrence Kasdan if he doesn't know the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise. If he's only there to make dialogue sound good, then get another writer who is knowledgable about the history of the Star Wars universe.

 

Oh, dear.

Regardless, Kasdan doesn't appear to be much good without Lucas' guiding hand, does he?

 

In TFA I believe that Snoke was Snoke he was no Clone of the Emperor and Snoke was suppose to be the big bad of the entire trilogy and the Emperor would have only come in as a hologram in EP9 to instruct Kylo Ren.

The only reason it was changed is cause someone decided to kill Snoke off which lets be truthful no-one saw that coming especially JJ Abrams so when Colin was fired JJ decided he had to have the Emperor come back as he didn't see Kylo as a bigger enough big bad and how would he be redeemed.

KK said the Emperor was always in the blue print but I don't buy that - maybe as a hologram but not in the flesh.

 

his understanding?

 

they didn't even know what he was to look like during production and at one point considered he might be female.

they just threw it together because 'not that much was explained in A New Hope'
then once Johnson had killed him off JJ decided to bring in Palpatine's corpse as his puppet master.

 

The original Snake...I mean Snoke.

 

I've been trying to find confirmation of whether that concept art piece was meant to be for Snoke, but alas I haven't found anything yet. But I do know it was drawn by Power Dermot. Here's a high res version from his website:



In terms of how the concept developed, I think Snoke's ultimate origin was Darth Maul, who Lucas wanted to have as the main villain for the sequels. Then Disney/Lucasfilm went in a decidedly non-Sith direction with the villain, codenamed "Uber," who started off as a female character and then evolved into various versions of a male character.

At first, these were not very human-looking, as that concept piece above (if it is indeed for the main villain) attests. Powers has another piece of art on his Instagram that I believe may be an early iteration of the main villain as well, though I haven't been able to confirm this. But it was concept art for a villain from Episode 7 for sure:

 

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Powers is a great artist. Been following him for years.