Anakin Starkiller said:
One scene explains where Snoke was during the OT, where he got his power/money, why he dresses in an ostentatious glittering robe (he’s a wealthy crimelord, not a sith lord), where he got obsessed with the Solo family, and thematically wraps up his role in the cycle of revenge.
This isn’t the MCU. You shouldn’t have to watch spinoff material to understand everything.
That said, that idea does sound kinda nice.
Didn’t say it was the IDEAL solution to use the spinoff. Only that it would’ve worked with the immense negative backlash TLJ got.
Snoke was utterly pointless and damaged the 9 movie narrative. If you want a villain to undo the climax of the previous 6 film storyline, you need more than…the nothing explanation we got. “He just IS that powerful” doesn’t work when there is a pre-established universe. With the other villains, i.e. Jabba, the worldbuilding was still ongoing. He’s a crimelord, this universe has crime, that’s easy to understand. Ep 4 established there was “the Empire” and since this was a blank slate, that’s fine. There was no question about where the empire came from, because it was fresh and new. It simply WAS there, and the narrative worked with it. Ep 1 had the Republic. It didn’t need to establish where it came from, there was a government that existed and that’s fine, the audiences understand that, too.
But with the First Order and Snoke, it was NOT a blank slate. There was 70 years of backstory and established narratives and worldbuilding. Just saying “It’s just there, and he’s just a powerful leader” did not work with the previous storyline, as it undid what had come before.