I remember at the time of TFA, JJ said something like “every SW movie needs a cantina”. It’s not a big deal I guess, but it feels like this is the overall mentality that has been applied to these films rather than any need to tell a coherent story. In the case of Snoke, clearly JJ and Kasdan were thinking “every SW movie needs an Emperor” (not to mention an Empire, a Death Star, a Tatooine, a Hoth, a Dagobah cave scene etc etc etc) without much thought beyond the visual aesthetic of such a character.

Don’t get me wrong, I like these new films, but my ‘head-canon’ seems to be veering towards seeing them as interesting alternate interpretations of SW and TESB (with a dash of ROTJ) rather than legitimate continuations of the OT.