I agree that Snoke took me right out of the movie. And if you’re suggesting that they would have been better off going down the puppet route, I agree with that too. Yoda was so good they tried to get Frank Oz nominated for an Oscar but the academy wouldn’t have it.
I don’t care how the special effects team does it, they can use CGI or a puppet or a man in a mask or do whatever they want. My point was that you don’t want it to look fake. You don’t want people to roll their eyes and say “lifeless puppet” or “CGI” or “Halloween mask” etc!
I wouldn’t have minded a Revill style animal/mask/gender swap mashup seeing as it’s just a hologram and hopefully not what the real character looks like. Episode VIII has got to have a shock horror reveal if it’s going to slavishly copy the OT to the extent that TFA did.