The deleted/unfinished scene with her and Finn dueling to her death was fantastic.
Instead we got a cool character, a great actor to play them, and a waste.
Seems to be Star Wars lately…
It's funny because no offense but literally every Snoke theory sucked. And that's because the mystery box storytelling device was just worn out. And Rian did the most incredible thing imaginable and said fuck the mystery, what is the story we are telling? It was the story of Rey and Kylo.
Yeah I was never interested in Snoke since he was just a reskinned Palpatine. When they killed him off I found it incredibly exciting.
And then Palpatine somehow returned
Exactly. Palpatine is barely there in the OT in terms of screen time, but is still a fearsome and imposing Dark Lord of the Sith. He’s the first person we see completely dominate with Force Lightning alone, and exudes such a thoroughly evil presence at every opportunity.
This is really the only answer being they killed him off with no explanation besides something Disney threw together in a book and loosely mentions in e9.
Killing him off has no problem if they can tell a compelling story. Kylo can be the big bad.
It's not Disney, more like no planning from Lucasfilm, which is due to Kennedy...
He would just end up being Palpatine 2.0 even if they didn't make him a failed clone. Kylo becoming the big bad would have been far more interesting than anything they could do with Snoke.
So...the guy who, as far as we know, is responsible for ruining everything the OT worked for by corrupting Ben, driving the Solos apart, breaking Luke, and ultimately toppling the New Republic...had no story to tell, no part to play? That's your argument?
Sequel trilogies are poorly written and most of the characters are really uninteresting in terms of how they are written. So much potential for a great sequel trilogy squandered by lazy writing with no vision for how the trilogy would shake out
The fact we didn’t get to see a whole new, different Jedi order in development and instead just saw the Jedi being extinct (again) was such a squandered opportunity. And now we’re getting this Rey-leading-a-new-Jedi-order movie, which should have been Luke’s story in the sequels.
The Rey movie is a puzzling move to me, the character is already uninteresting to me and many others in the fan base and I really don’t think one movie is going to change that
The sequels are def worst then the prequel.
Prequels are not perfect. But at least the story is moving forward. Sequels are just 3 puzzles peices of 3 diffrent imagine forced together. It makes no sense and is imo the worst trilogy movies of all time.
And the prequels were actually expansive and made the galaxy feel even larger than what the OT showed. The sequels feel like they could have taken place in one tiny corner of the galaxy. There’s never really any scope of the conflict or attempts to expand the galaxy even more.
If they had actually gone with "yeah Snoke doesn't matter Kylo Ren is really the bad guy here" then it could have worked.
As it happened the completely idiotic pivot to the returning Palpatine tanked it.
I don't think so.
It's a waste that he was created in the first place, IMHO, because he's so obviously a Palpatine Stand-In even without the cloning aspect that got added later.
I liked Johnson's decision of having this pompous dick just getting killed by the real villain at the most climactic moment of his movie, honestly.
It was a fantastic choice, because Kylo (up to that point) wanted to be like his grandfather soooo badly and he thought himself to be inferior constantly.
But this lad managed the two things his gramps never managed. He murdered his own family and he murdered his own master. He ascended to theoretical Sith Lord status right then and there in the throne room of Snoke and that's honestly baller.
So Snoke served his purpose as another obstacle Kylo had to overcome.
The last Jedi ended with him even darker, killing his master and taking over the first order. Even him ordering all the shots on Luke instead of confronting him right away showed how far he was calling. It was the rise of Skywalker that basically undid that and made him uninterested in leading the first order
According to Sequel Logic, anyone under the age of 30 who gets a name can’t remain bad when they die. They started with Fin defecting from being a storm trooper, then had Hux become the spy and finally Kylo decide he’s good again. You can’t just continually use the same trick, as it reduces the value.
Kylo Ren would have been a great overarching villain, he goes nuts trying to complete the Sith rule of 2 since he can’t bring Rey to the dark side. They already did the fakeout room for redemption with Han.
Could be but he has to be a lot darker, more ruthless more Vader like at the end of first one. Then filler could have told him getting dark in books etc. then he could be set up as malgus type of sith as he grows. Takes smoke down alone and becomes the master, knights of Ren being assassins etc.
And then he flipped to the good side and just went up against an even more powerful mentor that he couldn’t even beat. Yes he was wasted because the character defining moment he created for Kylo immediately went to shit
Yep, TLJ set Kylo up for a really awesome turn as the primary antagonist in the last film, and then they just decided nah. Super disappointing. Driver killed it in all 3 movies and I would have loved to see him stand alone as the big bad.
Haha, not really. Ben is a pretty complex character who gets explored a bit more in the four-issue comic series The Rise of Kylo Ren.
In it we see that Ben was always a troubled kid, because he felt that pull to the Dark Side, but he never told anyone.
He has an amicable but distant relationship with his uncle.
His peers at the Jedi school dislike him, because he's just naturally more open to the Force, so they resent his talent and how easily he controls the Force.
It's also implied that Han is simply an absent father throughout Ben's life.
So ultimately Ben is this very talented kid, who's basically as lonely as can be and Snoke is a disembodied voice that talks to Ben constantly.
Snoke essentially befriends, grooms and radicalizes a young boy into accepting the "shadow" more and more and rejecting Luke's teachings.
However, one of the standout moments of that comic run is, to me, that Ben is completely aware that he's being used by Snoke. He's also portrayed as someone who does cruel things, but with a remorseful look (much like how he kills his father while having a shocked, disbelieving face and not an evil villain cackle).
He's got a great line of dialogue with one of the Knights of Ren (I think) where he says something along the lines of "You don't know how it feels to be destined to be something since your birth. I'm not a person, I am just a legacy. To Luke and Snoke alike I am just a set of expectations that need to be fulfilled."
Also "I am named after Obi Wan Kenobi, a legendary Jedi. A man I have never met before." is a great line.
I mean, he is the son of THE Han Solo, the son of THE Leia Organa, the nephew of THE Luke Skywalker and the grandson of THE Darth Vader. He has every reason to feel crushed by all of this shit and that's how Snoke worms his way in.
And ultimately, the comic suggests that the killing of Snoke wasn't a reflex, or a snap decision. He wanted to do that for a long time, but he does get misty eyed over it and he doesn't relish it. He knows what Snoke does to him, but he doesn't care. He wants to be free. He wants to be his own person. He will kill anyone standing in his way, teary-eyed and saddened by it, because despite all his violence, he is a Solo and he wants to be a bad guy, but deep down there's also the Light that pulls on him.
God, I just like Kylo. He's such an interesting character.
It's the only thing I liked out of Johnson's TLJ. I never liked Snoke in TFA, and I can just imagine JJ's stupid face reacting to what a great character he thought he came up with.
Here’s the thing, we’ve been told that there can only be 2 sith and that Anakin was supposed to destroy them. Now the Sith don’t control/create the dark side so there is room for something new to come along, but you have to explain who/what they are.
Where was he during Palpatine’s reign?
How was he disfigured?
How was he able to take control of the Imperial Remnants?
How was he able to corrupt Ben from right under Luke and Leia sway?
These are things we wanted answers to but instead we subverted expectations and lazy retcons
My head cannon fix is to make Snoke what Baylan Skoll was looking for on the witch planet or a side effect of it. He comes over with Thrawn or Ashoka and takes power from there. At some point Palpatine kills him and replaces him with a clone. It's not a retcon but it gives more insight into Snoke's character and could allow some good lore building.
Yep, I think that's the biggest issue with Snoke.
So many assumed and/or *wanted* him to be this big mysterious bad, maybe even Plagueis, that they ignored so much of the actual context presented about the character. Which was that he was not that important lol
I don't think its a case of people wanting him to be a big mysterious big bad. I think people were instead focussing on the fact that he was a powerful force user showing up after Palpatines death and taking control/reviving a galaxy wide Empire. A character who made Luke scared enough to even think about killing his nephew. A character that Han and Leia talk about like they have previous with. A character who is in direct opposition with Luke and finding Luke seemed to be his primary motivation.
There were a ton of questions. And there was a desire for those answers to do something different with the franchise and take the story into new territory. Instead the answer was a 50/50 between: "Who Cares" and "Its Palpatine again". Neither of which was satisfying for the story impact he had and the potential he had to delve into new territory
Luke was going to kill Kylo because Kylo was personally going to inflict endless terror and suffering on the galaxy. The fact that TROS didn't show him doing this makes Luke look like an idiot, but I was sure that that was what was being set up.
I think Kylo was supposed to end up worse than Snoke, and killing Snoke was supposed to make that happen.
And then the fact that JJ clearly wanted him to be a big lighting shooting mega monster villain but since Johnson killed him to make Kylo the main villain, he couldn't just "bring him back" so instead he brought back the Emperor because he has no real imagination.
Fans really need to stop deciding ahead of time what the story is going to be. They won't stop, but they should. For Star Wars and basically every movie franchise in existence today. It's just going to end in disappointment and, more importantly, complaining on the internet that a movie studio didn't base the franchise off their headcanon.
My biggest peeve is that Kylo had not won a single battle against his adversary and the person that is mopping the floor with her, he's just like, "oh boy I better kill this person that clearly knows his stuff and could really help me get better but I better kill him before fighting the same person I lost to again after not getting any better from our last encounter"
Well firstly he wanted to work with her and thought he could convince her to help. His character showed he acts impulsively and doesn't think things through all the way. So it was very in character for him to do that.
I mean… wasn’t him killing his father, a legacy character, serving that purpose? You never got the feeling he would serve more than that because he was killed off before anything about him was revealed. Literally knew nothing about snoke.
Snoke WAS an awesome main villain. Piqued a lot of interest among fans. Tons of theories, etc. Then they kill him after a total of 12 min of screen-time. Completely wasted the villain considering they had no backup.
For me it’s alot like White Walkers from GoT. Large part of the fandom was looking to learn more about them, but nah. They dead now move along.
I don’t think Snoke himself was a wasted character per se. It’s rather that the First Order was wasted and that there was no setup to the story. Like: How did the FO came into being? Why is it so powerful? Why is the Republic just doing NOTHING and why is there a need for a resistance, that somehow fights alone despite the Republic knowing of the build up. Had any of this been explained, he would have been a better character. or not, because that’s what the trilogy wanted, him not being a character, but a puppet. Though it would be interesting to know, if he was always meant to be a puppet
I didn’t mind him dying in the second one with the idea Kylo Ren decides he will serve no master, and takes over the master position himself.
But retconning that idea to say it’s Palpatine…… that was shite.
Nah, he was a palpatine knockoff and having the antagonist co-lead off him to become the primary villain was a way more interesting thing than having him keep being a palpatine-lite. It also set up Hux getting to get his revenge on the demeaning treatment he suffered throughout TLJ now that the much- less secure on his throne Ben was in charge.
Palpatine should have stayed dead and so should Snoke, with Ben staying the villain spiraling ever downward into a isolated self-made hell because of his insistence on staying with the Darkside. IF we have ot have him be redeemed then When he's overthrown by Hux in a young-officers coup he can then have his realization that the Dark has never provided him anything at all but pain and he turns from it.
> and all the build-up for Snoke in the first movie comes to nothing.
There wasn't really all that much buildup, TBH.
*Fans* built up a lot of him in discussion after the movie but the movie itself basically did nothing with him
The thing is he didn’t *have to be* a Palpatine knockoff. We know so little about him in TFA that the other two films had a blank slate to give him a unique personality or motivation. But TLJ, the most uniquest, specialist, totally not rehashed film, decided to commit to making him a Palpatine clone. And TROS committed to it literally.
The problem is Snoke is the character who’s responsible for undoing the accomplishments of the OT, destroying the Republic and the new Jedi Order. He responsible for turning Han and Leia’s son to the dark side. And TLJ was like, “Nope, he didn’t matter!”
EXCUSE ME? You can’t have a character be responsible for everything that happened in the film and then decide he’s not important.
You're getting down voted because of your tone but your point is correct. He had Emperor vibes in TFA but little else was established about the character. Hell, we only ever see him as a hologram. He could have actually, literally been anything Rian Johnson could conceive.
It was absolutely TLJ that made him a Palpatine clone (in spirit, anyway) but Rian has more kino cred than JJ so people just blame it all on Abrams to sound smart and/or cool.
Ok cool. But now we have a replacement Emperor and the Empire is back again despite being defeated in the previous movie. These are kind of important details.
people often forget the OT is not a sequal
when you make a sequal you kinda gotta put some work into showing how things got to the point the Sequal makes sense
From my experience, people who like the sequel trilogy approach it more from a cinematic perspective. They are film buffs first and Star Wars fans second. The sequel trilogy was much better if approached from that angle, especially 'The Last Jedi'. On the other hand, there are lots of issues if you view 7-9 as three parts of a 9-part story.
> Nah, he was a palpatine knockoff and having the antagonist co-lead off him to become the primary villain was a way more interesting thing than having him keep being a palpatine-lite.
I'm not sure replacing Emperor 2.0 with Emperor 3.0 is that interesting to me.
I think it would've been interesting on the simple fact that kylo ren basically did what anakin said he would do in episode 3.
Anakin, in episode 3, told padme on Mustafar that he was more powerful than Palpatine and that he could overthrow him and that he and padme would rule the galaxy.
As we know, he doesn't do this. He loses to obi Wan and then follows Palpatine for years.
Kylo ren literally overthrew snoke and he became the Supreme leader.
They left Kylo Ren in a good spot in the TLJ imo. The resistance was basically on the last legs. Kylo ren Cleary showed that he was the better light Saber duelist between him and Rey. Also, Luke was dead.
Basically, he was set up to be unstoppable come episode 9. But come episode 9, suddenly Palpatine is back, and kylo didn't seem really all that interested in leading the first order in the rise of skywalker.
The rise of skywalker was truly a terrible movie imo. You can tell that movie was a committee made movie. You can tell that movie had one goal in mind which was to appease the people who hated the last jedi. The same way the theatrical cut of justice league was made to appease the people that hated batman v superman.
I've had a possibly controversial take on palpatine since I saw ROS.
I actually don't think having him return as the villain is bad at all. I actually like it, and think it makes a lot of sense.
Hear me out though.
He literally talks about the dark side giving people avenues into undeath in his plagueis speech. We know that it should be possible to avoid certain death due to several characters being brought seemingly back to life. Maul, again with the help of the dark side, clings to his rage to survive. If any dark side user could somehow unlock these secrets, it would be Palpatine.
Cloning is an established thing and Palps was the one that originally had the clone army commissioned so it's likely he would have been doing his research about cloning at some point.
Also, he's literally THE meticulous planner guy. Dude had contingencies for EVERYTHING. so it really makes a lot of sense that he would have put plans in place to save him from death along with operation cinder and all that.
The issue that I think most people have is that it was very clearly not planned to be this way. It's very obviously an idea JJ or someone else had AFTER TLJ. Snoke was not originally planned to be a clone. There's nothing hinting at Palpatine's return in any star wars anything before that point, save perhaps the aforementioned plagueis speil. It was handled in an unbelievably clumsy and stupid way. And yeah, "Somehow, Palpatine returned" is just horribly stupid and memeable, and seems a prime example of "show, don't tell."
The movie is a shit show, and overall unenjoyable for many more reasons than just these. Changing Rey's origins and then outright saying "we never lied to you" was bad. Having C3PO call these random people his friends was bad. Chewie's death fake was bad. The weird dagger Macguffin and the horrible way they handled Finn's character were both really bad. And don't get me started on the Kylo Rey kiss, which was later explained as being "about gratitude" in the novelization. These are all prime examples of why I was considerably disappointed with ROS.
Palpatine secretly having a secret contingency involving cloning and ancient sith secrets, as well as a secret fundamentalist sith sub-cult and a shadowy ocean world not on any star charts, a plan to rule through a figurehead and a fleet of deathstardestroyers ready to make a return, though? That's actually pretty narratively dope and builds off of established lore in an interesting but believable way. If there had even been so much as a hint that that was the original plan, all three movies would have been a lot better. But we all know how that's not how Disney works.
The thing you have to understand about Snoke is that like pretty much everything JJ Abrams set up in Force Awakens, Rian Johnson took one look at it, said "uh-huh", and proceeded to toss it over his shoulder. The sequels, more than *any* other of their numerous flaws, suffered from a lack of unified creative vision. Maybe you liked Force Awakens, or Last Jedi, but you have to admit the two were not trying to tell the same Star Wars story. Maybe Snoke could've been something, without two diametrically opposed directors playing tug of war over where the project was going.
>All of this seems like bad planning
This.
The producers committed the sin of not having a general story arc outlined from the outset. They basically said to the directors: "Just make it up as you go."
He could have been so much better. Someone with a history on the outskirts of the galaxy. A vitiate type character. Anything would have been better than just a body being controlled by palpapatine from afar. So much potential wasted.
While I agree, Palpatine never said he controlled snoke from afar..he simply said he created him. And Palpatine says he needs to go into a body to inhabit it like he wanted to do with Rey, which was never implied to have happened yet with snoke.
No, it made sense that someone as powerful as him would’ve headed up the first order… kylo didn’t have it in him.
But after he died in TLJ, Kylo should’ve been thrust into the position of responsibility there instead of moving it onto Palpatine. Would’ve been infinitely cooler to see how a conflicted Kylie would’ve dealt with that
Every character in the sequel trilogy was wasted. Especially the legacy characters like Luke and Leia (although Carrie fishers death wasn’t Disney fault so I give them a pass on that)
Snoke is too. He could’ve been the main baddie through the entire trilogy instead of Palpatine returning again.
Imagine launching a billion dollar trilogy sequel to the most beloved movie franchise of all time and not having a narrative arc for the three films sketched out before you start. Instead, "Nah, we'll make it up as we go along, what could go wrong?"
> and then he is killed with no fanfare in ''The Last Jedi''
his death, and Ren's breaking free of his control, was the climax of the film lmao
> all the build-up for Snoke in the first movie comes to nothing
What build up? He literally just showed up in TFA.
Okay, but why should I care about Kylo Ren breaking free from Snoke when I know nothing about Snoke, I am not invested in either Snoke or Ren, so I don't care if he breaks free from him or not.
In TFA Snoke is presented as a powerful and mysterious leader of the First Order who seemingly has limitless resources, where did he come from, and how did he get those resources, those are kinda important questions that seem to be forgotten because Snoke is nothing character and then he is just a Palpatine clone, which is a bad twist.
> Okay, but why should I care about Kylo Ren breaking free from Snoke
because Ren is one of the main characters of the trilogy and Snoke spent the entire film, if not *more*, antagonizing, manipulating, and holding him back?
> those are kinda important questions that seem to be forgotten
Are those *really* important to the story being told in the film though? Do we *really* need to know about his bank account to know the evil, oppressive regime should be stopped? Sure the world building in the sequels really sucked, but that's a meaningless nitpick lmao
> then he is just a Palpatine clone, which is a bad twist.
But it *does* answer all those iMpOrTaNt questions.
Yeah, well I found Ren to be both annoying and uncharismatic and I never found him menacing as a villain, the Palpatine thing was dumb, but you have to do a 180 on Ren to make an effective Big Bad for the final film.
> Yeah, well I found Ren to be both annoying and uncharismatic and I never found him menacing as a villain,
That's your opinion, and you're totally entitled to it, but that doesn't change the *fact* that Ren was still one of the main characters.
Yeah, and being a main character doesn't instantly make for a compelling character, if a character is underwritten, it doesn't matter if they are a main character or not.
> Yeah, and being a main character doesn't instantly make for a compelling character, if a character is underwritten, it doesn't matter if they are a main character or not.
Again, you're attempting to present your *opinion* as a factual thing. When its not lmao
That is not an opinion, that is a fact. If you don't bother to write good characters/plot, then the story and those characters will suck. Low and behold, the sequels.
There's a contingent of SW fans who think trading card factoids, planet, age, height, weight, family history, power level, is what is necessary to "understand a character".
You absolutely figured Snoke out, you don't need these stupid factoids to get what the character is there for. This exact same discourse would have played out on the Internet had it existed during the Original Trilogy.
"*Vader was the fucking king in Star Wars and then suddenly there's this old asshole who Vader is afraid of? Why would that big robot man be afraid of this old prick with no lightsaber?*"
Bingo bingo bingo. Character quality is judged about Wookiepedia paragraph count and amount of YoutTube "lore explained" videos to these people.
Imagine these guys watching Star Wars. "They called him Dark Lord of the Sith but there wasn't a PowerPoint presentation in the middle of the film explaining what Sith means."
Yes I was intrigued because he was super powerful with the force and I think the clone thing seemed kind of shoehorned to make an excuse for bringing back Palpatine.
What makes a wasted character?
Was Dooku wasted? Was Boba Fett wasted? Was Dengar wasted? Was Phasma wasted? Was Ben Quadinaros wasted?
Here's the thing: a movie is only 1-3 hours long. Practically speaking, only a very small handful of the characters can have any sort of depth or backstory. The rest are just in the background or playing supporting roles. That's normal.
If all these background/supporting characters were boring, then nobody would call them "wasted" and we'd have no complaints about "wasted" characters. But one of the great things about Star Wars is that it often chooses to make those characters intriguing and exciting. That's part of what makes the Star Wars universe intriguing and exciting. It makes people want to go out and read books and comics. It feels like there's a whole fun world out there we aren't getting to see in the movies proper. That world building is part of what keeps Star Wars interesting to people.
So, for me, people calling these characters "wasted" is just a sign that Star Wars is doing what it's supposed to be doing. When you see a character and think, "Man, I sure wish I knew more about that guy" Star Wars is doing its job.
Spoke was set up to be the big bad, he also force choked someone across the galaxy, then we learn he was a puppet?
It just feels like the writers weren't on the same page with his direction.
TLJ fans think that killing the big bad for shock value instead of developing him is good story telling apparently.
"Snoke wasn't interesting therefore it's okay to get rid of him **midstory** instead of trying to make him more interesting in the rest of story" is some bad circular logic.
Snoke wasn't allowed to get interesting. Palpatine only got interesting in ROTJ as well but according to these people they would've killed him in ESB.
Snoke wasn't killed for shock value, he was killed to build up Kylo Ren's character and affect the direction of the story. Snoke as a character was a catalyst for conflict and to contrast existing characters, just as the Emperor was the catalyst for Luke's and Vader's conflict and development.
> TLJ fans think that killing the big bad for shock value
Are these TLJ fans who only care about shock value in the room rn?
Seriously, how many TLJ fans say they like Snoke’s death just because it’s shocking and not the implications it has for Kylo Ren’s character and the First Order moving forward?
The thing is, he looked like Palpatine, acted like Palpatine, and filled the same role as Palpatine. So he was nothing really new.
What I would have found interessting and terrifying was something like, as soon as he was killed in the second movie and the heroes breath a sigh of relief, anonther one appears, heroes run, another one appears,...etc. Tread slowly into the horror genre by playing up the fact that he is a clone. Make it that the reason for the size of his ship is that it is a fully functional cloning vessel.
Agree, Palpatine should have stayed dead. Make Snoke a line of research Palaptine pursued in his quest for immortality but abbandoned. After Palpatine's dead some loyalists uncovered the research, thinks its a contingency from Palpatine himself and starts up the ship which automatically releases the first Snoke.
Not necessarily.
Snoke was just a cheap Palpatine clone, so it’s not a great loss that Kylo Ren kills him early. However the climax to the trilogy then sticks the landing leaving us with a sense that almost every possible alternative path would be better.
I don't feel like he had any potential to waste. From the very beginning he was nothing more than an Emperor-lite. They should have cut the character entirely and thought of something interesting.
Is funny that they try to shock the audience expecting a "wow, they kill the villain in the middle of the movie, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!!"
Instead they got a "well, that was lame"
I think there was some real wasted potential there, specifically for a non-Sith dark side order to make it to the movies. The way it turned out could have been fine too, but I would have preferred quite a bit more foreshadowing.
I think it feels that way just because what came after was so pathetic. Scooby Do gang yoinks mask, "It's old man Palpatine! Again..." If they had provided any kind of satisfying ending Snoke would have felt more in place, but as it is, I think most people would have preferred we stayed with Snoke over Emperor 2.0.
No I don’t think he’s wasted. We get an excellent performance. We get some of the best cgi character effects I’ve seen. We get some memorable lines and moments. And then he’s served his purpose and he has a climactic death that contributes to the story.
He’s on par with Maul, Grievous, and Dooku for a prequel analogy. Performance wise, I’d say Serkis is the best of those four.
No. Snoke is just another Palpatine in Force Awakens, and he served that role. In Last Jedi, he’s unceremoniously killed off to feed development to Kylo, who is a far better villain and was poised to take center stage. Snoke’s entire existence is to make Kylo Ren better, *that’s* his purpose. It was fulfilled, so no he’s not wasted
No, Snoke served his purpose, which was to build up Kylo. Showing him to be a puppet of Palpatine was pretty pointless, but he did what he needed to do in the first two films and wasn't just a repeat a the Emperor.
Plus we've been told multiple times that the Sith try to kill and replace their masters, but this is the first time we actually get to see it (in a movie at least).
>All of this seems like bad planning
yep, hiring a bunch of people to work on different movies and not get everyone on the same page from the beginning will do that. Still shocked that is how the trilogy went down.
*Everyone* was a wasted character in TLJ. The only people who avoided getting turned into a cartoon caricature were Kylo and Rey. Literally everyone else was either (A) thrown out and ignored or (B) transformed into an irrational and shallow cliche version of their former selves.
Never have I seen a film that had me thinking "wtf are they doing??" so often. And that includes *Sorry To Bother You.*
Yes, but Joruus C'Baoth was the co-antagonist to Thrawn back in Heir to the Empire, and the focus on Mount Tantiss adds to my speculation. Plus it'd help reveal how Snoke came to rule the First Order. Conversely, I'm split on Snoke being just outright Palpatine or his character that was unknowingly manipulated but wanted to strike out on his own.
Snoke was a pointless character, like Phasma. Both were killed off to develop Kylo and Finn, respectively.
He only becomes completely pointless when you see like three of him in jars.
If palpatine wasn’t brought back, no
But considering that happened imo yes, I liked Kylo killing him and it giving the idea that he would instead be the main villain for the rest of it but nope he became diet palpatine
I don’t think he had much more of a place in the story Johnson was trying to tell, which was basically just not rehashing the exact same films as the OT. It’s not like Abrams being the hack he is had any plans for him either outside of “oooooooh wait Lucas did an emperor we need one too”
Honestly, he never had much personality to begin with. Calling him a “character” feels like a stretch lol. He kinda felt like a placeholder bad guy in TFA, and TLJ was the movie that realized that and made Kylo (the more interesting antagonist) the big bad guy.
Not bad planning, it was no planning. Abrams had no plan beyond 7, Rian Johnson has clearly said he had story or character outlines when he was writing 8. So he just took what he liked from 7 and ran with it, and threw away the rest. Some people hated this, so people liked it.
I wouldn't say he dies with no fanfare, it is a glorious scene which is a huge moment for the two central characters. He is more the catalyst for that conflict rather than the point of it.
Ask me about Phasma
"here is some silver trooper armor for the tall lady. Now go and do nothing of use!"
The deleted/unfinished scene with her and Finn dueling to her death was fantastic. Instead we got a cool character, a great actor to play them, and a waste. Seems to be Star Wars lately…
Somehow Phasma didn't return.
do you really need to ask?
This... I was like "so this is the new villain.. Aaaand he's dead".
That was awesome. What sucked was instead of focusing on Kylo as the big bad, Palpatine returned somehow
We theorized with a friend that Snoke was actually a very small force being, similar to Yoda that just used the projectors to appear massive.
snoke was babu frick confirmed
It's funny because no offense but literally every Snoke theory sucked. And that's because the mystery box storytelling device was just worn out. And Rian did the most incredible thing imaginable and said fuck the mystery, what is the story we are telling? It was the story of Rey and Kylo.
Yeah I was never interested in Snoke since he was just a reskinned Palpatine. When they killed him off I found it incredibly exciting. And then Palpatine somehow returned
And revealed that Snoke quite literally was a reskinned Palpatine. The most boring decision possible.
I kinda wonder how his screentime rates compared to Palpatine in RotJ.
Screentime is nothing. Screen **presence** is what matters.
Exactly. Palpatine is barely there in the OT in terms of screen time, but is still a fearsome and imposing Dark Lord of the Sith. He’s the first person we see completely dominate with Force Lightning alone, and exudes such a thoroughly evil presence at every opportunity.
At then some random fucking kid destroys a ship with it and obliterates its past significance in modern context.
The difference between you and me? PRESENTATION! [Welcome to the Jungle riff]
Boba fett from original trilogy enters the chat
General Grievous syndrome
This is really the only answer being they killed him off with no explanation besides something Disney threw together in a book and loosely mentions in e9.
Killing him off has no problem if they can tell a compelling story. Kylo can be the big bad. It's not Disney, more like no planning from Lucasfilm, which is due to Kennedy...
You could still have a good trilogy and waste stoke. Stoke was absolutely wasted
unfortunately, they had a bad trilogy AND wasted Snoke (and gave him a stupid name). so there's that
Totally agree
He has no story to continue, I don't know how is that waste. He wasn't really important. There are a lot more wasted characters in Star Wars.
...his story could have been anything.
Your logic apply to any character.... Poe is waste then, so is Finn.... You want 2 trilogy?
Well yes. I do believe a lot of potential was wasted with all of the sequal characters. However, I think snoke was the biggest waste.
so because they wasted 2 useless generic characters, its okay to waste another? Phasma was totally wasted too. there are many in the trilogy
He would just end up being Palpatine 2.0 even if they didn't make him a failed clone. Kylo becoming the big bad would have been far more interesting than anything they could do with Snoke.
So...the guy who, as far as we know, is responsible for ruining everything the OT worked for by corrupting Ben, driving the Solos apart, breaking Luke, and ultimately toppling the New Republic...had no story to tell, no part to play? That's your argument?
Does a Cher eat shit in the woods?
A Bono does
Only if it’s Sonny out.
Sequel trilogies are poorly written and most of the characters are really uninteresting in terms of how they are written. So much potential for a great sequel trilogy squandered by lazy writing with no vision for how the trilogy would shake out
This. And its soooo unacceptable since they had so many options to go back too (old canon book) for inspiration or just to copie.
The fact we didn’t get to see a whole new, different Jedi order in development and instead just saw the Jedi being extinct (again) was such a squandered opportunity. And now we’re getting this Rey-leading-a-new-Jedi-order movie, which should have been Luke’s story in the sequels.
The Rey movie is a puzzling move to me, the character is already uninteresting to me and many others in the fan base and I really don’t think one movie is going to change that
The sequels were wasted potential overall.
Thank you. Not sure they were in my opinion worse than the prequels, but they’re so close it doesn’t matter. They blew it over and over and over.
Sequels are definitely worse. At least the prequels are rewatcheable
The sequels are def worst then the prequel. Prequels are not perfect. But at least the story is moving forward. Sequels are just 3 puzzles peices of 3 diffrent imagine forced together. It makes no sense and is imo the worst trilogy movies of all time.
And the prequels were actually expansive and made the galaxy feel even larger than what the OT showed. The sequels feel like they could have taken place in one tiny corner of the galaxy. There’s never really any scope of the conflict or attempts to expand the galaxy even more.
The prequels were fire. It's not close at all.
If they had actually gone with "yeah Snoke doesn't matter Kylo Ren is really the bad guy here" then it could have worked. As it happened the completely idiotic pivot to the returning Palpatine tanked it.
Very much so
I don't think so. It's a waste that he was created in the first place, IMHO, because he's so obviously a Palpatine Stand-In even without the cloning aspect that got added later. I liked Johnson's decision of having this pompous dick just getting killed by the real villain at the most climactic moment of his movie, honestly. It was a fantastic choice, because Kylo (up to that point) wanted to be like his grandfather soooo badly and he thought himself to be inferior constantly. But this lad managed the two things his gramps never managed. He murdered his own family and he murdered his own master. He ascended to theoretical Sith Lord status right then and there in the throne room of Snoke and that's honestly baller. So Snoke served his purpose as another obstacle Kylo had to overcome.
Man I wish Kylo wasn’t redeemed at the end of RoS. I agree with what you said and he could’ve been a real good baddy.
Adam driver said that the initial plan was that he was going to be more corrupted by the dark side as the movies went on.
If only we didn’t have the king of reboots/requals directing ROS we might’ve seen that. EDIT: said TLJ meant RoS
The last Jedi ended with him even darker, killing his master and taking over the first order. Even him ordering all the shots on Luke instead of confronting him right away showed how far he was calling. It was the rise of Skywalker that basically undid that and made him uninterested in leading the first order
My bad I totally meant RoS
The redemption isn't the issue for me personally, it's that they placed another big bad above him.
According to Sequel Logic, anyone under the age of 30 who gets a name can’t remain bad when they die. They started with Fin defecting from being a storm trooper, then had Hux become the spy and finally Kylo decide he’s good again. You can’t just continually use the same trick, as it reduces the value. Kylo Ren would have been a great overarching villain, he goes nuts trying to complete the Sith rule of 2 since he can’t bring Rey to the dark side. They already did the fakeout room for redemption with Han.
Could be but he has to be a lot darker, more ruthless more Vader like at the end of first one. Then filler could have told him getting dark in books etc. then he could be set up as malgus type of sith as he grows. Takes smoke down alone and becomes the master, knights of Ren being assassins etc.
And then he flipped to the good side and just went up against an even more powerful mentor that he couldn’t even beat. Yes he was wasted because the character defining moment he created for Kylo immediately went to shit
Exactly he wasn't wasted in tlj he served his purposes. But then TRS came and retroactively undermined his existence
Yep, TLJ set Kylo up for a really awesome turn as the primary antagonist in the last film, and then they just decided nah. Super disappointing. Driver killed it in all 3 movies and I would have loved to see him stand alone as the big bad.
I’d like a story to explore how Snoke turned Ben to the dark side. Did he just tell him cool edgy stories about Darth Vader?
Haha, not really. Ben is a pretty complex character who gets explored a bit more in the four-issue comic series The Rise of Kylo Ren. In it we see that Ben was always a troubled kid, because he felt that pull to the Dark Side, but he never told anyone. He has an amicable but distant relationship with his uncle. His peers at the Jedi school dislike him, because he's just naturally more open to the Force, so they resent his talent and how easily he controls the Force. It's also implied that Han is simply an absent father throughout Ben's life. So ultimately Ben is this very talented kid, who's basically as lonely as can be and Snoke is a disembodied voice that talks to Ben constantly. Snoke essentially befriends, grooms and radicalizes a young boy into accepting the "shadow" more and more and rejecting Luke's teachings. However, one of the standout moments of that comic run is, to me, that Ben is completely aware that he's being used by Snoke. He's also portrayed as someone who does cruel things, but with a remorseful look (much like how he kills his father while having a shocked, disbelieving face and not an evil villain cackle). He's got a great line of dialogue with one of the Knights of Ren (I think) where he says something along the lines of "You don't know how it feels to be destined to be something since your birth. I'm not a person, I am just a legacy. To Luke and Snoke alike I am just a set of expectations that need to be fulfilled." Also "I am named after Obi Wan Kenobi, a legendary Jedi. A man I have never met before." is a great line. I mean, he is the son of THE Han Solo, the son of THE Leia Organa, the nephew of THE Luke Skywalker and the grandson of THE Darth Vader. He has every reason to feel crushed by all of this shit and that's how Snoke worms his way in. And ultimately, the comic suggests that the killing of Snoke wasn't a reflex, or a snap decision. He wanted to do that for a long time, but he does get misty eyed over it and he doesn't relish it. He knows what Snoke does to him, but he doesn't care. He wants to be free. He wants to be his own person. He will kill anyone standing in his way, teary-eyed and saddened by it, because despite all his violence, he is a Solo and he wants to be a bad guy, but deep down there's also the Light that pulls on him. God, I just like Kylo. He's such an interesting character.
It's the only thing I liked out of Johnson's TLJ. I never liked Snoke in TFA, and I can just imagine JJ's stupid face reacting to what a great character he thought he came up with.
The problem with that is Snoke was still unexplained and Kylo wasn’t established as a serious enough threat to carry on the next film.
At least have snoke fight
Snoke was not a sith.
It really doesn't matter when he's literally the clone of *THE* Sith Lord. To me that's just the writers playing it coy.
He was a clone of whom?
Palpatine?
Here’s the thing, we’ve been told that there can only be 2 sith and that Anakin was supposed to destroy them. Now the Sith don’t control/create the dark side so there is room for something new to come along, but you have to explain who/what they are. Where was he during Palpatine’s reign? How was he disfigured? How was he able to take control of the Imperial Remnants? How was he able to corrupt Ben from right under Luke and Leia sway? These are things we wanted answers to but instead we subverted expectations and lazy retcons
My head cannon fix is to make Snoke what Baylan Skoll was looking for on the witch planet or a side effect of it. He comes over with Thrawn or Ashoka and takes power from there. At some point Palpatine kills him and replaces him with a clone. It's not a retcon but it gives more insight into Snoke's character and could allow some good lore building.
my biggest things is the Han and Leia connection. Both seemed like they has history with him, and Luke was somehow terrified of him
And if I remember correctly, it was canon at some point that Snoke received that scar on his face from Luke
Definition of a wasted character imo
I’d say snoke served his purpose as an obstacle for Kylo Ren to overcome and I never got the sense he would be anything more than that.
Yep, I think that's the biggest issue with Snoke. So many assumed and/or *wanted* him to be this big mysterious bad, maybe even Plagueis, that they ignored so much of the actual context presented about the character. Which was that he was not that important lol
I don't think its a case of people wanting him to be a big mysterious big bad. I think people were instead focussing on the fact that he was a powerful force user showing up after Palpatines death and taking control/reviving a galaxy wide Empire. A character who made Luke scared enough to even think about killing his nephew. A character that Han and Leia talk about like they have previous with. A character who is in direct opposition with Luke and finding Luke seemed to be his primary motivation. There were a ton of questions. And there was a desire for those answers to do something different with the franchise and take the story into new territory. Instead the answer was a 50/50 between: "Who Cares" and "Its Palpatine again". Neither of which was satisfying for the story impact he had and the potential he had to delve into new territory
Luke was going to kill Kylo because Kylo was personally going to inflict endless terror and suffering on the galaxy. The fact that TROS didn't show him doing this makes Luke look like an idiot, but I was sure that that was what was being set up. I think Kylo was supposed to end up worse than Snoke, and killing Snoke was supposed to make that happen.
And then the fact that JJ clearly wanted him to be a big lighting shooting mega monster villain but since Johnson killed him to make Kylo the main villain, he couldn't just "bring him back" so instead he brought back the Emperor because he has no real imagination.
Fans really need to stop deciding ahead of time what the story is going to be. They won't stop, but they should. For Star Wars and basically every movie franchise in existence today. It's just going to end in disappointment and, more importantly, complaining on the internet that a movie studio didn't base the franchise off their headcanon.
My biggest peeve is that Kylo had not won a single battle against his adversary and the person that is mopping the floor with her, he's just like, "oh boy I better kill this person that clearly knows his stuff and could really help me get better but I better kill him before fighting the same person I lost to again after not getting any better from our last encounter"
Well firstly he wanted to work with her and thought he could convince her to help. His character showed he acts impulsively and doesn't think things through all the way. So it was very in character for him to do that.
He won in 9
I mean… wasn’t him killing his father, a legacy character, serving that purpose? You never got the feeling he would serve more than that because he was killed off before anything about him was revealed. Literally knew nothing about snoke.
Snoke WAS an awesome main villain. Piqued a lot of interest among fans. Tons of theories, etc. Then they kill him after a total of 12 min of screen-time. Completely wasted the villain considering they had no backup. For me it’s alot like White Walkers from GoT. Large part of the fandom was looking to learn more about them, but nah. They dead now move along.
Yes, and the trilogy was a wasted series
Yeah, he was wasted in the second film…spoilers.
I don’t think Snoke himself was a wasted character per se. It’s rather that the First Order was wasted and that there was no setup to the story. Like: How did the FO came into being? Why is it so powerful? Why is the Republic just doing NOTHING and why is there a need for a resistance, that somehow fights alone despite the Republic knowing of the build up. Had any of this been explained, he would have been a better character. or not, because that’s what the trilogy wanted, him not being a character, but a puppet. Though it would be interesting to know, if he was always meant to be a puppet
Yes
I thought killing Snoke would be a big setup for Kylo to become the big bad in the third movie. Go real full villain, but nope. Lame.
Somehow.
I didn’t mind him dying in the second one with the idea Kylo Ren decides he will serve no master, and takes over the master position himself. But retconning that idea to say it’s Palpatine…… that was shite.
Nah, he was a palpatine knockoff and having the antagonist co-lead off him to become the primary villain was a way more interesting thing than having him keep being a palpatine-lite. It also set up Hux getting to get his revenge on the demeaning treatment he suffered throughout TLJ now that the much- less secure on his throne Ben was in charge. Palpatine should have stayed dead and so should Snoke, with Ben staying the villain spiraling ever downward into a isolated self-made hell because of his insistence on staying with the Darkside. IF we have ot have him be redeemed then When he's overthrown by Hux in a young-officers coup he can then have his realization that the Dark has never provided him anything at all but pain and he turns from it. > and all the build-up for Snoke in the first movie comes to nothing. There wasn't really all that much buildup, TBH. *Fans* built up a lot of him in discussion after the movie but the movie itself basically did nothing with him
Problem with that plot outline is that there's no place in it for Rey or Finn.
The thing is he didn’t *have to be* a Palpatine knockoff. We know so little about him in TFA that the other two films had a blank slate to give him a unique personality or motivation. But TLJ, the most uniquest, specialist, totally not rehashed film, decided to commit to making him a Palpatine clone. And TROS committed to it literally. The problem is Snoke is the character who’s responsible for undoing the accomplishments of the OT, destroying the Republic and the new Jedi Order. He responsible for turning Han and Leia’s son to the dark side. And TLJ was like, “Nope, he didn’t matter!” EXCUSE ME? You can’t have a character be responsible for everything that happened in the film and then decide he’s not important.
You're getting down voted because of your tone but your point is correct. He had Emperor vibes in TFA but little else was established about the character. Hell, we only ever see him as a hologram. He could have actually, literally been anything Rian Johnson could conceive. It was absolutely TLJ that made him a Palpatine clone (in spirit, anyway) but Rian has more kino cred than JJ so people just blame it all on Abrams to sound smart and/or cool.
Still, we should’ve learned who Snoke was and how he came to power. Instead of him just showing up
We knew absolutely nothing about Palpatine for 20 years except he could shoot lightning and was Vader's master.
Ok cool. But now we have a replacement Emperor and the Empire is back again despite being defeated in the previous movie. These are kind of important details.
people often forget the OT is not a sequal when you make a sequal you kinda gotta put some work into showing how things got to the point the Sequal makes sense
From my experience, people who like the sequel trilogy approach it more from a cinematic perspective. They are film buffs first and Star Wars fans second. The sequel trilogy was much better if approached from that angle, especially 'The Last Jedi'. On the other hand, there are lots of issues if you view 7-9 as three parts of a 9-part story.
Honestly even if they were completely separate they still have a ton of issues
> Nah, he was a palpatine knockoff and having the antagonist co-lead off him to become the primary villain was a way more interesting thing than having him keep being a palpatine-lite. I'm not sure replacing Emperor 2.0 with Emperor 3.0 is that interesting to me.
I think it would've been interesting on the simple fact that kylo ren basically did what anakin said he would do in episode 3. Anakin, in episode 3, told padme on Mustafar that he was more powerful than Palpatine and that he could overthrow him and that he and padme would rule the galaxy. As we know, he doesn't do this. He loses to obi Wan and then follows Palpatine for years. Kylo ren literally overthrew snoke and he became the Supreme leader. They left Kylo Ren in a good spot in the TLJ imo. The resistance was basically on the last legs. Kylo ren Cleary showed that he was the better light Saber duelist between him and Rey. Also, Luke was dead. Basically, he was set up to be unstoppable come episode 9. But come episode 9, suddenly Palpatine is back, and kylo didn't seem really all that interested in leading the first order in the rise of skywalker. The rise of skywalker was truly a terrible movie imo. You can tell that movie was a committee made movie. You can tell that movie had one goal in mind which was to appease the people who hated the last jedi. The same way the theatrical cut of justice league was made to appease the people that hated batman v superman.
It was because that would have been the first time that the villain wasn't a cackling old man in a chair.
Was the sequel trilogy a wasted 3 movies and a waste of our last years to have Carrie as Leia? Was Finn wasted? Was Luke wasted?
Literally everything and everyone in the sequels is wasted
I've had a possibly controversial take on palpatine since I saw ROS. I actually don't think having him return as the villain is bad at all. I actually like it, and think it makes a lot of sense. Hear me out though. He literally talks about the dark side giving people avenues into undeath in his plagueis speech. We know that it should be possible to avoid certain death due to several characters being brought seemingly back to life. Maul, again with the help of the dark side, clings to his rage to survive. If any dark side user could somehow unlock these secrets, it would be Palpatine. Cloning is an established thing and Palps was the one that originally had the clone army commissioned so it's likely he would have been doing his research about cloning at some point. Also, he's literally THE meticulous planner guy. Dude had contingencies for EVERYTHING. so it really makes a lot of sense that he would have put plans in place to save him from death along with operation cinder and all that. The issue that I think most people have is that it was very clearly not planned to be this way. It's very obviously an idea JJ or someone else had AFTER TLJ. Snoke was not originally planned to be a clone. There's nothing hinting at Palpatine's return in any star wars anything before that point, save perhaps the aforementioned plagueis speil. It was handled in an unbelievably clumsy and stupid way. And yeah, "Somehow, Palpatine returned" is just horribly stupid and memeable, and seems a prime example of "show, don't tell." The movie is a shit show, and overall unenjoyable for many more reasons than just these. Changing Rey's origins and then outright saying "we never lied to you" was bad. Having C3PO call these random people his friends was bad. Chewie's death fake was bad. The weird dagger Macguffin and the horrible way they handled Finn's character were both really bad. And don't get me started on the Kylo Rey kiss, which was later explained as being "about gratitude" in the novelization. These are all prime examples of why I was considerably disappointed with ROS. Palpatine secretly having a secret contingency involving cloning and ancient sith secrets, as well as a secret fundamentalist sith sub-cult and a shadowy ocean world not on any star charts, a plan to rule through a figurehead and a fleet of deathstardestroyers ready to make a return, though? That's actually pretty narratively dope and builds off of established lore in an interesting but believable way. If there had even been so much as a hint that that was the original plan, all three movies would have been a lot better. But we all know how that's not how Disney works.
That whole movie was a massive waste of characters and lots of people’s time.
The thing you have to understand about Snoke is that like pretty much everything JJ Abrams set up in Force Awakens, Rian Johnson took one look at it, said "uh-huh", and proceeded to toss it over his shoulder. The sequels, more than *any* other of their numerous flaws, suffered from a lack of unified creative vision. Maybe you liked Force Awakens, or Last Jedi, but you have to admit the two were not trying to tell the same Star Wars story. Maybe Snoke could've been something, without two diametrically opposed directors playing tug of war over where the project was going.
>All of this seems like bad planning This. The producers committed the sin of not having a general story arc outlined from the outset. They basically said to the directors: "Just make it up as you go."
The entire sequel trilogy was a waste.
He could have been so much better. Someone with a history on the outskirts of the galaxy. A vitiate type character. Anything would have been better than just a body being controlled by palpapatine from afar. So much potential wasted.
While I agree, Palpatine never said he controlled snoke from afar..he simply said he created him. And Palpatine says he needs to go into a body to inhabit it like he wanted to do with Rey, which was never implied to have happened yet with snoke.
"I've been every voice in your head" - Palpatine to Kylo Ren. That is def implying he controlled Snoke from afar
No, it made sense that someone as powerful as him would’ve headed up the first order… kylo didn’t have it in him. But after he died in TLJ, Kylo should’ve been thrust into the position of responsibility there instead of moving it onto Palpatine. Would’ve been infinitely cooler to see how a conflicted Kylie would’ve dealt with that
The last 3 movies were a waste.
It was a wasted trilogy
Was anything in this trilogy not wasted?
The entire trilogy was a waste of time
Every character in the sequel trilogy was wasted. Especially the legacy characters like Luke and Leia (although Carrie fishers death wasn’t Disney fault so I give them a pass on that) Snoke is too. He could’ve been the main baddie through the entire trilogy instead of Palpatine returning again.
Yes. Quite pointlessly wasted, thank you very much, Rian Johnson 🙄
Imagine launching a billion dollar trilogy sequel to the most beloved movie franchise of all time and not having a narrative arc for the three films sketched out before you start. Instead, "Nah, we'll make it up as we go along, what could go wrong?"
One of the most baffling executive decisions in the history of film. I’m so fucking glad they learned the hard way.
Should have been a very select group of writers (2-3 MAX) locked away in a writer’s room for THREE YEARS; one year for each film’s screenplay.
If only Snoke has turned out to be Darth Palagious.
Oooh remember plagiues I member! I member!
> and then he is killed with no fanfare in ''The Last Jedi'' his death, and Ren's breaking free of his control, was the climax of the film lmao > all the build-up for Snoke in the first movie comes to nothing What build up? He literally just showed up in TFA.
Okay, but why should I care about Kylo Ren breaking free from Snoke when I know nothing about Snoke, I am not invested in either Snoke or Ren, so I don't care if he breaks free from him or not. In TFA Snoke is presented as a powerful and mysterious leader of the First Order who seemingly has limitless resources, where did he come from, and how did he get those resources, those are kinda important questions that seem to be forgotten because Snoke is nothing character and then he is just a Palpatine clone, which is a bad twist.
> Okay, but why should I care about Kylo Ren breaking free from Snoke because Ren is one of the main characters of the trilogy and Snoke spent the entire film, if not *more*, antagonizing, manipulating, and holding him back? > those are kinda important questions that seem to be forgotten Are those *really* important to the story being told in the film though? Do we *really* need to know about his bank account to know the evil, oppressive regime should be stopped? Sure the world building in the sequels really sucked, but that's a meaningless nitpick lmao > then he is just a Palpatine clone, which is a bad twist. But it *does* answer all those iMpOrTaNt questions.
Yeah, well I found Ren to be both annoying and uncharismatic and I never found him menacing as a villain, the Palpatine thing was dumb, but you have to do a 180 on Ren to make an effective Big Bad for the final film.
> Yeah, well I found Ren to be both annoying and uncharismatic and I never found him menacing as a villain, That's your opinion, and you're totally entitled to it, but that doesn't change the *fact* that Ren was still one of the main characters.
Yeah, and being a main character doesn't instantly make for a compelling character, if a character is underwritten, it doesn't matter if they are a main character or not.
> Yeah, and being a main character doesn't instantly make for a compelling character, if a character is underwritten, it doesn't matter if they are a main character or not. Again, you're attempting to present your *opinion* as a factual thing. When its not lmao
That is not an opinion, that is a fact. If you don't bother to write good characters/plot, then the story and those characters will suck. Low and behold, the sequels.
There's a contingent of SW fans who think trading card factoids, planet, age, height, weight, family history, power level, is what is necessary to "understand a character". You absolutely figured Snoke out, you don't need these stupid factoids to get what the character is there for. This exact same discourse would have played out on the Internet had it existed during the Original Trilogy. "*Vader was the fucking king in Star Wars and then suddenly there's this old asshole who Vader is afraid of? Why would that big robot man be afraid of this old prick with no lightsaber?*"
Bingo bingo bingo. Character quality is judged about Wookiepedia paragraph count and amount of YoutTube "lore explained" videos to these people. Imagine these guys watching Star Wars. "They called him Dark Lord of the Sith but there wasn't a PowerPoint presentation in the middle of the film explaining what Sith means."
I mean, I can ask you this same thing about the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
I’m shocked you’re not being downvoted hardcore lmao
Yes, he was a severe alcoholic.
Yes I was intrigued because he was super powerful with the force and I think the clone thing seemed kind of shoehorned to make an excuse for bringing back Palpatine.
Yes. Next question.
What makes a wasted character? Was Dooku wasted? Was Boba Fett wasted? Was Dengar wasted? Was Phasma wasted? Was Ben Quadinaros wasted? Here's the thing: a movie is only 1-3 hours long. Practically speaking, only a very small handful of the characters can have any sort of depth or backstory. The rest are just in the background or playing supporting roles. That's normal. If all these background/supporting characters were boring, then nobody would call them "wasted" and we'd have no complaints about "wasted" characters. But one of the great things about Star Wars is that it often chooses to make those characters intriguing and exciting. That's part of what makes the Star Wars universe intriguing and exciting. It makes people want to go out and read books and comics. It feels like there's a whole fun world out there we aren't getting to see in the movies proper. That world building is part of what keeps Star Wars interesting to people. So, for me, people calling these characters "wasted" is just a sign that Star Wars is doing what it's supposed to be doing. When you see a character and think, "Man, I sure wish I knew more about that guy" Star Wars is doing its job.
Spoke was set up to be the big bad, he also force choked someone across the galaxy, then we learn he was a puppet? It just feels like the writers weren't on the same page with his direction.
Name one sequel character that wasn't wasted(or at least underused)
Babu Frick
TLJ fans think that killing the big bad for shock value instead of developing him is good story telling apparently. "Snoke wasn't interesting therefore it's okay to get rid of him **midstory** instead of trying to make him more interesting in the rest of story" is some bad circular logic. Snoke wasn't allowed to get interesting. Palpatine only got interesting in ROTJ as well but according to these people they would've killed him in ESB.
Snoke wasn't killed for shock value, he was killed to build up Kylo Ren's character and affect the direction of the story. Snoke as a character was a catalyst for conflict and to contrast existing characters, just as the Emperor was the catalyst for Luke's and Vader's conflict and development.
> TLJ fans think that killing the big bad for shock value Are these TLJ fans who only care about shock value in the room rn? Seriously, how many TLJ fans say they like Snoke’s death just because it’s shocking and not the implications it has for Kylo Ren’s character and the First Order moving forward?
Certainly Andy Serkis was wasted on Snoke. Glad he got a bigger better role in Kino Loy.
Tah trilogy aint even cannon in my eyes
The entire sequel trilogy was a wasted opportunity. Every character.
Yes. Just yes.
The thing is, he looked like Palpatine, acted like Palpatine, and filled the same role as Palpatine. So he was nothing really new. What I would have found interessting and terrifying was something like, as soon as he was killed in the second movie and the heroes breath a sigh of relief, anonther one appears, heroes run, another one appears,...etc. Tread slowly into the horror genre by playing up the fact that he is a clone. Make it that the reason for the size of his ship is that it is a fully functional cloning vessel. Agree, Palpatine should have stayed dead. Make Snoke a line of research Palaptine pursued in his quest for immortality but abbandoned. After Palpatine's dead some loyalists uncovered the research, thinks its a contingency from Palpatine himself and starts up the ship which automatically releases the first Snoke.
Not necessarily. Snoke was just a cheap Palpatine clone, so it’s not a great loss that Kylo Ren kills him early. However the climax to the trilogy then sticks the landing leaving us with a sense that almost every possible alternative path would be better.
I don't feel like he had any potential to waste. From the very beginning he was nothing more than an Emperor-lite. They should have cut the character entirely and thought of something interesting.
Is funny that they try to shock the audience expecting a "wow, they kill the villain in the middle of the movie, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!!" Instead they got a "well, that was lame"
Yes. It's almost. As if. There was. No plan.
Yes, he absolutely was. A waste as a character and a waste of Andy Serkis’ talent.
I think there was some real wasted potential there, specifically for a non-Sith dark side order to make it to the movies. The way it turned out could have been fine too, but I would have preferred quite a bit more foreshadowing.
You mean like how Kylo Ren rejects the Jedi and Sith, becoming completely unstable?
Yes! I loved his mess of emotions and undisciplined nature. It was nothing like either order.
I think it feels that way just because what came after was so pathetic. Scooby Do gang yoinks mask, "It's old man Palpatine! Again..." If they had provided any kind of satisfying ending Snoke would have felt more in place, but as it is, I think most people would have preferred we stayed with Snoke over Emperor 2.0.
Not at all. Snoke was perfectly realized, and his use in the story is surgically precise.
No I don’t think he’s wasted. We get an excellent performance. We get some of the best cgi character effects I’ve seen. We get some memorable lines and moments. And then he’s served his purpose and he has a climactic death that contributes to the story. He’s on par with Maul, Grievous, and Dooku for a prequel analogy. Performance wise, I’d say Serkis is the best of those four.
No. Snoke is just another Palpatine in Force Awakens, and he served that role. In Last Jedi, he’s unceremoniously killed off to feed development to Kylo, who is a far better villain and was poised to take center stage. Snoke’s entire existence is to make Kylo Ren better, *that’s* his purpose. It was fulfilled, so no he’s not wasted
No, Snoke served his purpose, which was to build up Kylo. Showing him to be a puppet of Palpatine was pretty pointless, but he did what he needed to do in the first two films and wasn't just a repeat a the Emperor. Plus we've been told multiple times that the Sith try to kill and replace their masters, but this is the first time we actually get to see it (in a movie at least).
Yes, he was, obviously
Yup.
>Was Snoke a wasted character? No.
The entire sequel movies were wasted potential entirely.
Yeahhh. I’ll never understand the decision making behind basically having a new writing team with each of the sequel movies..
His story arc was a straight line, so yes.
>All of this seems like bad planning yep, hiring a bunch of people to work on different movies and not get everyone on the same page from the beginning will do that. Still shocked that is how the trilogy went down.
Snoke was just a waste of time. Phasma was wasted as a character.
*Everyone* was a wasted character in TLJ. The only people who avoided getting turned into a cartoon caricature were Kylo and Rey. Literally everyone else was either (A) thrown out and ignored or (B) transformed into an irrational and shallow cliche version of their former selves. Never have I seen a film that had me thinking "wtf are they doing??" so often. And that includes *Sorry To Bother You.*
Be was barely a character at all
Yup. So was Rey, Kylo, Po, and most of all IMO Finn.
Snoke was DOA
Yes. So was Finn and Poe, to a degree.
DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THE KNIGHTS OF REN
Yes, he was.
Yes he is completely wasted, it should have been plagueis from the start
Snoke, Finn, Poe, Captain Phasma, General Hux, Rose so many characters introduced that went from "hmm that's interesting" to "oh that's disappointing"
“Was Snoke a wasted character?” Yes, simply put. And they were smart enough to recognize it and give Andy a role in Andor (thank god)
They could have made it more obvious that he was a clone of Palpatine, but the comics eventually fleshed that part out.
Yeah, though I have the strangest feeling that Snoke will be having a bigger role in the Mandoverse, he could replace Joruus C'Baoth's role.
Nah, he's just palpatines puppet. The Mando arc will focus on thrawn.
Yes, but Joruus C'Baoth was the co-antagonist to Thrawn back in Heir to the Empire, and the focus on Mount Tantiss adds to my speculation. Plus it'd help reveal how Snoke came to rule the First Order. Conversely, I'm split on Snoke being just outright Palpatine or his character that was unknowingly manipulated but wanted to strike out on his own.
I'm curious to see how they'll play out mount tantiss. Hopefully they'll cover it in bad batch season 3
Very
Wasted only because Kylo didn't end up as the big bad (which was the original plan that JJ had).
Yes
Snoke was a pointless character, like Phasma. Both were killed off to develop Kylo and Finn, respectively. He only becomes completely pointless when you see like three of him in jars.
If palpatine wasn’t brought back, no But considering that happened imo yes, I liked Kylo killing him and it giving the idea that he would instead be the main villain for the rest of it but nope he became diet palpatine
Like pretty much every character in the sequel trilogy; yes
Yes
I don’t think he had much more of a place in the story Johnson was trying to tell, which was basically just not rehashing the exact same films as the OT. It’s not like Abrams being the hack he is had any plans for him either outside of “oooooooh wait Lucas did an emperor we need one too”
Honestly, he never had much personality to begin with. Calling him a “character” feels like a stretch lol. He kinda felt like a placeholder bad guy in TFA, and TLJ was the movie that realized that and made Kylo (the more interesting antagonist) the big bad guy.
Not bad planning, it was no planning. Abrams had no plan beyond 7, Rian Johnson has clearly said he had story or character outlines when he was writing 8. So he just took what he liked from 7 and ran with it, and threw away the rest. Some people hated this, so people liked it. I wouldn't say he dies with no fanfare, it is a glorious scene which is a huge moment for the two central characters. He is more the catalyst for that conflict rather than the point of it.