The Snoke Schism

Um, you were told the backstory in the very first movie. We just saw it illustrated 20 years later. Here, no backstory is given, and the opportunity to make movies about it, with current cast, has passed.

 

Wow and thats what you want. Like I have said many times over it was a throw away line.

The complete back story explained to us in ANH how the Empire came to be.

"For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire."

And in fact in the prologue of the novelization the Emperor was depicted as a politician that was controlled by others.

"Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears."

 

You forgot the part where he indicates that Vader helped the Empire hunt down and destroy all the Jedi. But yes, that's all most of us want, just some context. Something simple. It's better than NOTHING.

It seems sort of contradictory to say that no backstory works in the OT but at the same time decry the few lines of exposition we did get.

 

Even that isnt really accurate either. It implied that the Empire was already in place when Vader helped. Thats not really what happened.

 

Not exactly the point. In all, it at least gave us the basic gist of the conflict's origins. There was an Empire, this is how the Empire was started (roughly), and this is why I'm a strange old Hermit now.

 

I disagree it does not say how it was started. Just that there was an old republic and then an empire. Says Luke father fought in Clone wars. Doesnt say Clone wars was how the empire got created. Then Vader helped hunt down Jedi. Leaves out the whole Order 66 stuff. Basically throw away stuff that Lucas then had to fit in as best he could. Throwing away the idea the Emperor was controlled by bureaucrats. It did absolutely nothing to make ANH a better movie. All we needed to know was that the Rebellion was fight bad Nazi like Empire. Then next 2 films did nothing to further the back story.

 

"For thousands of generations the Jedi were guardians of peace and justice." - That to me sounds like there was a period of piece.

"Before the dark times, before the Empire" - That sounds like a clear break in the peace.

Do we really need to know that the mission to hunt down and destroy the Jedi was called "Order 66?" No, we learned what we needed to learn. The Jedi were guardians and Vader helped the Emperor hunt down and destory all the Jedi. Heck, from Obi-Wan's point of view, he may not have even known that it was called "Order 66."

I disagree whole-heartedly. It offered us breadcrumbs as to what was going on, allowing us to learn through our protagonist what the overall big picture was. It put us emotionally behind Luke, wanting to see him help restore peace and see him avenge his father's "death." That entire scene was key to the trilogy. Without it, it is just an action flick with no substance or backbone foundation, kind of what we have now.

 

While Andy Serkis did great as Snoke while i am interested his backstory i dont need it Kylo Ren has been set Up as the Big bad even where we are it in the story made him a bigger threat also he is more complex than Snoke who is one note sorry but Im Happy Snoke is out the picture

 

You are not getting my point. We were told at one time we had a republic that lasted 1000s of year then boom Empire with absolutely no back story how it happened. We were told Vader helped an already existing Empire hunt down the Jedi. Just going by the tense of the words.

We were told in the book that the Emperor was just a petty bureaucrat controlled by others.

Thats it. You dont know how the FO came about. You dont know how Snoke came to lead the FO. Hell you know more about Snoke in 2 films then you knew about the Emperor in ANH and ESB. In ANH the only mention of the Emperor is in a military staff meeting. We are even told that Vader is controlled by Tarkin. The backstory changes. Well I would say the emotional thing that turns Luke isnt his fathers "death" it was the death of his Aunt and Uncle. He justed wanted to follow his father and be a great warrior. The Empire could have been described a 100 ways and the scene still does the same thing. The description of the empire is throw away.

 

But once again, we eventually got the backstory and how Palpatine came into existence. By the time ESB was made, we knew that there were preceding Episodes that would hash things out for us.

This isn't the start of the saga at this stage; this is a continuation of events that we've been a part of since the start of Palpatine's plot.

And Snoke isn't some throwaway character, even if they're trying to make him into one. He, for all intents and purposes, is the very reason there even is a ST story. He ruined the work of all of our protagonists and turned them into losers. I just can't get behind the idea that that does not warrant more explanation. What is the motivation of the FO? Why are they so hell bent on the Empire returning? How did Snoke assume power over remnants of the old Empire so quickly? How did he also infiltrate our Skywalker/Solo friends' lives? Where was he during the OT/PT events? Does he have a personal grudge against the Skywalkers or is running the galaxy his only motivation? Why is he so obsessed with force balance? This should have all been explained and hashed out by now.

Once again, if a random person watching Star Wars for the first time watched all 8 episodes in sequence, they'd be wondering who or what the heck is a Snoke after seeing him suddenly appear on screen. That should not be the case at this stage of the game. This is a connected saga telling a long term story, a long term story that has a massive, untold plot hole right after episode 6.

 

Oh know you dont. That doesnt count. We know we will get backstory on FO and Snoke. We already have got some of it in books. For the people that really care we are getting information. For the general public, the my wives of the world they just dont care.

Also will add we had to wait nearly 20 years for that backstory.

 

Seems like a good stopping point, since we're talking in circles.

 

TBVH - I agree with you, but at the same time, I really feel like Snoke was just bait for us to feel more involved with Kylo but had 0 real influence on the grand scheme of things. Yes, he was the technical leader of the new regime, but was sooooo played up to be something he really wasn't. The anticipation and over inflation of what Snoke could do with that line from Leia really disappointed me. I was anticipating some one on our above Palpatine's level.

 

I think it's easier to accept unknown past events when coming into a new franchise, as when Star Wars started in 1977. Speaking only for myself, I find it easy to accept that some stuff happened before the start of the first movie in a new series. With TFA, we've got the history and then an unexplained new, humongous, powerful entity that doesn't get an introduction. They simply appear, destroy a few planets housing the current government and then are controlling much of the galaxy in a matter of days. There's no mention of the FO controlling anything at all before TFA, then they control almost everything. It just seems like they wanted to have the setup of the OT with the huge evile government controlling everything and the small band of rebels resisting them instead of having the good guys in charge facing some new threat. By the end of TFA you got the same setup as ANH.

 

While I loved TFA one of my complaints is that it did do a poor job of setting up the current state of the galaxy. Unless you follow other sources of canon there is no way of knowing that the Republic does not see the FO as a growing threat but the Resistance does. The Republic controls the majority of the galaxy and they let the FO do their thing in the in the outer part of the galaxy. Leia being as astute as she is recognizes the FO is growing in strength to then have a power grab.

JJ made a mistake when editing the film by cutting out a scene that would have given us a small glimpse into the state of the galaxy. There was a scene where Leia sends Korr Sella (played by Masie Richardson and scene briefly right before Hosnian Prime is destroyed) to Hosnian Prime to try to gather support from the Republic. If this scene is left in we would get a hint at the fact the Resistance is actually acting against the Republic and that the full Republics support is not behind them because they do not see the FO as a threat. Leaving this scene in would have only extended the movie by a few minutes but would have given a lot of exposition

The FO did not become fully capable of controlling a large part of the galaxy until after they destroyed the Republic and most of the Republic resources with Starkiller base. Then in TLJ they try to hunt down and destroy the Resistance completing their attempt at positioning themselves for further control of the galaxy.

 

Think this means anything, or is Hammil just clowning with us like he always does?



A transliteration of the Aramaic term abba also appears three times in the Greek New Testament of The Bible. Each time the term appears in transliteration it is followed immediately by the translation ho pater in Greek, which literally means “the father.” In each case it is used with reference to God.

 

Just clowning

 

This confirms that Snoke was a mutated Luuke


ABBA is also name of a pop band that would dress in a similar fashion and they were popular in the 70s/80s

 

This is pretty much almost on the point of what I believe the core issue is.

The core issue, to me, isn't Snoke; it's Kylo.

In the OT and the PT, we only have one protagonist arc to attend to. We don't follow an antagonist around and sympathize with them.
There's one central character in each and that's that. Luke, Anakin. Done.

We don't follow the inner turmoils of Vader in the OT, and we don't follow the inner turmoils of Palpatine in the PT.

However, in the ST we follow Rey and Kylo both in regards to their character growth and inner turmoils.
Yes, we sympathize with Vader at the end of ROTJ, and yes, we can find ourselves sympathizing with Palpatine a tad bit in ROTS, but we're doing it through and because of our protagonists, not because we've spent the whole time buddying up with the antagonist in screen time.

Vader, for instance, is called upon for our sympathy in about 2 minutes of total screen time out of the entire trilogy. The Endor meeting with Luke, and the final bits of the Throne Room and his death.
In both cases, we're getting pulled to sympathize with him because of Luke guiding us into that - because Luke is sympathizing with Vader.

The same pretty much happens with Palpatine in the PT; it's just a more tragic sympathy because we know that Anakin is turning to the dark side. We're not left with a, "Hey, well...there's good still there in the guy!" thought after the turning, but that's because the OT turned the antagonist, and the PT turned the protagonist.

One goes one way, and the other goes the opposite way.

Ahhh, that wonderful Star Wars chiasmus in full effect!

However, with the ST...again...we're not looking at Kylo as an antagonist the likes of Palpatine of the PT or Vader of the OT.
Kylo is Anakin. Rey is Luke. Just, both are reversed in their behavioral responses from their predecessors.

In a crude Star Wars style chiasmus lineup Kylo would end turning to good, and Rey would end turning to bad...that probably won't happen, because that would just be a straight simple inversion chiasmus approach, and that doesn't appear to be what the ST formula is running on. Instead, they seem to be reversing, rather than inverting, prior arcs and motifs. That lends more to ideas like that neither Kylo and Rey turn (in my perfect world, they would kill each other in a Greek tragedy, but we're in America, so that's probably not going to happen since ending a trilogy with both protagonists dying is typically considered a big downer and would likely just piss some fans off because there wasn't a superman hero left standing...although, they could both die after teaming up at the last moment to save the galaxy from some larger threat; that works for American audiances).

Anyway, the point here is that we are intimately more involved with Kylo than any antagonist of the past. That's why I personally don't think of him as an antagonist. I mean, he is, but he's so dove into psychologically, and we're given so many excuses for his disposition and behavior that we can easily see him as a psychological victim of his circumstances, so he's more of a tragic protagonist than a simple antagonist.

WHICH means that Snoke, in this respect, is not exactly like Palpatine to us, because Palpatine of the OT was a figure which had a relationship to Luke; not Vader.
We didn't care what the relationship between Palpatine and Vader was during the OT that much.
We did, however, care a lot as to what that relationship was during the PT because that's what the whole thing was about.

Snoke isn't juxtaposed in a direction related to Rey.
Snoke is juxtaposed in a direction related to Kylo.

That means that Snoke is a moral narrative context for our Anakin story in Kylo. And in the PT, we didn't just knee-jerk Palpatine to the back seat like we did in the OT. We examined him a bit more deeply because it mattered to our story about Anakin.

Now, the ST has the same thing going on because we're compelled to understand, sympathize with, and root for, Kylo.
As such, it's not that the films left this gate hanging about who Snoke was and this is what lead an audience to be frustrated. Sure, that happened, but the only reason anyone gave a damn was because we care about Kylo in ways FAR beyond what we cared for Vader.

The problem however, is that the ST, being a chiastic response to BOTH the PT and OT has to basically have BOTH Palpatines in one saga.
The Palpatine of the OT who was the back seat that we didn't really need much from because our antagonist was Vader, and the Palpatine of the PT who needed to be more front row a bit because our antagonist was Palpatine.

So Snoke has to be Kylo's version of Anakin's Palpatine, AND he has to be Rey's version of Luke's Palpatine in one trilogy, all the while, we unfortunately, can't soak up a huge amount of screen time on Snoke because, remember, we have TWO protagonists to follow in the space of three films; not six!

We have to follow NeoAnakin (Kylo) and NeoLuke (Rey), both weaving into their arcs that are following a series of reversals of ProtoKylo (Anakin) and ProtoRey (Luke).

This means there's going to be inherent muddy waters in a few spots, and one of those spots is Snoke.
How exactly do you make a story that has Luke's Palpatine and Anakin's Palpatine in one character who has to serve as both respectively to two principle protagonists of the narrative?

You don't. You run Snoke half-way up the PT Palpatine ladder to motivate Kylo in the opposite manner that Palpatine did in the PT, which means Snoke needs to make fun of and demean Kylo in attempts to help him grow instead of buttering him up and talking fluff in his hear like Palpatine (chiasmus reversal), and then you have to knee-cap that story off because you also have to flip around on a dime and resolve your narrative gymnastics move by landing on a Palpatine arc that motivates Kylo to sympathize with Rey in the opposite manner that Vader did in the OT - that is, in the OT Palpatine was poking and taunting Luke to attempt to turn him to the dark side, and that eventually lead Vader to be the one who ended up turning. Instead, this time around, Snoke is attempting to butter Rey up briefly, which doesn't work, but all of the taunting that he's done to Kylo causes Kylo to turn against Snoke. However, again...because we're doing reversals in the ST, neither Kylo or Rey end up turning to the other side when all is said and done.

Kylo ends up at a position of Anakin, morally justified in his mind to the dark side, but gets there by an action Vader did to resolve to being morally justified in the light side. Meanwhile, Rey ends up at a position of Luke at the end of ESB, morally justified in her mind to the light side, but gets there through resolving to remain in opposition to Kylo (her Vader) rather than resolved like ROTJ would have had her become.


Because of this tangled weaving "mess" that the chiastic narrative form compels, this leaves Snoke in a confused middle area because it's really impossible to write a deep story in 4 hours and 48 minutes about the PT Palpatine and Anakin, and the OT Vader and Luke.

That's simply insanity.
Those who got really invested in the Kylo/Snoke tangent (which is reasonable to do) are going to likely feel like their kneecaps got chopped off because to them, that's like watching the PT and in AotC Palpatine just gets killed before a larger and more tenuous narrative crescendo between Palpatine and Anakin can be explored.

It's something akin to following two characters, Michael and Cynthia, who are struggling in their relationship because Michael cheated on Cynthia with this other person, Brandi, and you're one and a half hours into it, really invested, and suddenly a bus hits Cynthia, and on the other side of the street is the Brandi - standing there with her husband, Mark, who is dying of cancer in the next couple weeks...you'd be feeling pretty knee-capped until the story bothered to swing that around and make you understand why in the hell they just spent an hour and a half investing you in Michael like that and ripped that tangent right out unresolved.

OK, that can make for a damn good story, but if we're in the moment of that first hour and a half, then that can definitely be frustrating - especially if you're interested in that story between Michael and Cynthia. Well...you'll never know what that relationship was going to go on like because it ended. Poof!

PERSONALLY, I'm not bothered by this at all, because I look at Snoke as the role that he is to Rey, and only his role unto Kylo in so far as it served to deliver Kylo up to Rey and Rey to Kylo, BUT I can easily see the problem, and if I had written these scripts I wouldn't have done anything differently, but I would also know for certain that I was going to unfortunately frustrate a batch of the audience by the shear arrangement of the narrative structure.


Cheers,
Jayson