The Snoke Schism

That was my assumption. That’s why I highlighted the scene that represented what I was talking about.

In the ‘squid lake’ scene, Palps is offering something only the dark Force can deliver, to tempt him into his little club. In my alternate take, Luke’s massive overreaction already sent kid Ben there. He’s plenty dark. No temptation needed. Now, he just needs somewhere to belong and Snoke’s group of militant dickweeds can provide that. No empty promises of special Force powers needed. It’s all emotionally motivated.

No, it was said that Kylo didn’t overpower Snoke with the Force. Pretty big difference.

If that’s the extent of your imagination, yeah. If Kylo had unceremoniously, without any lead up, Force ignited the saber into Snoke from the start, THAT wouldn’t have been very interesting either. Would it? Good thing someone with talent wrote that scene.

 

This is a strawman argument. Of course, it doesn't work if it is as silly as your example is. Here is a more realistic approach -

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Rey (or whoever): Who is Snoke (you know, the whole reason I am in this fight in the first place and the person responsible for ruining you and all of your friends' lives and previous work)?

Luke (or whoever): My father told me about him. He was once the old Emperor's Master. The Emperor thought he killed him, but all he was doing was serving his will unknowingly. He's mastered the force art of cheating death, and is just a plague that trains darkside users to do his bidding while he sits in the shadows watching. Kylo Ren is just the latest victim he's using. He IS the darkside, and he must be stopped.
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See, less than a minute of dialogue, and in this scenario, it does not even need to be spelled out to Rey that he's Darth Plagueis, since she wouldn't care about a name. Hardcore fans can figure out who he is and the connection to Episode 3 themselves while casual fans can just be like "whatever, he's evil and now thing make a little more sense."

It's been repeatedly stated on this thread why many people, including myself, believe we deserve at least some piece of information given where we are in the story. You should not introduce an ancient, powerful being that came out of nowhere without explanation when you're talking about part 7 of a 9 episode saga that has already laid a foundation of characters AND is coming off of a happy ending in Episode 6. Once again, if a person watching Star Wars for the first time watched Episodes 1 through 6, when they get to 7, they're going say to themselves "um, who the heck is this guy and how on Earth did he ruin our heroes' lives?"

 

My point is that some military guy would never have the power over Kylo that he certainly did as a powerful Force user. He wouldnt have to use deception to take him out. Kylo had to wait for just the right time to take out Snoke.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 21, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 21, 2019 ---

You really make a huge assumption that everyone would know the reference to Darth Plageuis. For people that dont know the reference it leads to the same question. Who is this darkside where did he come from. We need more back story. Even with people that remember him being brought up in ROTS it still begs for more back story.

 

And what I’m saying is that Snoke, the beguiling sorcerer and his elusive backstory, are (and always were) nothing but empty intrigue. Like the identity of Rey’s parents, the mystique surrounding them was designed to artificially inflate interest. The >story< didn’t really need him to be this wicked warlock.

It was a means of tricking the audience into caring more about particular story elements than they otherwise would. There’s no ‘there’ there. It’s a dead end not worth anyone’s impassioned curiosity. Anything you came up with in your own head is just as valid as anything JJ or RJ would have, because it doesn’t really matter and never really did. Snoke was a non-character obstacle for Kylo to overcome and he did. Backstory would be extraneous to that end.

 

To this I would say the people that care about Snoke's backstory are the same ones that would get the DP reference. The people that don't care about Snoke's backstory or can't make the connection would be perfectly fine with just knowing that he was someone that is the ultimate darkside user that uses his apprentices to do his bidding and has been since at least the beginning of the Skywalker saga.

EDIT: Mods, very sorry for the "true fans" commentary. The only point I was making was that someone that doesn't get the reference likely does not care to get the reference. I did not mean to offend and the comment definitely was not meant as any sort of personal attack whatsoever. Someone that is hardcore into this stuff will get the reference and someone that isn't hardcore likely isn't griping in the first place.

MOD EDIT

 

It always comes back to Plageuis it seems when Snoke is discussed.
This thread feels very tightly connected to the "Fan Expectations" thread.

It's not about caring to get the reference. It's about making an "important" figure instantly obscure or difficult to grasp.
Star Wars is great because each trilogy really doesn't have prerequisite viewing. Each one watches on it's own. If you start making vague references, as you suggested above, that does nothing but make 80% of your audience feel out of the loop and like they missed something. It's bad story telling.
You can mention Vader or The Emperor because they are in the zeitgeist. Everyone knows who Darth Vader is. Everyone knows "Luke I am your father!" (yes I know that isn't the line but it's the most quoted variant of it). No one, outside of people who frequent places such as here, knows who Plageuis is and would likely only have an idea if you made sure to say DARTH beforehand.

Essentially, making Snoke into Plageuis serves as nothing but a pat on the back for people who are aware of him already.

 

The films cant just work for people that really know deep back story of Star Wars. You cant make a film that has lots of exposition that tells people all sorts of back story that the general audience will be like whatever. You need to fill in the back story so that the general audience gets the film. If the general audience doesnt need it then you dont need to put it in the film. If the movie flows better without it then leave it out. I truly believe that is the case with Snoke. Would I and my sons take a 3-4 hour movie with more back story? Hell yea. Would someone like my wife? Hell know!

As for the other commentary about Snoke not being a Force user done with that. I just dont think people would find it believable that just a Tarkin like admiral would be able to hold onto and pull Kylo's chain is believable in the Star Wars universe.

 

Wouldn't casual fans feel out of the loop due to there being no explanation at all? That's why I say the name Darth Plagueis doesn't even need to be mentioned. The general audience can relate with the Emperpor, and would eventually be able to relate with the idea that the Emperor's master is now the bad guy. Easy. I don't see how that hurts the movie.

I think the reason it keeps coming back to Plagueis is because there is an inherent desire for there to be a villain more powerful than the previous and because it gives the effect that he didn't appear out of nowhere; he was foreshadowed.

 

Does it move the story forward for the general audience or is it just fan service for people like us to go "Oooo he is Darth Plagueis"

 

In my mind, if it goes in that direction, it would be to serve the story only if Snoke makes a return.

If he doesn't, then you're right, it isn't necessary. I'd rather watch him he the unknown threat than some random alien threat (another threat from out of nowhere).

 

These two posts summed things up VERY well. In the OT we came into an established state in the galaxy. The Emperor was in charge and that's where the story starts. No need for a backstory really. After ROTJ though, 30 (40?) years later, things need some explaining. Snoke and the First Order seem to just come out of nowhere and it's confusing for the viewer. If the main characters were confused as well, then it might be more normal. But they aren't. They are privy to info that we aren't, and then we don't get the info. I find that confusing. I get it that I have to infer some things but inferences aren't necessarily accurate. Would be nice if there were some explanation of where these people came from and who they are.

 

The casual fan needs to know Snoke is bad and that's about it. His role is similar to the Emperor's role in the OT. He's not important to this story. We don't need any backstory on him at this juncture, especially in the movie.

If you start to give him an onscreen backstory, it implies he has more relevance to this than he does. If you have Luke monologue about Snoke being the Emperor's master then it just makes the GA wonder where the hell this clown was during the PT. Or the OT.
Wait, didn't they say Palpatine killed his master? So how is he here? Now you are in a position where this needs explained and the story derails from about Rey and Kylo to Snoke and Palpatine.

The movie I compare this style of storytelling to is Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald. Which are only, at best, tangentially related to the titular Fantastic Beasts. Why? Because instead of being about what one might expect a story called Fantastic Beasts to be about, it's really just exposition dump after exposition dump informing you how everyone and everything is connected and related, shrinking the universe but hey, remember Nagini?!?!

Making Snoke into Plageuis really adds nothing of value to the story other than an easter egg for die hards. It creates a bit of confusion.

I agree with @eeprom generally that they didn't do enough to flesh out the FO, but this isn't one of those things IMO.

Maybe JJ goes back and redoes it and he is Plageuis now. But that's really how people wanted Plageuis portrayed? Or do people just want the trivia point for getting the reference?



Kylo Ren is seeking to be a more powerful villain than Darth Vader. And he's succeeding. That should be what gets people excited.
Snoke wasn't better than the Emperor. It seems he was more of an opportunist than master strategist. He did kind of appear out of nowhere. Because there was finally no opposition. Makes sense to me.
But again, we circle back to expectations vs reality.

 

We can agree to disagree here. This is a 9-part saga, and the Emeperor did not need an explanation because that was the start of things for the viewer.

Again, we watched an entire 6-episode story arc completely wiped out essentially by this one person/thing - Snoke. How does that not deserve some type of explanation?

He ruined the lives of all of our protagonists and has taken over the galaxy even after evil was presumably defeated. That's poor story-telling if that's all we're going to get from this.

Didn't he say this literally during a commentary about his master studying the art of cheating death? I think the answer is there in the viewers' faces.

But what if his story isn't over yet?

 

It is a 9 part saga but each trilogy works largely on it's own. You don't have to watch the PT to understand the OT and you don't have to watch the OT to understand the PT. You are essentially arguing that the PT becomes a prerequisite for the ST with the inclusion of a VERY obscure character in such an important role.

For 20 years this was never a problem with the Emperor. "The start of things for the viewer" is a fairly lame attempt at deflecting from the reality that the big bad doesn't always need this grand backstory presented at the time. He's a stepping stone. For Vader. And for Kylo Ren.

Sure. It will get an explanation in due time. But that's not the story being told right now. If these are your grievances with the films, take it up with George Lucas who made the PT rather than a ST when Mark, Harrison and Carrie were young enough to realistically headline an action franchise without it seeming silly. Watch any Liam Neeson movie of the last 5-10 years. It's pretty comical how they have to cut the action scenes.

But if he was successful in cheating death, how did Palpatine assume power? Wouldn't the all-powerful death cheating guy have stopped him? You know, because he killed him, or tried to anyways....and if Plageuis did learn to cheat death, it REALLY cheapens Anakin's whole arc from the PT. It means he wasn't wrong for turning dark, he just didn't do it fast enough to save Padme. I always assumed the whole point was turning dark was NEVER going to save her which is why Palps told him that story, to prey on Ani's insecurity over Padme.

Do we get to see him rise from the ashes again? Oh brother...

 

Not what I am arguing. What I am arguing is that Episodes 1 through 6 are connected. From the beginning, we watch the Sith take over, assume control, then lost control. Now, in this new beginning, all previous work done is eliminated by someone and we have no idea how.

Again, we can agree to disagree. We knew in the OT that there was an Empire, and every Empire needs an Emperor. It worked due to circumstance, but when you get to Episode 7, now all of a sudden there is a Supreme Leader that's ruined everyone's lives somehow but we don't know how.

You're not thinking creatively. What if this is Plagueis' game all along, to allow apprentices to kill him to do his bidding while he hides in the shadows? We were told at the end of TFA that Snoke wanted Kylo to return to him to complete his training - what if "killing" him was the end of his training?

 

When you posit that an obscure character from one scene in a movie 10+ years ago is now the cause for all that ails the GFFA, yeah, you are kind of implying that you have to go back and see that movie. Episodes 1-6 are connected. Episodes 1-9 will be connected. Plageuis isn't the connective tissue. He just isn't. He's a throwaway name in a movie and had a good book written about him 20 years ago.

Do you need to know how for the story being told on screen? You are basically just arguing for a different story now.

I'm not thinking creatively? But using Plageuis is creative? Good god almighty.
That's a stupid plan. What is the point of the plan? To keep dying? Why wouldn't he just, you know, STOP DYING AND BE IN CHARGE if he is that powerful.

 

I don't think they share much in common other than very broad strokes and archetypes. They don't really have to. They are different characters after all.

I think it's a line to shift blame. How accurate it is or not is a bit up in the air. She's consoling her husband who feels responsible for his son turning to the dark side. The same way Luke does.

I think the difference is just the planned out-ness. If Lucas knew who Palps was in ANH then Obi-Wan would have said it. We know, from the PT that it wasn't the dark side just turning Vader, it was Palpatine and his lies. Substitute "dark side" for "Snoke" and it's practically the same line with the same intent.

It's much more intimate than the OT relationship where Vader is established. It's VERY similar to the PT relationship with Anakin and Palpatine. Both prey upon the insecurities of the young Jedi. They are just different insecurities. Anakin was paranoid and terrified of losing those he loved. Ben Solo felt alone, entitled and denied his "due". So Snoke plays with those chords the same way Palpatine spun yarns of saving people from death and how the Jedi will stop him from doing it. Seems to be the way of the dark side. Fair to assume similar manipulations were used on Dooku and Maul.

 

Sure, but this is criticism has some merit for the whole trilogy. Not for an individual movie. A minor criticism in my mind, because it really doesnt change my enjoyment of the movies. In some ways I also believe it guarantees me more content to enjoy rather then like we said some throw away lines as to not slow down the story.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 22, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 22, 2019 ---

The whole point was to get him to turn to the dark side which is what actually killed her.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 22, 2019 ---

We also knew that somehow after thousands of years somehow recently the Empire took over. How the hell does that happen. 1000s of generations of Jedi somehow protecting the galaxy and wiped out. It begs kicking and screaming for back story that I waited like 20 years for.