RJ answered the only question that was being asked

To be clear, here is an example template of what I am asking for from you:

The part of the plot that is broken because of the lack of a backstory for Snoke is ____________________________________________________.
​

I'm asking you to fill in the blank with a problem with the plot.
I understand that you wanted a backstory for Snoke.
I'm not asking what you would have liked to know more about.
I'm asking what is broken by the backstory for Snoke not being in the movie.

I am sorry for the confusion.

Cheers,
Jayson

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 14, 2018 ---

OK, so you don't think the film is of poor quality for lacking the backstory, you just would have rather there been one because you would have liked to have seen that in this film and not some other time potentially.

Cool.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

He has more background and is more developed than the Emperor though

One part of me wants to know, like you, the backstory of Snoke, everything, another part of me does not and prefers the mystery. For an author it is always a tightrope to properly distribute information.

For instance, just imagine hypothetically , that Snoke would return in IX in some shape or form and that he would have survived death. That itself would be a major character reveal and would point everyone in the direction of Plagueis again. But if you would have told Snoke's complete backstory now in Episode VII or VIII that reveal, of him surviving death, wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't be a surprise because his scars tell a history, namely that he has survived mortal wounds before.

 

Ok. I'll play along. But I can already hear the objections.

When Rey asks "Why did you hate him?" I felt Kylo's answer was shallow. It might've sounded cool, but it lacked depth. I thought that was a golden opportunity to provide depth and backstory with just a few lines. Something along the lines of... (this is just an EXAMPLE)

"Han Solo was never my father. He was a smuggler and a scoundrel. What was he doing when you met him? He was never there for me. He was never there for my Mother. Do you know how many times he betrayed her? And she was no better. I was raised by handmadiens. The only thing she truly loved was the Rebellion. The Resistance. She couldn't wait until the day she could send me off to Luke. That's why I killed Han Solo. And that's why I will kill the Resistance."

Those few lines provides insight as to why Kylo is angry, and how he could be seduced by the Dark Side. He felt unloved and abandoned. It shows that while he hated his Father, he blamed the Resistance for his Mother's absence (not her). That's why he couldn't pull the trigger on her when he had the chance. Just a few lines like this makes Kylo relatable and almost sympathetic. It almost makes his turn to the Dark Side understandable. It also provides a little more backstory to what happened between Han & Leia, and an additional reason as to why they split-up. And his rhetorical question "What was he doing when you met him?" lends validity to his point of view, which is not lost on Rey.

If you're still with me, how about after Kylo kills Snoke, something like... (another EXAMPLE)

"Join me, Rey. Don't you understand how similar we are? Don't you understand what we're capable of? I see in you what Snoke saw in me. We had no parents. We were abandoned. We were never good enough. Not even to Snoke. But look at him now. I have taken his place. And I choose you to stand beside me. We can end the Resistance and the First Order right here, right now. Join me, Rey."

This is an even more blatant look into Kylo's feelings, and now they carry even more weight because everything he's saying is true. Rey knows it, and so does the audience. Which makes the anticipation of Rey's response even more dramatic.

So there you go. Now I hand it off to the naysayers...

 

I have no nay to say.
All I have to offer was that I already got these messages from the movie's subtext.

I suppose they could rely on less subtext?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Thanks for the clarification. It makes my answer to your particular question simple. You are correct - The lack of Snoke's backstory has no effect on the plot of the movie. I thought I had answered that previously, but I must've done a poor job of conveying that. I think that the overall point I'm trying to make is that there is a lack of engagement or connection to the plot when the characters lack depth and importance. Without that, it just feels like a bunch of cool scenes that are stuck together. The scenes don't really matter, since the characters didn't really matter. As an audience member, you (TFA & TLJ) led me to believe that this was a powerful and important character. Only to find out that he was disposable bad guy who really didn't matter after all.

In fact, now I'm wondering why Snoke was even in the movies at all? Was he REALLY needed?

You could've told the same story from TFA on, with Kylo already being the Supreme Leader. Just give Kylo some of Snoke's power to make him more intimidating.
TFA - He comes across Rey, he sees she's powerful, he captures her, they fight, she escapes.
TLJ - He does the ESP thing with her, she confronts him, maybe they fight, he asks her to join him, she says no and leaves.
Sure, it effects some other aspects of the film, but Snoke was not required for Kylo & Rey's relationship to develop as it has thus far.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 14, 2018 ---

I think we have reached an agreeable compromise!

 

I think the answer is simply that Disney hasn't put as much thought into it as fans are doing. Its an unsatisfactory answer but i think its one we have to embrace if we want to enjoy future star wars films.

 

Sure: First of all, George Lucas always referred to Star Wars as "silent movies". I'm too lazy to look up any quotes, but everyone owning the PT dvds or blurays can hear him say it on the commentary tracks. His basic view of these movies has always been that you shouldn't have to explain too much. Star Wars movies are supposed to be felt, not interpreted on an intellectual level. That's the basic rule of making these films, and everyone involved in the process seems to get it. The problem is that fans usually tend to overthink everything.
Some examples: The whole beginning of ANH, where we're thrown into a completely foreign environment. No one ever explains what a droid is or why the empire is evil. We just get it by watching that giant ship suck in the little one and by following R2 and 3PO around for fifteen minutes. Another example: The ending of ROTS (the PT, but it's all Star Wars). It's a silent movie par exellence.
JJ Abrams totally got the whole idea of "show, don't tell", because it's not exactly an exotic concept and more like a basic rule of good screenwriting. The concept of Starkiller Base was hardly explained (even though it could have used a bit more explaining). Instead we got a long sequence showing us how it was used - even the rather unbelievable fact that Finn and Han could see its beam in a completely different system can be attributed to the idea of "show, don't tell". Abrams just went with the best visuals and didn't care for scientific accuracy. That whole approach is totally in line with how Lucas made these movies.
I'll happily add more examples from the older movies later, just having a hard time concentrating with my kids going berserk all around me...

 

Ok, the kids are asleep and I'm able to think again (no yelling and jumping around on me). I'll continue with examples for "leaving things vague and up to interpretation". Sticking to the OT this time:
- The state of the galaxy (we only hear about a senate, meet the emperor late in the game, never see a "civilized world" before the SE added Coruscant)
- The structure of the rebel alliance (how big is it? Who's involved? How is it financed? Who are the leaders? Many things were retroactively clarified by Rebels and RO, but the OT kept things vague)
- The Empire (how do they control an entire galaxy? What makes them so powerful and evil? How does imperial society look like? We never saw an actual "civilized" imperial system, only the death stars as mere representations of the empire's power)
- Jabba the Hutt (why is he so feared? Are there other Hutts around? How powerful is his organization? Why does he want to get his tiny hands on Han so badly?)
- Time and distance in ESB (how much time does Luke spend on Dagobah? How long does the falcon's journey to Bespin take?)
I could go on and on.

But the most important example, since it's a complete analogy to the whole Snoke situation:
- Yoda (What's his last name? What's his race called? How come we didn't hear of him in ANH? How did he become so powerful? Has he always lived on Dagobah? Why isn't he involved with the rebellion? The PT answered some of these questions, but left most of his past ominous)

 

As a plot device and a benchmark, yes. Out of TFA, it could have gone anywhere. But within TLJ the character serves the role of establishing how a relatively young and inexperienced character became the leader of this vast and powerful army. He took it from the guy who, apparently, built it. Beyond that, he serves as the obstacle he must overcome in order to become the character he’s supposed to be. That’s his bizarro hero’s journey. The student surpassed his teacher.

That maybe could have used more development in the narrative in order to feel more satisfying, but every piece had a function. It might seem a touch disjointed since JJ put so much perceived emphasis on the potentiality, but Rian wasn’t obligated to honor the optics of what was presented, just the purpose.

He referred to TPM as something that could work as a silent movie - the dialogue being little more than part of the soundtrack. He wasn't talking about the saga as a whole.

He wrote them as parables. Modern fairytales that could be taken at face value, but also impart a valuable, layered message if you bother to look for it. It's supposed to be both, but you can just look at the pretty lights if that's all you're interested in.

 

No, he pretty much repeated that idea with AOTC, and I specifically remember him saying "these films are basically silent movies".
Funny enough, there's a pretty recent post by Jason Ward on MSW saying:
"A long time ago, when Rick McCallum was a prominent voice at Lucasfilm, in interviews he would often talk about Lucas’ desire to release a supercut of his six-film Star Wars saga that was effectively a silent film."http://makingstarwars.net/2018/01/j...termined-complete-music-star-wars-episode-ix/

EDIT: From a 2015 Lucas interview with Stephen Colbert:
"He thinks of “Star Wars” as a silent movie — “It really lies in the art of movement” — but that sound is just as important as the image onscreen. “I believe half a movie is the sound,” he said. “The sound is extremely important. But the dialogue is not.”
That comment led Lucas to acknowledge, “I’m notorious for wooden dialogue.”"
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment...-t-know-anything-force-awakens-015252671.html

 

Agreed. Probably the most relevant to TLJ is the Vader/Emperor/Obi-Wan interrelation. Vader was seduced by the darkside. How? What did the Emperor have to do with that? Obi-Wan used to think Vader was worth saving, but now doesn’t? Why? What happened?

Some additional details would have been insightful and maybe might have evolved those characters further in our minds and made them more three dimensional. But it wasn’t really necessary to the story. We didn’t need it to grasp the thrust of the narrative. The central theme, and the characters’ parts in it, was the true focus.

But is it something he's "always" believed? Before the Prequels? I don't personally think it's a coincidence that he got derided for writing awful dialogue and then professes the perspective that dialogue doesn't matter

 

That's a good point . But at least he said it as early as 2001, and I'm pretty sure he's been serious about the whole silent movie concept since then. Lucas' idea of Star Wars developed and grew with the prequels, and at least the analogy shows how he wants his films to be received. I've felt pretty ambivalent about Episodes I-III for many years, but they're a part of Star Wars, and GL created all of this, so he gets to call the shots.

 

Indeed I think we have.

For what it's worth, I don't see Snoke as pointless and a net 0 sum factor.
I could see that view if we look at the face value of the story, but that's not his value to the story.

Take the following as just a perspective; I'm not intending that you, or anyone, must accept Snoke.
You can, you can't. Either way is what it is. I'm just writing the below as an aid if it does. If not. Okies! Cool.


Alright....so....

Think of Snoke like King Herod of the Christian's book of Matthew (not to be confused with either of the real King Herod's).
We don't know anything about him from the story, but we're told he gave the order to kill every child of age 2 and under in the city trying to get rid of this whisper of a rising rival king Jesus who was somewhere between the age of infant and two years of age according to Herod's information.
Jesus grows up, life goes on, we don't think of Herod again, and it seems rather a bit meh that he existed.

We have no backstory for this character. You could simply remove Herod from the story entirely and it wouldn't much matter.
In fact, other versions of the story did not include this Herod character, so we know that it can be written without him.

However, Matthew is the book where everyone gets the entire Christmas narrative from - every nativity scene ever is derived from the opening of Matthew.

And there's only one basic purpose to Herod - be evil, want to kill Jesus (in other versions that skip this he's more like the priest from Year One, all "OOOO! Jesus! Is he going to do a trick!? Oil Boy!", sort of an idiot in charge...but that's not this version).
Herod's basic plot is something along the lines of:

• Herod is visited by Magi who say there's a prophecy over a great King being born, the chosen King, and they are here to visit.
• Herod freaks out and wants that stopped immediately, and tries to trick the Magi into delivering the child to him so that he can kill him.
• The Magi decide not to, Herod figures that out, and then kills every child under two years of age, but fails to kill the prophesied chosen baby King.

In other words, his only real purpose was to press two things: a threat upon our protagonist, and a value upon our protagonist.

• He provides a threat, because he's powerful and mean, and the evil that is chasing the good. Check.

• He provides the value, because his title's status (the King) and murderous actions is all because of our protagonist character, which raises the protagonist's value (can't be worthless if the King wants you dead).

Now, that's effectively Snoke in a nutshell, though slightly different relationships to the characters.

Snoke's is to be powerfully evil and of want to be rid of the protagonists.
I say that in plural because he's not actually Kylo's pal. He's actually Kylo's antagonist more than his ally.
Every chance he gets he pokes at Kylo's emotional wounds and torments and laughs at him.
Any moment that Snoke is earnest and kind with Kylo has to be taken on guard because he's so quick to turn around and pull a "Psyche! You Suck worthless moron!" to Kylo. It's almost as if Kylo's stuck in the "Good Place" in regards to Snoke (if you haven't seen the Good Place, do so, but ignore the comment for now).

His basic purpose is, like Herod, to be a threat and give value to our protagonists.

That's it. He does it in more ways than Herod did, granted, but it's basically the same function. Sit off in the wing and close the walls in around the protagonists so there's a looming threat that is held as powerful who wants to remove our protagonist(s) which in turn means they are important (since the most powerful evil character wants them dead, rather personally).

Kylo gains additional value from Snoke because he kills him and is defined by that murder as Vader was by the Emperor's murder.
Where Vader was defined as redeemed by killing the Evil Ruler, Kylo is defined as condemned by his killing of the Evil Ruler.

They both save the good protagonist in killing their big evil Herod, but their motives make the difference and so Vader was saved by his action, and Kylo cements his condemnation further with his.
Where Vader kills his Herod to save his Son, Kylo kills his Herod to take control for himself (yes, and save Rey, but his motive was to take control; hoping Rey would join).
Vader's was a selfless act of love, where Kylo's was a selfish act of hate.

That is Snoke's value. He's the racquetball wall, the backboard on the basket ball hoop. His value is that he is what Kylo (mostly) and Rey (vicariously) rebound off of and the way they rebound is what defines their characters.

Snoke is also the interstellar AT&T service for Kylo and Rey. Without him they wouldn't have had free weekends and nights long distance available.
(A bit of fun to joke around with!).

Essentially, Snoke isn't the point, and the actions on a very basic level aren't really the point either.
It's the meaning of the actions in context that make Snoke of use.

If Snoke wasn't there, then, for example, Kylo wouldn't have been able to kill the Evil ruler of the galaxy and NOT redeem himself by the action, but instead damn himself further.
Without Snoke, Kylo wouldn't have boiled and boiled at being taunted and ostracized repeatedly; flying off at the hinges.
Without Snoke psychologically screwing with Kylo repeatedly, Kylo would have never sympathized with Rey and been open.

Snoke is like an ocean to the land that is Kylo Ren. We don't know why the ocean is like it is, but we know the land is defined in part by the ocean slowly, but heavily weighing down and working away at the land. Is it a cliff, a beach, a gulf? How does the land react to this ocean?

Snoke is that Herodian Ocean which Kylo is defined by.
We know more about what kind of land Kylo is by how he has reacted to the pressing ocean that was Snoke.


Anyway, that's a way of looking at it.
If it's useful; huzzah!
If not, okies!

Cheers,
Jayson

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018 ---

I don't mean to leap in the middle intrusively, but I just wanted to toss in that Lucas has always been more interested in the visual than the written or spoken words in his film interests.
Go back to THX and you'll see there is the most bare of dialogue required, and honestly, you can shut off the sound and the film works fine. The words are pretty much not required in that film.

He's brought up the idea of a film style lacking dialogue as a story telling form in film since his days back with Coppola and Co.
I've often thought that he had a hard time with dialogue because he doesn't value it very much.
I know it's much the same with myself - I put much more value on the image over the words, and don't really do well at dialogue either because when I go to write dialogue, I just don't care. It's just not the part my brain is wanting to focus on at all.

Anywho...

Cheers,
Jayson

 

It's a bad answer, together with the others, as explained in Raney's video which was shared in several threads.

 

There’s no doubt Lucas is far and away more preoccupied with the visual aspect of filmmaking. That trend is evident in his style as far back as his student films at USC. I concretely agree with @Wayne Antilles on that point. What I’m highly dubious about however is whether he would truly consider the dialogic contributions of Huyck, Katz, and Kasdan as disposable as his own.

 

By Return of the Jedi, we only knew the Emperor was the leader of the bad guys and we didn't know how he ended up in that position. Narratively, we didn't need that question answered. We don't need to know who Snoke is to know he's some jerk who wants power and manipulates Kylo Ren through cruel methods to gain that power. Just like the Emperor with Vader. Only Vader killed the Emperor to save his son. Kylo Ren did it to mistakingly kill his past, which only drives him further Into Darkness (2013) dir. JJ Abrams.

RJ was smart to get this one dimensional character out of the way for the far more interesting villain, Ben Solo.

Oh, also, I keep hearing that the point of the movie was to kill the past? I thought about that, but the more I did, I think that's the opposite of what the movie is trying to say. Kylo Ren literally keeps killing his past and he's miserable. Luke tried to forget his past failures and was miserable because of it. Yoda literally comes in and says to learn from the failures of the past instead of rejecting it. Rey learns from the past and moves on to save the day and (presumably) start a New Jedi Order.

 

Oh, yeah...well...lol
You know Lucas; it depends what day you ask him.

He'd probably say they were very needed for commercialization or some such tongue-in-cheek backhanded compliment.

On another day he'd probably do his classic Lucas shrug and say something along the lines of 'in a way' and siderail off to a minirant, all soft and calm, about dialogue not being his concern and art not being about that, etc... and on some days he might even toss in one of his nice snobby 'matter of fact' statements about people not being able to understand pure art etc...

He's always good for conflicting opinions.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Ha!

The cave scene was definitely weird and unsettling – probably by design. I see that "vagueness" of the cave as the dark deliberately preying on her weakness. It's even possible that Snokes manipulations had a part to play in this. The experience did leave her unsated, lost, confused, isolated and contributed to fostering a connection with Kylo that nearly lead to her undoing.

BTW I absolutely love the use of a cave "screen".
Screen: a surface on which images and data is projected. Alternatively a device to block or conceal.

Great point - and all weaknesses exploited by Snoke.

I shared a lessons from the screenplay clip back in 2016 that emphasised how "a protagonist and their story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them" (Robert Mckee) and illustrated the importance of villains being "exceptionally good at attacking the hero's greatest weaknesses" (John Truby).

Snoke even acknowledges this agenda in TLJ when justifying to Kylo why he keeps Hux around. Of course we can also see how playing with Hux also exploits some of Kylo's weaknesses too.

Me too. I was left feeling like I wanted to know more about Snoke yet can see that this particular story probably wouldn't have been served by the exposition.

Good call. Maybe his mystery box suits SW...well, once us fans learn to let go of our attachment to two years of speculation.

Another reason to avoid unnecessary exposition is one that Pablo mentioned before about storytelling on this scale: It "is all about sustainability" and there's little gain in "[robbing] a story opportunity from a future writer for the sake of a trivia bullet-point."

*FIFY ↑
(anonymous author, name unknown)

Nice analogy.

I should probably add he's also there

• in order to be usurped and illustrate the growth of "the dragon" to "the big bad"
• for Kylo to give us a moment of hope for his "heel faced turn"
  
• and to carry some blame for Ben's choices should he ever make a turn in a later story.

edit:grammar

 

Ahhh HA!
*clears throat* Well, then. If you're also one of the fellows interested in such topics, feel free to look over my notes (and some more, and other stuff). (warning: they're a bit scattered)

And yes, not by Matthew, but I'm not one to pull the nuance out on those things on the general public.

Well put.

Cheers!
Jayson

 

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 15, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 15, 2018 ---

I'll just respond to the "most important example"

Even now, no one cares what Yoda's last name is or what what his race is called. (Is any one even asking that about Snoke?)
No one asked if he always lived on Dagobah either. (Was anyone asking if Leia had always lived on Alderan? Nope.) So let's toss those out first.

We didn't hear about him in ANH for a couple of reasons, but the most obvious is that Obi Wan was the Yoda character in ANH.

How did he become so powerful? Were you REALLY asking that when the OT was released? Or is the PT clouding you judgment? In the OT Yoda was a tiny, 800 year old alien who walked with a cane. His most impressive feat was lifting Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp. He was nothing like the lightsaber wielding, Ninja/Jedi, military commander we saw in the PT. In the OT all he really had was wisdom.

Why wasn't he involved with the rebellion? Because he was a tiny 800 year old alien who could barely walk. And in the OT, everything Yoda talked about was force related. He wasn't a part of the Rebellion and never even talked about it.

One of the problems about the PT is that people forget how things were viewed and perceived when the OT was originally released. But that's another story.

None of the above applies to Snoke. Although he is old and likely frail, so I'll give you that.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 15, 2018 ---

Here's what may be my final thought on Snoke's backstory. Close your eyes and imagine that in Episode IX...

Some super powerful Dark Sider shows up. He finds Kylo and says "You killed Snoke, and now you've gotta pay!" Rey senses Kylo is in trouble and shows up to help him. Kylo and Rey team up again and fight him. They kill the bad guy. Kylo then realizes the Dark Side is really bad, and he should start being a nice person like Rey. The End.

Would you be ok with this? I'm thinking you wouldn't. The way you feel about my fake idea, is the way many of us feel about Snoke. It's that simple.