Star Wars 8: Who is Supreme Leader Snoke? Did the Last Jedi reveal his identity?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Supreme Leader SnokeDISNEY/LUCASFILM

Star Wars The Last Jedi snubbed hopes of learning about Supreme Leader Snoke’s true identity

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Supreme Leader Snoke’s conniving from the shadows was a crucial plot point of The Force Awakens, where he was revealed as the leader of the galactic First Order.

But the story failed to develop his character beyond that point, leaving millions of fans wondering who exactly was the evil menace sowing chaos from the shadows?

Star Wars The Last Jedi attempted to answer some of those questions by revealing that Snoke’s twisted puppeteering stood behind Ben Solo’s turn to the Dark Side of the Force and into Kylo Ren.

Unfortunately for fans, it appears that any hopes of learning more about the Supreme Leader where snuffed out when his apprentice Kylo Ren sliced him in half with a lightsaber in a flashy fight scene in Snoke’s throne room.

With absolutely no backstory to further flesh out the character, many fans were dismayed about his untimely demise.

However Director Rian Johnson was convinced that killing off the film’s main antagonist half-way through the new trilogy was the right thing to do.

He said: “When I was working on the character of Kylo, I came to a place where I thought the most interesting thing would be to knock the shaky foundation out from under him at the beginning of this movie.

“By the end of this film, he’s gone from being a wannabe Vader to someone who is standing on his own feet as a complex villain taking the reins.”

“But then the question is: What place would Snoke have at the end of that? That made me realise the most interesting thing would be to eliminate that dynamic between the ‘emperor’ and pupil, so that all bets are off going into the next one.”

But perhaps not all hope is lost.

As the leader of the First Order and master of the Dark Side, Snoke was presented as a very powerful and capable Force user.

His official Star Wars bio reads: “The Supreme Leader of the First Order, the mysterious Snoke has no permanent base of operations, preferring to contact his underlings from a mobile command post. 

“Snoke is powerful with the dark side of the Force, and seduced Kylo Ren into abandoning the Jedi path to become his apprentice. 

“But Snoke also commands General Hux and the technological war machine the First Order has engineered to destroy the New Republic and Leia Organa’s Resistance.”

In The Last Jedi he manipulated Force Lighting with ease and was even able to drop General Hux to his knees with the Force, despite being on a different spaceship at the time.

This has led some fans to wonder if Snoke could return in the next Star Wars film as a Force Ghost. 

Star Wars 8 The last Jedi: Supreme Leader SnokeDISNEY/LUCASFILM

Star Wars: The Supreme Leader’s throne was usurped by the murderous Kylo Ren

Star Wars: Supreme Leader SnokeDISNEY/LUCASFILM

Star Wars The Last Jedi failed to address Snoke’s past and other details of his rise to power

Prior to the Last Jedi premiere, some fans have eleven wildly speculated that Snoke could have actually been the Force Ghost of the deceased Emperor Palpatine – farfetched claims which have proven to be untrue.

It would have stopped any of these scenes dead cold if Snoke had stopped and given a 30-second speech about how he’s Darth Plagueis

Rian Johnson, Star Wars The Last Jedi director


In Star Wars lore, a Force Ghost is the soul and life essence of a Force-sensitive being – good or evil – who has become once with the mystical power. 

However Johnson gently dismissed all theories about the character. He said: “I do think it’s interesting.

“I never want to poo-poo the fans coming up with theories. It’s part of the fun of being a Star Wars fan. If there is a place for it in another story, I hope it gets told.”

For now it seems as though fans will have to be satisfied with the fact that Supreme Leader Snoke was simply Supreme Leader Snoke. He was only there to set up the story and be part of it until a certain point in the saga.

Just as Han Solo’s death at the hands of his son in the Force Awakens cemented Kylo’s full transition into the Dark Side, so did Snoke’s death underline Kylo’s ambitions to dominate the galaxy.

Johnson further added that shoehorning in any additional character exposition to give Snook some backstory would have served to the film’s detriment.

In a similar way that the question of Rey’s inconsequential parentage was finally answered – she was simply sold off for booze money as a child – Snoke’s lack of backstory deviated from George Lucas’ vision of having seemingly everyone in the galaxy related in one way or another.

Johnson added: “It would have stopped any of these scenes dead cold if Snoke had stopped and given a 30-second speech about how he’s Darth Plagueis.

“It doesn’t matter to Rey. If he had done that, Rey would have blinked and said, ‘Who?’ And the scene would have gone on.”

Star Wars fans will now have to wait until 2019 to find out if any details of Snoke’s past will emerge in the next instalment of the saga.

Star Wars Episode IX will be released in UK cinemas on December 20, 2019.