A follow up to my last rant. This one is all about Snoke.

Snoke is a walking plot hole and he is by far the most important character in the sequel trilogy that has yet to even be REMOTELY explained.

The entire plot of the ST revolves around him and his scheming and yet he is a complete mystery. That is the definition of a plot hole.

Jerubaal

United States7218 Posts

April 28 2018 18:26 GMT

Honestly, we should be thanking Rian Johnson! At this point, I'm sure JJ Abrams hates him more than he hates Trump. These movies are such triumphs of post modernism. He ruined the trilogy for the sake of ruining our expectations.

To paraphrase our favorite countercultural art critic: These movies were made by people who aren't fans, have no appreciation for the material that they themselves are incapable of creating, in the furtherance of an ideological goal, and the movies were designed to be ironic pseudo stories to be enjoyed by no one.

One thing they could have explored to great effect in the movies is this balance of light and dark that Snoke refers to. Everyone knows the Manichaean Light-Dark dynamic is flawed. It would have been interesting to explain a better balanced approach.

ninazerg

United States7286 Posts

April 28 2018 21:46 GMT

From a recent blog of mine:

On April 01 2018 12:17 ninazerg wrote:
Supreme Leader Snoke - Would the new trilogy have a new super-powerful villain who pulls the strings behind the scenes who is a menace to the galaxy, or are we going to get a comic-book villain who acts like a dumbass? TFA suggested we'd get the first one. Who is this motherfucker? Han Solo knows who he is. Luke Skywalker knows who he is. Leia knows who he is. Ben Solo knows who he is. How did he meet Ben Solo? Where did he come from? WELL THE ANSWER IS "FUCK YOU".

It's a really bad story-telling (or lack of) element that people heavily criticized the prequels for. Darth Maul was introduced, and you thought he was going to be some bad-ass who would have a role through the prequel trilogy. No, though. The movies don't explain who he is or where he came from, which I guess is kinda okay. He's just there to be a bad guy and fight the good guys, and that's what he does. Then he gets cut in half with a lightsaber.

The thing about Snoke is that he is the catalyst for the entirety of the events in the new trilogy. There would be no "war" if hadn't started a war. Ben Solo wouldn't have had a mentor to lead him to the dark side. Naturally, fans speculated who Snoke might be, since JJ Abrams clearly had an idea, but Rian Johnson just goes "Your Snoke theory sucks" while simultaneously not shedding any light on Snoke's role. I don't even need to know his "origin story". I just want to know who the fuck he is and what his goal is.

[...]

A very cool direction the movie could've gone would've been Rey turning to the dark side. Or maybe Kylo turning to the light side. Both really interesting story arcs that could lead into the third movie, but nah. And Snoke doesn't even learn any lessons from Emperor Palpatine. Did he even meet Emperor Palpatine? Perhaps him and Palpatine were enemies, and once Palpatine died, Snoke sensed it and took over his former enemy's place. But nah.

So yeah, I'm pretty onboard with all the Snoke criticisms, but I did not read any new-sequel lore. I read some EU lore, and it was awful. Imaginative, but awful. I'm not against new ideas, but this universe has "sort-of" rules to it. I can take some rules being broken here and there. So if Snoke can connect peoples' minds, I'm okay with that. I'm sure there are lots of things people can do with the force that either haven't been done or haven't been discovered. So when Luke astral projected himself, I know it ticked a lot of people off, but I was fine with it because I wasn't totally against new force-using concepts.

One thing you mentioned, though, got me thinking about a tremendously horrible continuity and logical error that would be there if Snoke was the one that allowed Rey to learn about all of her abilities. First of all, why would he unlock any abilities in her at all? If she were a threat to Snoke that he sensed, then it would make sense to kill her before she matured enough to be of any consequence. If Snoke wanted to turn her to the dark side, why did he try to have Kylo Ren kill her? If we go back to TFA, it seems that Snoke is not aware of Rey until Kylo Ren tells Snoke about her. Upon hearing what Kylo Ren has to say, Snoke replies, "If what you're saying about this girl is true, bring her to me." Kylo then fights Rey and loses. Nevertheless, Snoke knows exactly who Rey is in TLJ, knows where she is, and is able to influence her mind. This could only be true if Snoke was controlling Kylo's mind, and if Snoke is that deep in Kylo's mind, how could he not sense that Kylo Ren was going to kill him? This especially conflicts with a force-power that is briefly brought up in The Empire Strikes Back, which is the ability to see the future.

There are numerous contradictions here about how powerful Snoke is and what he is able to do because of sheer lack of continuity between TFA Snoke and TLJ Snoke. If Snoke has incredible mind-powers, he'd be able to connect Kylo and Rey's minds, but would NOT have been killed by Kylo. If Snoke has weak mind-powers, he wouldn't be able to connect Kylo and Rey, but him getting cut in half could still happen. The latter of those two seems to be the case based on the fact that Snoke can't see Kylo's betrayal coming, and that he didn't seem to know Rey existed before being told about her. Then, after knowing Rey existed, how did he connect her mind to Kylo's? Did he go through a database in his mind of everyone in the galaxy to find Rey? Or was it just because she was just such a mega-colossal powerful force-user?

Let's say it's because she's a mega-colossal powerful force-user. The level of importance the First Order placed on finding Luke Skywalker in TFA is essentially tossed out the window in TLJ under this premise, because Rey goes to Jedi Island. However, the First Order can't spare even one TIE-fighter to go there? Why not? Having Rey and Luke in the same vicinity should set off all kinds of alarm bells in Snoke's brain, and that should have been the focus of the First Order.

On April 29 2018 03:26 Jerubaal wrote:
Honestly, we should be thanking Rian Johnson! At this point, I'm sure JJ Abrams hates him more than he hates Trump. These movies are such triumphs of post modernism. He ruined the trilogy for the sake of ruining our expectations.

To paraphrase our favorite countercultural art critic: These movies were made by people who aren't fans, have no appreciation for the material that they themselves are incapable of creating, in the furtherance of an ideological goal, and the movies were designed to be ironic pseudo stories to be enjoyed by no one.

One thing they could have explored to great effect in the movies is this balance of light and dark that Snoke refers to. Everyone knows the Manichaean Light-Dark dynamic is flawed. It would have been interesting to explain a better balanced approach.

I think JJ Abrams needs to up the ante and kill Rey in episode 9. I mean, Rian Johnson already has a plan for the next trilogy, and I think it'd be hilarious if JJ struck back by sabotaging Rian's trilogy.

Vindicare605

United States13407 Posts

April 29 2018 04:32 GMT

And yet JJ Abrams has gone on social media to praise all of Rian Johnson's decision making, specificially his awesome character Rose Tico! Lol.

The whole mess when it gets looked back on in a decade or two is going to be looked at so badly. This war of egos is just ruining the franchise.

Star Wars is going to need a retcon like the ones that DC and Marvel had to have numerous times because unless you have one good writer writing the whole thing, different egos with different agendas are just going to keep shoving bad stories down the franchise's throat until that becomes necessary.

Vindicare605

United States13407 Posts

April 29 2018 04:55 GMT

On April 29 2018 06:46 ninazerg wrote:
I think JJ Abrams needs to up the ante and kill Rey in episode 9. I mean, Rian Johnson already has a plan for the next trilogy, and I think it'd be hilarious if JJ struck back by sabotaging Rian's trilogy.

He would only be doing him a favor.

Rey is the most unrelatable, unlikeable protagonist that I have seen in film in a long time. It doesn't help that none of the other new characters really stand out either, but Rey is so bland and overpowered that she is just the epitome of the uncompelling heroine.

She belongs better in Twilight than she does in Star Wars.

ninazerg

United States7286 Posts

April 29 2018 05:31 GMT

On April 29 2018 13:55 Vindicare605 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Sadly, Rey could be an interesting character if Rian Johnson devoted more screen-time to her. When I watched TFA, there wasn't anything I thought was unfixable. I didn't like that Rey was instantly an amazing force-user, but I wanted to like the sequel trilogy so bad that I was able to let it go. When people said "Her beating Kylo Ren was bullshit because she never held a lightsaber." I would go "Yeah, but you saw her fight with her staff on Jakku." because I was trying to make this character work in my head.

Rey is like Snoke, though. "A walking loophole" describes her perfectly as well. Everything left unexplained in TFA, like details about who Rey is, should've been explored in TLJ, but TLJ doesn't spend much time on Rey or Snoke, because 3/4th of the movie were spent on the stupid Holdo/Poe/Finn/Rose arc that ultimately goes nowhere. I wanted to know what Rey was like, but TLJ didn't really expound on her at all. It just rehashed stuff we already knew from TFA.

Despite how badly Rian Johnson treated her character (among other characters he treated poorly), I do feel like Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson want to keep her around for their "girl power" circlejerk they're having over there. Also, a lot of new fans, especially kids, seem to like her. One of my friends who has kids is also a Star Wars fan. So I asked what he thought of the new films, and he liked them, and so did his kids. One of them said "Captain Phasma is my favorite character", and another one liked Rey. A lot of older people (like me) like Kylo Ren because he has emotional depth, has goals, has a personality, and has reasons for doing the things he does.

ANYWAY... the point is, with some decent writing and exploration into the characters, they can become likeable very easily. I just think at this point, they will continue to be written poorly, or we won't get any sort of insight into who they are altogether. In the mind of Rian Johnson, however, he probably thinks he has this amazing plan for a story about Rey in the next trilogy, and I would just love to see JJ shit in his cereal, not because I hate Rey, but because I just wanna see Rian Johnson squirm.

ZenithM

France15951 Posts

April 30 2018 15:08 GMT

On April 29 2018 03:26 Jerubaal wrote:
[...]
One thing they could have explored to great effect in the movies is this balance of light and dark that Snoke refers to. Everyone knows the Manichaean Light-Dark dynamic is flawed. It would have been interesting to explain a better balanced approach.

I was really expecting this myself. To show both Rey and Kylo drift to what is commonly attributed to the dark side at times, but also capable of more Jedi-like things. Luke declaring the Jedi order dead could have made it all the more interesting. No Jedi or Sith talk, just force users acting out of different interests in a more realistic, less idealistic conflict.

Instead I fear all we'll have is some "Rey, champion of Light vs Evil Lord Kylo" showdown.

Zaros

United Kingdom3473 Posts

May 01 2018 12:57 GMT

I mean the whole post ROTJ world of disney star wars doesn't make sense, the way the empire collapsed is nonsense especially compared to the EU story, along with the seemingly 180 character changes. Snoke will probably forever be some random dark sider who rallied what was left of the Empire in the unknown regions.

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