If you just watch the movie, and don’t read outside material. The only context you get is:
• Palpatine literally made Snoke.
• He has multiple clones of Snoke.
• He says he’s been EVERY voice in Kylo’s head, and even says it in Snoke’s voice. It didn’t seem like he meant it figuratively.I mean, you could’ve argued “I made Snoke” was figurative, like he helped Snoke become the powerful Supreme Leader, but then we see literal vats of Snoke’s.
I mean obviously he literally made Snoke. I’m just having a real tough time making the leap from ‘making’ to ‘having him be a literal puppet.’ To me that doesn’t make any sense, because if he can control a body remotely, why is that body Snoke? Why not Palpatine or literally anyone else? And then why is he inhabiting his fucked up body and not another Snoke body during this movie? Not to mention how absolutely stupid a retcon it would be to look at Snoke in the last two movies and think ‘oh that’s actually Palpatine.’
No, I think at worst we’re meant to believe that he’s a little minion that Palpatine has nominal control over (like a programmed robot or zombie) rather than an actual body that Palpatine himself is inhabiting.
Anyway I guess this is kind of an off topic discussion. I’m not really sure how to apply any of this to editing, besides maybe suggesting cutting out “I have been every voice…” and/or the Snoke vat, depending on how offensive you find them.