Respond to this comment with your nomination for which character we should do next, or vote with a thumbs up if they're already listed!

“Palpatine didn’t have a backstory back in 1983 and no one complained, unlike with Snoke nowadays.” The difference between Palpatine and Snoke is that back in the day, the original trilogy was really the only Star Wars that was out there. Palpatine served his role as an overarching bad guy, and was expanded upon through the prequels. Still, his role remained consistent throughout the 6 film arc. Then Disney comes along and tells us “no, no, it’s actually a 9 part story arc.” The problem with Snoke having no explanation is that there’s now 40 years of baggage and history to take into account. You don’t start part 7 of 9 by introducing an other worldly presence without accounting for his whereabouts in the last 6, and you certainly don’t kill him off in the 8th chapter.

The really dumb part about Snoke being a vessel for Palpatine is how weak and old he looks. Wouldn’t make more sense to make him appear young, strong, and scary? Oh yeah I forgot they didn’t plan

The inherent problem with “Palpatine didn’t have a backstory” is that the OT DID give some backstory. A new hope: emperor dissolved the Imperial Senate, destroying the last vestiges of the Old Republic. We can infer he was elected to the executive position via said senate, gained power, then dissolved it. This man who we haven’t seen yet is likely the most politically powerful man in the galaxy and has the wealth to build a planet buster. Lots of info there. Empire Strikes Back: emperor is Vader’s master and can use the Force. He also fears Anakin Skywalker and the Skywalker bloodline. This demonstrates he had interactions with Anakin in the era of this “old republic”. (Even before and especially after the big revelation) Point being: Palpatine did get some backstory.

So much wasted potential with the sequels…..they got so much wrong.

Snoke is the perfect example for why the Sequel trilogy was never planned out. However, what we can learn from Snoke is how not to make a hidden antagonist. You need to always have a plan for what you want. You can alter the plan when necessary, but you should try your best to go with it in order to keep the story coherent.

Here is what they should have done with Snoke: We learn through flashbacks and other narrative devices that Luke Skywalker was out searching the galaxy for Jedi temples, texts, and artifacts when he felt a pull to a temple older than any he had ever found. Inside, he found Snoke suspended in cryostasis. He brought Snoke a bacta tank which healed his wounds as best it could. Snoke told Luke he was one of the first Jedi in the galaxy, and Luke invited him to teach at his school - not only to teach his students, but to teach Luke himself. But Snoke was a liar, and a master manipulator of minds - like Jedi mind tricks turned up to 1000. He used his position to corrupt Ben Solo and some of the other students, and even twisted Luke without Luke realizing it until it was too late. This is why Luke nearly killed his nephew - because Snoke had twisted him. And this is why Luke went into hiding - to undo the damage Snoke had done to him and find a way to close his mind to Snoke's influence. In the wreckage of his school, Luke found one student still alive - his youngest and most powerful student -- a little girl. You see, Luke had learned from the failures of the Jedi and did not force children to separate from their parents. Instead, the parents were with her at his school. This prevented Snoke from corrupting her, but Snoke also knew how powerful she was and sought to have her killed during the destruction of Luke's school. However, her parents sacrificed their own lives to save her, shielding her from the collapsing building while she slept. Luke took the girl with him for a short time, but quickly realized he needed to be alone to do the work he needed to do. He used one of the mind manipulations Snoke had taught him to lock away the little girl's memory, then hid her on Jakku with one of her parents' old friends, Unkar Plutt. He asked Plutt to teach her some useful skills, like hand-to-hand combat, languages, engineering, and how to pilot a ship. He even gave Plutt the Millennium Falcon as payment - Han had lost it gambling, but Luke had recovered it, and Han was not taking Luke's calls after losing Ben to Snoke. He asked his friend and scholar of the Jedi, Lor San Tekka, to watch over the little girl and gave him a map to find Luke should she start to regain her memory. Touching the lightsaber and Kylo's mind probe both started to break down the lock on Rey's memory, awakening some of what she had learned as a little girl. Much of TLJ could have been about her dealing with memory flashes. Replace the Kylo/Rey force time calls with her memory flashes - of Luke, Snoke, the school, and especially remembering Ben Solo as an older brother figure. Luke trains her in the force, but also teaches her about the folly of the Jedi dogma. He shows her the books he has collected - not only Jedi texts but texts from many cultures that all see the force in different ways. Some are very different from what the Jedi and Sith believe. None seem to know the absolute truth, but all contain kernels of knowledge. This is what Luke is building his new teachings around. Rey eventually finds a ship abandoned in a cave - a ship she has seen before in her memory of being left behind on Jakku - and she realizes it was Luke who abandoned her on Jakku. This leads to a big fight between them and her running away to find Kylo, who she now remembers as a big brother figure. Kylo takes her to Snoke as in TLJ. Snoke has known all along who she was, and thinks he can turn her now that she has no personal connections. As she and Kylo approach Snoke's throne, she has another memory flash, this one of Kylo killing her parents. Snoke tries to get her to kill Kylo and take his place as his apprentice. Kylo tells her it is a lie - that he never would have killed her parents and it is Snoke planting a false memory in her mind. She refuses to kill Kylo, but she is not sure who to believe. Kylo ends up freeing her and they fight Snoke. He is kicking their butts until something rocks his ship (not the Holdo maneuver - that lore-breaker has to go, too). So, they escape and don't kill him - Snoke is still going to be the big bad in movie three. They each go their separate ways - Kylo is still angry and twisted and Rey doesn't think she can trust him. Movie 3 will be about Kylo and the knights of Ren vs Snoke/First Order vs the Resistance. No Palpatine. What this solves: How Snoke got to Ben. Why Luke almost tried to kill Ben. Why Luke went into hiding. Why the Millennium Falcon, map to Luke, and Rey were all in the same place without relying on "the force works in mysterious ways" nonsense. Why Rey had so many skills, and could do a mind trick on the stormtrooper in The Force Awakens. No romance between Kylo and Rey - they are more like siblings. It prevents the awful Palpatine plot line in RoS. And it opens up the Star Wars universe so that the force can be used in many different ways by many different people other than Sith and Jedi. We can talk another time about how to correct the slow speed chase and Canto Bight portions of TLJ.

If you want to know a fun fact: J J Abrams creates mysteries without knowing the answers to them. Who are Rey's parents or who is Snoke? J J didn't know.

Snoke is the kind of character that for every answer you get about him will raise 3 more questions.

I honestly don't believe bringing back Palpatine was their "plan" all along. If that were the case, then why didn't they do this earlier? Honestly, I was a bit intrigued in Snoke when I first saw TFA. He could've been an interesting villain and I would've liked to see him actually train Kylo Ren as he says in the end of TFA "Leave the base at once and come to me with Kylo Ren. It is time...to complete his training." But unfortunately, that line was completely ignored. In TLJ, I got a genuine laugh when Snoke slams General Hux on the floor, breaking his nose through a hologram. Then....he was killed off which was a huge blunder. His revelation in TROS where he turns out to be Palpatine's experiment was cheap, generic, and underwhelming. Andy Serkis is a fantastic actor, and they did him dirty. What a waste.

You know what really is "subverting expectations"? Darth Vader being Luke's father. That's it, really subverted all the fans expectations in a fantastic and well done way. Not this shit.

Vote for Darth Traya y'all! Legends characters deserve recognition too.

When they said that Snoke wasn't a Sith, I was honestly intrigued. The Sith aren't the only Dark Side users in the galaxy, and this could have been an interesting opportunity to show true dark sorcery in Star Wars. It could even have been saved with his death in Episode 8. We know that SITH can't become force ghosts, but what if another type of Dark Side user could? Snoke could have been planning on dying all this time in order to achieve supreme power in the netherworld. This could have called forth the Force Ghosts to join in the fight. He could have been a force wound like Nihilus, using his death to enter the afterlife and feed on the Force itself, like a vampiric parasite. I would have loved to see him be some sort of mad Dark Side scientist. Could have even have him be Plagueis, who cheated death once because he hadn't completed his studies on how to materialise as a force ghost yet. But yeah...instead we got what we got...

As one of your commenters stated, Snoke was never meant to be a vessel or proxy to Papa Palps. The initial lore basically said that he was a new threat from the outer rim. Rian Johnson killing him off in the second movie of a trilogy was moronic, JJ Abrams reviving Palpatine was equally moronic. Too many chefs in the kitchen.

The emperor had a backstory. His backstory was that he created the empire and killed all the Jedi with Vader’s help. That’s all we really needed. The prequel trilogy was needed but at least it didn’t suck like the ST. Let’s hope there’s no ‘new prequels’ giving Snoke and the first order an origin story.

I remember when the cast was announced and had all of them reunited before or after the 2nd trailer And someone asked who Snoke was. And Daisy quietly said something like "isn't he Darth Plagues?" I'm pretty sure she said that

I feel like, off the top of my head, a way to have subverted the audience's expectations would've been for Ren to do what he did with the light saber, have Snoke give that gasp, show the shot of him being cut in half, like but then have the gasp turn into a laugh and see Snoke just rise up like it's nothing. And it could've been learned that the "normal" methods or the methods of the old jedi order wouldn't work on him and that's why he was able to wipe out the new jedi order before it even really started. And that's what Luke was trying to do on that island, find something to stop Snoke. But he was getting discouraged because he of what what happened with Ren, the destroyed order, and not being able to find any clues as to how to bring Snoke down. So Ray who has no connection to the jedis could've found some balance between the light and dark rather then it just being the way of the jedi and sith. Or in her past maybe she recalled a part of the galaxy, that was thought of as myth, and that's where they needed to go. Just something, but sadly we have the trilogy we have.

General Veers would be an interesting one to do, or maybe Nute Gunray

I think the biggest problem with Snoke is that they had Admiral Thrawn and decades of EU "post RotJ" IP in books, comics, games and toys. They threw all of that out so they could have a blank slate, which, actually, is a fine thing to do. But if you're going to release those movies on a 2 year schedule (compared to the 3 years for the other two trilogies) plus include "filler" movies like Rogue One and Solo and the other planned movies, you gotta spend some time planning out your story. If Disney wanted Star Wars to pump out movies like the MCU, it had to work like the MCU and leverage the years and years of IP for plots, characters and story elements, like Filoni and Favreau are doing with the tv shows.

That fucking picture of Rian holding up that card will never fail to piss me off. He literally just mocked everyone who was invested enough in the story to actually make theories. He called out Fans for *caring.*

I like having my expectations subverted. The Last Jedi just felt like it was twisting the plot because the writers didn’t know what they were doing or even cared about what happened before/after.

Here's the thing about his backstory. No one would be saying that his backstory isn't important or necessary if we had gotten his backstory and it had been good. You shouldn't just be able to say "It doesn't matter, it's just a story," in response to criticism unless you're willing to say that in response to people praising the story for not having the backstory. It feels like you're in a gunfight, forced to defend yourself and then realizing that you have no ammo in your gun, so you declare "This gun battle is stupid," and try to negotiate in an effort to hide your lack of ability to defend against any argument. 'Trolling' and claiming that things don't matter is what teenagers do, not grown adults. It isn't intelligent to declare 'This is stupid and for babies,' if you don't like something, it's immaturity. If the 15-year-old girls on Twitter are praising your 'epic burns' and witticisms in response to legitimate criticism, you need to realize that they're praising you because you're acting like a 15-year-old girl, and if you're a middle-aged man representing a big corporation, that's a very bad thing.

I'm 100% certain Snoke was a suppose to be a literal giant being, because now imagine normal snoke talking to tiny holograms on the floor. Also one of my favorite things said about TFA was "man did we need a George Lucas explanation of the politics in this movie."

I remember being upset at all the dumb twists that were happening half of the movie and when we got to Snoke and was literally panicking and whispering "omg please don't kill Snoke already. No (10X)" And hoped he was just a hologram after he pretended he was stabbed and letting the 2 jedis know he will wait for them in the next movie kinda like in Clone Wars when Emperor fought Savage and Maul. But of course they don't want nothing cool 😒 And I was pissed when Snoke was killed early and wasted Andy Serkis 😒 😑 I hate how delusional Rian Johnson is for star wars thinking he created a masterpiece

Johnson strikes me as a very shortsighted and self-centered writer. He does things based on his personal feelings and doesn’t care about how it may impact a larger story. He thought Snoke was boring, so he had him killed off without a bit of explanation. He thought Luke must have run as a failure, so Luke became a loser. He thought being “nobody” was the worst thing for Rey to hear, so he just tossed out all hints that would explain her abilities. He only cares about what he personally thinks and threw temper tantrums at fans who dared question him online.

i think Snoke’s killing not leading to an alliance between Rey and Kylo was a massive missed opportunity to create a really interesting premise

My favorite theory for Snoke going into the last jedi was that he was Darth Plagueis. I would say that Sideous couldn't just kill him but had to kill him in such a way that he wouldn't come back since Plagueis knew how to cheat death. I pictured Palpatine going to some hidden location where the body was and performing some sith ritual periodically to keep him dead but when the emperor was killed in the Return of the Jedi these rituals stopped allowing Plagueis to return under the guise of Snoke. I then coupled this to Luke hiding on that Island as the place where Plagueis was buried where Luke was stuck doing something to prevent Snoke/Plagueis from fully coming back which would explain the scared corpse like look. Resistance was trying to find Luke but he had rushed off so fast that he didn't fully explain what was up. Just imagine, Luke not completely undermined and a threat that even Palpatine feared.

Ok, when I saw Jar Jar Binks ahead of Admiral Holdo, Snoke, Rose, Rey and Finn, I simply couldn't stop laughing. 😅😅😅😅😅 It perfectly describes everything about The Sequel Trilogy and The Last Jedi. And also... I'm still laughing. 🤣🤣😂😅😅😅😅😅🤣🤣 Edit: Bad grammar because of the laughter

Man, I love you Thor Skywalker. Your videos comfort me so much - they are utterly relaxing. Thank you for providing me with the calm mood I need before bed after a day of work every evening. For a fan of Star Wars, it's wonderful to have content like yours - been a consistent fan (lurker more than commenter haha) for 5 years now! Keep up the amazing work :)

I forgot for a moment that Andy Serkis played him I guess this is just another mark on his franchise BINGO card. It is amazing that he has been in Middle Earth, Marvel, Star Wars, and DC.

What makes the Empire and Palpatine so interesting for me is the fact that many considered them the be "The Good Side" Stormtroopers had their reasons of joining and thought they were true order due to Empire propaganda and set ups like Order 66, branding Jedi as traitors/terrorists I look at Snoke and I genuinely have no idea why anyone would join The First Order when they've had 30 years or relative peace, and much less why anyone would join The New Order Simply hoping that these answers will be answered in extended material like books/comics (that we have to pay for) is just lazy writing

I will never get that "Your Snoke Theory Sucks" tweet. The fact that there were so many Snoke theories in the first place just goes to show how engaged the fans were with TFA. The fans had accepted the film, even with its flaws, and we're excited to learn the answers to all the mysteries that the film had set up. Someone should have lost their job over that tweet, because it actively mocks the fandom's engagement of the film and franchise. Without engagement and fans, Star Wars is nothing.

I was kind of hoping he would be a "Wizard of Oz" style character, someone who had no Force powers, but was the "Man behind the curtain" pulling the strings and bringing back the Sith's influence, knowing it was needed to get the Empire back, and Kylo would have to deal with putting his full faith in a fraud. I mean, I don't pretend to be a genius or anything, but my something is better than nothing.

Most people are willing to forgive the lack of backstory in the beginning is because yes they are starting out, and no point fleshing out backstory if it's not relevant to the overall story... but as the world grows bigger and lasts longer in the mainstream as the fanbase grows... people demand more because the fanbase is more diverse and some people really care about that stuff. Stakes raise as a series goes on, you can't cite just because the past did something a little sloppy doesn't mean you get to do the same thing...because now you have hindsight. Times are different when the series was created vs today, we expect more from our media.

This is Darth Bullsith of the Galactic Notification Empire! All wings, report in! Bullsith, standing by!

I was not upset about smoke being a failure, I was upset that the creators built him up, just to kill him in the most unsatisfying way ever. He was a waist of my time and everybody else who values good storytelling.

You really nailed it there- *immersion* is the true key to what's so great about Star Wars Immersion in the Galaxy Far, Far Away is the one factor that ties all fans together, whether it's OT purists, Prequel-era fans, OT/EU only fans, _everyone_

When Ryan Johnson and Pablo Hidalgo did that "Your Snoke theory sucks" is offensive, at the same time wanted to see an awesome Snoke canon, until it was revealed to be way worse than any fan Snoke theory out there. A giant Jar of pickled Snokes

JJ Abrams specifically, SPECIFICALLY told us to speculate about things... we were instructed to speculate on the movies, and its mysteries... then when we participated with the movie how we were told to, Rian Johnson got mad at us... because he doesnt know the difference between speculation and criticism.

Snoke being the manifestation of the dark side would have been cool, his origin being. The force attempting to restore itself to actual balance would have been cool as well.

Snoke is the Tommy Wiseau of Star Wars. When he rose to prominence, nobody knew who he was, where he came from, or what his deal was. The more recent attempts to answer those questions have failed to provide a satisfying enough response to the point where people like myself still deny he is anything but a mysterious figure with a mysterious background which cannot and never will be truly explained in a way that actually makes sense

Very fitting place for him. As a fan, I acknowledge the tragedy of the disney trilogy. What could have been...

After TFA I was so excited to see who snoke was and now literally until this video I had forgotten he even existed.

My favorite Snoke theory is that he was the Prime Jedi (who bears some resemblance in his abstract image) who went bad after starting the Order, so his followers turned against him but were unable to destroy him, so they sealed him away for thousands of years, until he escaped, possibly because of the Dark Side energy released by the death of the Sith. It was also a given that he was the source of the mysterious call from the Dark Side in the Unknown Reaches that only Palpatine could detect, but they quickly forgot about that, so I guess that will never be answered, even when Palps comes back...Him being Palpatine's test tube baby was the most boring of possibilities.

I would love to hear what everyone thinks of Exar Kun. He's always been one of my favorite sith and I'm curious to see what others think of him.

For me the red flag was making Snoke a puppet of Palpatine. They should’ve just made Snoke his own separate character, maybe he could’ve been part of the Sith order before Darth Bane, perhaps while the Sith were all killing each other off, somehow he went into hiding and discovered some dark side ability that made himself live longer or something like that. Heck he Could’ve even been Darth Plaguise back from the dead, meaning that unlike what Palpatine said in episode 3, he actually did find a way to save himself from death.

Utterly floored at my inclusion in the video, Thor! Many thanks and may the Force be with ya!

After all that mystery, intrigue, and theorizing, it turns out that he literally isn’t even a character, much less one lacking a backstory; he was just a meat puppet because “Somehow Palpatine returned.” Expanded material tries to explain he has something akin to a mind of his own, but we all know that’s nothing but another desperate attempt to posthumously patch things up.

Who Snoke was mattered because they “mystery boxed” him hard. It’s one of the issues where I think the clashing director’s visions messed that up. Rian tossing out Snoke like garbage was a huge problem because JJ, and Disney really, had already encouraged fans to obsess over his identity and significance.

Character nomination: Darth Nihilis

I have little hope that Ahsoka series could make sequel trilogy an alternate universe thanks to 'a world in between worlds' - its also on a cover for that series. For example, she meets Luke and shows him a possible future, but they would revert it by crushing rest of the empire, because they found out about Exegol.

Rian couldn't even do the surprise twist correctly. The throne room scene would have been much better (but still not good) had they not shown Kylo moving the lightsaber into position to betray him. I may have actually felt some excitement, but he subverted his own subversion.

For a while I thought the picture of Rian Johnson on the thumbnail was Photoshop. Who would communicate with the fans like that? It seemed too ridiculous to be true. But yes, it was indeed a real picture, wtf....

I kept waiting for them to tie Snoke in. I kept waiting for them to develop the "awakening" part. I kept waiting. Then they warped Luke into something he wasn't. But, Luke did kick it at the end. That was really nice, imo. Now whenever I see a movie with these director's names attached, I may not even bother knowing up front they aren't going to give me a story. They're just going to give me a sequence of events which just end.

I so badly wanted Snoke to be a explorer sent by Palpatine to survey the unknown regions who crashed on a remote moon (explaining the scars) and while sheltering trying to get rescued he was possessed by an ancient Sith (Vitiate?) from the shrine he was unwittingly using as shelter. This character would then become Snoke who will be attempting to regrow his dark side power in the body of this mangled non-force sensitive crack TIE pilot turned explorer.

It’s bad enough to undo every single accomplishment from the previous heroes, but it’s so much more infuriating when left unexplained and doesn’t even make much sense for that to happen in the first place.

To be honest the last comment pretty much hits home many facts about the sequel trilogy. The sequel trilogy is like if Kathleen Kennedy decided to build a 30 story building and then contacted 3 different architects to design 10 story sections of the building , and none of the architects are able to communicate with each other leading to building that is extremely haphazard, and doesn't make sense at all, and to top it all off during the construction of the building Kathleen Kennedy decided that the most logical thing she could do was piss off literally everyone that was working to build her building leading to them intentionally sabotaging the building causing it to be extremely weak, and has the real potential to collapse at any moment. What is left is a building that no one wants because it's damn impossible to navigate in many sections, and everyone is afraid it might collapse while they are in it.

I just remember the post TFA thrill of trying to guess who he was. Was he Plageuis? That seemed to be the most logical idea. But I remember theories for him being Mace Windu, Darth Vader, The Emperor. All of which would have been better than just being a clone. But what's more is that there was not only such potential, but multiple opportunities to save it. I remember after the initial disappointment of him dying and being insanely pissed off that he was nobody, noticing a slight hint, that he may not be entirely dead. When Hux enters the throne room, he sees Snoke dead and Kylo unconscious. He reaches for his blaster as if to kill Kylo for his betrayal. But last second he returns his blaster to it's holster. A second prior to that, we saw Snokes top half fall from his bottom half, as if pushed by an invisible force. I was convinced that Snoke's spirit had somehow left his body, thus causing the sudden movement of his lifeless corpse. I thought he had left the body of the old man, a man who could not have been killed so easily unless he had intended for it, and entered Hux's younger body. And he puts his blaster away because he is no longer Hux, but Snoke, not looking to kill Kylo but allowing his plan to continue. It would have been a great way to keep the character alive, to give him a younger body, to allow the 3rd film to have an awesome lightsaber duel between Snoke/Hux and Rey + Kylo. And if indeed it was Plageius, perhaps this was how he managed to keep himself from dying. He could transfer his life essence. Obviously, that never happened. But I always felt like not only did Rian ruin snoke with his subversion of expectations, by J.J.s lazy writing missed a golden opportunity to make a threatening villain who could have been a bigger threat, now he has ensnared a younger host. Snoke could have tied the whole saga together as the villainous Plageius who created Anakin, survived the prequels, watched over Palpatine's rise to power and watched as his creation ended his former apprentice. He saw his vision of a powerful apprentice (Vader) die, but then saw new hope in Luke and Leia and then Ben. Finally getting his apprentice, a great powerful sith lord, only for Kylo to remember he is a Skywalker and he is like his mother, his uncle, his grandfather. He is good and he will never be used as the tool that Plageius intended for him. That was the vision I had for the character. And I know it's foolish to make fan fiction in your head and expect the writers to match it. But even if the actual story was only 1 tenth as good, i'd have been happy. Instead, a clone who was nobody, meant nothing and died like a pathetic fool didn't even approach 1 hundredth of what i had hoped. It goes beyond missed opportunity. It was frankly, just mind numbingly stupid, lazy and thinking about it enrages me that they didn't get someone, anyone else to write it.

You and the quoted commentators cover this character pretty well. It's like you said: the sequels undo the ending of the original trilogy. The audience needs a good reason to justify that, and Snoke was supposed to be the reason. We were interested in him because we wanted to know why the whole Star War was happening again. I didn't read the tie-in books and merchandise, but from Wilderway's comment it sounds like the official origin of Snoke was similar to what I (and everybody else) imagined after The Force Awakens. I thought he was some kind of ancient Sith or Dark Side monster who'd been in hibernation for countless thousands of years. The First Order accidentally not so accidentally woke him up (will of the Force) and he easily took control of their organization. It's not as nuanced as the Emperor eventually came to be, but Snoke didn't need nuance. He just needed to be a satisfying villain. Even Ryan Johnson's twist didn't have to be the end of the character. Maybe he keeps reincarnating on Exegol as long as his followers have clone bodies for him. So Rey and Kylo (who's officially on Snoke's s*** list since Last Jedi) have to find and destroy all the clones to make sure he's dead. But that means destroying the planet....

I saw a great video recently by Nerdonymous called Star Wars apocrypha where he details the sequels and what exactly went on behind the scenes between LF/Disney and George Lucas, and how it was decided that they wouldn’t be using his story treatments . It’s a great and enlightening watch 10/10.

Snoke is the peak example of, “just because you subverted our expectations doesn’t mean you told a good story.”

Darth Plagueis is literally the MOST WASTED oppourtunity in all story telling

One of your BEST vids. Keep it up.

I agree that the twist of Snoke dying was an excellent way to subvert expectations and was great character development for Kylo Ren, and that ultimately, the issue was simply that we didn't get Snoke's backstory beforehand - and this was the issue with his character, especially after-the-fact that his backstory was not only pushed aside, but retconned in The Rise of Skywalker.

Outside of simply retconning The Last Jedi and making a different film where Snoke didn't die in a completely ballbrained manner, I think JJ's best bet would have been tweaking his Dark Empire-inspired plot outline for TROS. Perhaps instead of Palpatine being the mastermind behind Snoke, Snoke predicted that Kylo would eventually betray him and created puppet bodies using some forbidden knowledge of the dark side that makes him essentially immortal. Kylo would continue his war with the Resistance until it is revealed that Snoke has returned, perhaps at that point his men turn on him or he begrudgingly teams up with Rey and the team to put an end to the 'unkillable' menace. Killing off your villain and resurrecting them right away in the next film is corny, sure, but I think it'd build him up to being an even more powerful threat and not invalidate Luke/Anakin's work in the OT with defeating the Emperor, especially given there is a time skip between TLJ and TROS. I dunno. It's sad how much potential was wasted with these three films.

Rian Johnson did a terrible job with Snoke, but Abrams’s fix made things worse.

I remember on my way to the theater to watch TLJ opening night (I didn't want to tbh, but my mom wanted to for her Christmas present so I took her) theorizing that Snoke was gonna be the Disney Canon Abeloth. Needless to say I was quite stunned when they killed him off. I fully expected the corpse to suddenly dissappear, revealing that it was an illusion or something. Especially with how long the camera hung on him.

Imagine TFA starting with main character Ben Skywalker training with Luke, when suddenly he feels something very powerful, somethinf he hadn't felt since he fought with Palpatine and that is Snoke, some ancient guy strong in the force with his personal army

Snoke narrated his own death. That deserves an L more than an F.

Andy Serkis playing a character who gets killed off after being built up as a strong character in a Disney movie. Oh, and Snoke too. (Klaue was too good to get jobbed out in Black Panther)

You mention giving a reason for Snoke to exist. While they failed to do so in the Sequel Trilogy, I wanted to point out a good example of this: Grand Admiral Thrawn in the Thrawn Trilogy from the 90's. Admittedly, the setting was only about 5 years after the Return of the Jedi (instead of the 40 or so for the Sequel Trilogy), but the situation had played out exactly as you had outlined: The New Republic has replaced the Galactic Empire. Luke has not yet started his Jedi Academy, but he has begun some training of Leia. He is continuing to better understand the Force and is also stepping in to advise the leadership of the New Republic as they continue to expand. By the beginning of this story, the Empire has been reduced to a quarter of its previous holdings over the known galaxy. They have been, more or less, in retreat for the last 5 years. But, as the story begins, that retreat is about to shift to an offense that could completely topple the fledgling New Republic. Enter Grand Admiral Thrawn. What is a Grand Admiral? We soon find that these were a unique rank of warlord that essentially reported directly to the Emperor and had the authority to take command of any situation they wanted to insert themselves into. Thrawn was additionally exceptional in that he was not human. The Empire favored humans and openly discriminated against all aliens. The fact that Thrawn had been granted this level of authority spoke to his skills. We quickly learn about his fascination with different species’ art and his ability to distil their military abilities and strategies from reviewing it, then exploiting blind spots found in their tactics and ways of thinking (shown in action in the first chapter of the first book). Couple these abilities with his finally finding a hidden storehouse of the Emperor’s secret technologies and information and he becomes a very real threat to the New Republic. While the above is brief, it gives a reason for the original Thrawn trilogy to exist and to continue the story that was wrapped up so well in Return of the Jedi.

Snoke would have been much more interesting if he was just a hologram for the first two films. Then, in the third, he's revealed to be an illusion. Like somethign from The Wizard of Oz. Behind the curtain would be a coven Force-using witches or somesuch who were trying to bring the galaxy to ruin by plunging it into a new civil war.

It was such an easy setup for Snoke to have been Darth Plagueis

I always thought it would be like Abaloth, a daemon of the force. But no, we got nothing but a silly old weirdo. The villain in the second Ewok film was more intimidating.

Snoke ALWAYS mattered he should have been written as a ancient being/threat that exists outside the Galaxy.

After looking into "Legends", I think I know what JJ originally was doing. Snoak shares alot of similarities to Joras C'baouth and Grand Admiral Thrawne. Joras was a clone of a Jedi Master that was lost in an expedition outside of the galaxy. That in itself was the first tidbit that lead to the eventual conquerors from another galaxy later on, which Palpatine knew about. This clone Joras worked with Thrawne once he was discovered safeguarding Palpatine's hidden storehouse, but Joras was old and crazy by the time Thrawne found him. He works with Thrawne and the empire to hopefully make Luke, Leia, and her twins his apprentices. He almost succeeds but is defeated along with Thrawne. This was 5 years after ROTJ but I'm sure JJ was setting up a variation of that but later down the line, but he didn't stay on and Ruin Johnson wrote TLJ before TFA was even finished. Hence stupid history from there. JJ kind of confirmed the clone part in 9 but warped it to do a form of Dark Empire, the clone palpatine story from the comics.

Snoke who? Yeah, Disney made sure he was a nobody in the most irrelevant, and self-immolating way.

He could have been a really cool new villain character, in episode 7, I like his appearance but in episode 8, they though him away I was hoping that he would have been Darth plagues resurrected but they didn't do that thanks to Rain Johnson. 😠

I think Supreme Leader Snoke may actually be someone's favorite Star Wars character.

At first we didn't know if Snoke was sone type of alien or not. I kinda wish he was some type of undiscovered alien strong in the force which would've added to the creepy factor and explained his weird height and look.

The fact that Rey, the main protagonist of the sequel trilogy is only two spots above Snoke says a lot. JJ and Ryan Johnson handled the sequel trilogy terribly, and Ryan’s just an unlikable asshole who can’t take criticism and disregards it as racism or sexism

"Your Snoke Plan Sucks" is what SOMEONE should have told Rian during production.

“I’ve been looking forward to this.” - Count Dooku

Thor, make one for Darth Traya (the betrayal). She is linked to both Revan and the Jedi exile Meetra, could make an awesome video regarding her agenda and philosophies!

Snoke in each movie is a microcosm of the whole film (and more over the whole trilogy). TFA: interesting with potential. TLJ: utter waste and disappointment. TRoS: neurotic and desperate. The Sequel Trilogy: what was the point?

The real Big Bad of the Sequel Trilogy was Rian Johnson.

2:49 Palpatines backstory is self explanatory, he is introduced in empire strikes back, he is the Emperor of the “evil empire” (from title crawl and context of new hope) hence why he is evil, and why he is in power

The fact that the sequel trilogy (specifically episode 8) is so associated with the term "subverting expectations" really does a disservice to the concept of subverting expectations. The original six movies subverted our expectations all the time and it was great. Basically every good story subverts our expectations at some point. But there needs to be a reason why are expectations are subverted. For example, in Empire Strikes Back when it was revealed that Darth Vader was Luke's father it wasn't a good plot twist just because it was shocking, it also completely changed the relationship between Luke and Vader and made the story more meaningful. It was a subversion of expectations that had a purpose. The sequel trilogy just subverted expectations for the sake of subverting expectations and the writers thought that this was great storytelling for some reason.

I honestly think Snoke COULD'VE been a great character even if they kept his origins the same...if only they'd dived into that a bit more in the movies! Contrary to popular belief, Snoke is actually an independent being who existed during the Empire's reign, and has no idea about where he came from. He's not just a puppet or a clone, he was once younger and gained this power through combat experience. That would be super cool! He doesn't look old and injured because he's a clone, but because he's actually old and seen battle, including a fight with Luke! The problem is that it came out of nowhere and is now only available in supporting material that no one is gonna read...

If Snoke wasn't bad enough, i remember after the movie came out, and even until episode 9 came out. There were still Snoke funko pops on the shelfs and his toy from the classic toy packaging. In which no one cared or bought them. Is how you know you made a terrible character because no one was interested. I would have gotten a Snoke pop figure but he sucks, so no thank you

Something about Snoke always reminded me of the first time we ever saw Palpatine in Empire Strikes Back hologram form. Not just appearance but also in speech. I wonder if that was intentional.

Thor Skywalker can you please tell us what rating you personally give snoke if you were to vote in your own poll? curious to know how you rate snoke and the other characters you rank as well in the future. thanks.

God the snoke theories were literally the best thing ever and it made me even more excited for the movie and they really unified the fandom but unfortunately they all sucked I guess.

I am torn on this subject... I was waiting for him to pay off, but he really did seem the Emperor all over again, but at least not the Emperor again... Rian Johnson punked him to "subvert expectations"... I was somewhat intruiged in The Force Awakens but it was a huge waste, therefore he sucks

Seeing that popularity list is really interesting. I know it's a relatively small sample size but there are some surprises in it. A lot of people really liked the clone wars series. Ashoka is up really high. I remember a time when people hated her and thought she was an annoying kid.

Have you heard the tradegy of Snoke? He was played as villain but was a joke. Kylo cut him in half, which made me laugh. And showed how Disney Star Wars is broke.

They cast one of the finest character actors as a throwaway dark lord wannabe and killed him off in the second movie. What an appalling waste…

The sequel trilogy is just a poor continuation of the franchise. Everything the prequels and the original trilogy set up and resolved was just erased. Very poor writing. They really made some flashy movies that could have had great potential. The establishment of Luke’s Jedi order should have been the focal point. Kylo Ren destroying Luke’s temple just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like painting yourself into a corner. Now where can they go from here? Rey is to rebuild the Jedi order? Good luck with that. Idiots

I have yet to see episode 9, never think I'll bother at this point. Some of my main issues with the sequels are the amounts of "why?", "how?", "when?", "who?" and "what?", I ended up with through the two first movies. I only ended up with more of these questions after hearing about the third film.

In MY Star Wars Snoke is a Force Clone made by Plagueis. The scene where Palpatine had murdered his master wouldve been shown and then the scene wouldve panned greatly out into space and then focus upon a small space station attached to an oddly shaped floating asteroid where inside there is some ceyptlike cocoon sith alchemical machine. Inside, after Plagueis's "death", we see him emerge messed up and broken. Plagueis is seen re-entering his cocoon after he loads up lightsaber Crystal's as a fuel source, stepping back inside, and the machine producing an adult Force Clone of himself in which Plagueis is seen then occupying by his Sith Spirit. We see him power unknown machines up, stepping into a star ship and heading into the core space. THEN we get a flashback of the Knights of Ren as they're created, a series of extremely trained individuals with some force sensitivity and have them terrorizing places as they search for Luke Skywalker and foreshadow why Luke left (the whole second film should have been about this). We cut to a modern Ren and que the rest of the film........... This alone wouldve saved the entire franchise.