Andy Serkis Was 'Gutted' By The Way Star Wars Handled Snoke
It seems a lot of the actors in "The Last Jedi" were just as surprised about the twists to their characters as a very vocal group of "Star Wars" fans were when they eventually saw the movie. Mark Hamill has spoken about how he didn't agree with the direction writer/director Rian Johnson took Luke Skywalker. He didn't seem to like the pacifist approach and wanted Luke to be a little more badass like he was depicted in "The Mandalorian." By the way, it isn't new for Hamill to disagree with the direction of Luke Skywalker. He thought Lucas should have made Luke turn to the Dark Side in "Return of the Jedi."
Andy Serkis likewise thought his evil Supreme Leader Snoke was done dirty in "The Last Jedi," as he told GQ earlier this year. I shouldn't need to say this at this point since the film is six years old now, but spoilers below:
"Let me just phrase it like this. When I went in to read 'The Last Jedi,' [I spent] the first 30 pages thinking, 'This is the most incredible character.' Then I turned the page: 'And then Snoke gets sliced in half.' And I was gutted. Gutted."
He added that since he loves the character so much he wouldn't mind if (sigh) somehow Snoke returned. I actually don't disagree with Serkis on the last part. The mystery surrounding Snoke is ripe for exploration in the comic books or tied into one of the stories set between the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy, but I'm gonna have to disagree with Serkis a little bit on the first part.
What would they have done with Snoke in Episode 9?
I won't discount Serkis' personal feelings about Snoke's surprise death. He felt like he had a lot more to give the character and would have liked to have stuck around a bit. That makes sense from an actor's point of view, but from the longer Saga point of view — I think Johnson saved Snoke from just being Palpatine-lite.
If Snoke hadn't checked out in "The Last Jedi", where would the character have gone in Episode 9? For as much flack as "The Force Awakens" got for being too much of a "A New Hope" rehash, Snoke making it to Episode 9 would have forced another quasi-remake of "Return of the Jedi." By taking Snoke out of the picture the way he did, Johnson shattered the structural attachment the sequel trilogy had to the original trilogy, so while I can understand why the actor playing Snoke was disappointed by it, for the health of the Saga it was the right call.
And again, I agree that we need to see some Snoke backstory and I hope someone tackles it in much the same way Dave Filoni and his team did with "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels," which helped a lot of us prequel grumps make peace with the iconography and characters introduced by Lucas during that time period.
The quickest way to make a franchise boring is to make it predictable
Things get a little stickier when you take "The Rise of Skywalker" into account. That's the real shame of the character, in my eyes at least, that he was just kind of haphazardly tossed into a corner as a failed Palpatine clone as JJ Abrams and his team went back to the well.
You could argue that Johnson forced that unfortunate decision to resurrect the long-dead Emperor Palpatine and that if Snoke had survived he would have been the final boss battle for the sequel trilogy, but I'd throw it right back at you that Johnson set up Kylo Ren as the most interesting villain in the galaxy, one who is constantly battling between his good and evil nature, and that was eschewed in favor of giving Ben Solo the Vader redemption arc instead, necessitating either an Emperor stand-in or, as they chose to do, the Emperor himself.
"Star Wars" fans en masse haven't come around on "The Last Jedi" yet, but I think it'll happen sooner than later because for all the complaints from angry white dudes with beards on YouTube, "The Last Jedi" is the only movie of the sequel trilogy that is trying to surprise you and forge a new path forward in our favorite galaxy far, far away.
Andy Serkis can be upset he didn't get to play Snoke longer and Mark Hamill can be pissed that Luke didn't do backflips and crush AT-ATs with his mind, but at the end of the day, we want our favorite franchises to pull the rug out from under us sometimes. If we keep complaining when they don't give us the same old same old — you're gonna get bored with your favorite stuff real fast.