STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Director Rian Johnson On The Parallels Between Snoke And Palpatine
Episode VIII director Rian Johnson discusses how Emperor Palpatine in the original trilogy differs from the prequels and how that influenced his approach to depicting Supreme Leader Snoke.
It sounds like Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson likes his powerful DarkForce leaders to have an air of mystery. As such, he wasn't really a fan of seeing Emperor Palpatine's rise to power in the prequel trilogy. In a new Empire Magazine interview, Johnson stated:
“We got the whole story of Palpatine’s rise to power in the prequels, but in the original films he’s exactly what he needs to be, which is just ‘The Emperor.’ He’s a dark force: the scary thing behind the thing. That was entirely how I approached Snoke. I wasn’t interested in explaining where he came from or telling his history, except where it serves this story.”
In short, while it appears that much of Episode VIII will be devoted to pulling back the curtain on what Luke's been up to all these years and possibly even Rey's parentage, don't expect any major revelations regarding Andy Serkis' Snoke. Perhaps his tale will be left for Colin Trevorrow's Episode IX?