One of the most shocking moments in Star Wars: The Last Jedi comes when Supreme Leader Snoke is sliced in half by Kylo Ren as he uses the Force to ignite his grandfather's lightsaber. The villain's demise occurred without us ever learning anything significant about the leader of The First Order's past, something which has frustrated fans who have spent the past two years speculating about his origins.
Asked in a recent interview if Snoke was just a red herring for a larger threat, Rian Johnson replied:
"Well, I don’t know about ‘red herring.' But he is definitely… Snoke’s place in this movie came about largely from me figuring out Kylo’s arc, what Kylo’s arc was going to be in this movie. In my mind what I wanted to do with Kylo was to take him and basically knock out the kind of shaky foundation from under his feet, and build him by he end of the movie into someone who’s standing up as a credible, but complex villain. He’s taken the reins, basically. He’s no longer a Vader pretender. He’s somebody who actually is going to be going into the next movie [as] someone who’s taken control and taken the reins of everything."
As for whether or not the idea was always for Snoke to be killed, it turns out it was Johnson's idea.
"That led very quickly to that idea. Because then you get to… okay, you have Kylo there at the end, what is Snoke’s place in all this? And do you really want Kylo to be that but with an Emperor figure over him? And if it is that, then suddenly your options are much more familiar going into the next movie. So it led to this notion of okay, so that means we’re going to have this dramatic moment where Snoke goes [dies] and that means that Kylo can then ascend, actually ascend. And then that means that all bets are off for the next movie and we can’t go into it with assumptions of what’s going to happen, because we’ve taken away the familiar element, which I think is powerful."
"And ultimately Snoke was not built up in the last movie. He was built up with fan theories since the last movie. The truth is Snoke has a couple of very brief scenes in the last film. And I love fan theories by the way. I don’t want to just poo-poo them. I think that’s an important part of Star Wars fandom and I think it’s really fun to think about where these people came from, but the truth is in terms of Snoke’s actual place in this movie, it’s much more similar to the Emperor’s place in the original trilogy. It’s not about where he comes from. It’s not about his backstory. He is the guy behind the guy, and I think he plays out his part in this movie as is appropriate."
The director makes a great point here as The Force Awakens really only introduced a hologram with a name and didn't really lay the groundwork for The Last Jedi to do much with the villain. Ultimately, Johnson should probably be applauded for taking things in a bold direction instead of giving him a convoluted past and moving into Episode IX with the same old master/apprentice dynamic we've seen.
Unfortunately, so many fan theories surround the character that expectations were always going to be high and that meant many were inevitably going to be disappointed by whatever happened here. What do you guys think? As always, be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.