A mysterious dark lord, strong with the Force will probably not have much of a backstory, even after he appears in the flesh in Star Wars: Episode VIII— The Last Jedi. Director Rian Johnson has gone on record that audiences will get the bare minimum of information about Snoke in the next film. And he seems iffy on Rey’s parents, too.
In Entertainment Weekly’s ongoing coverage of The Last Jedi, an article published on Wednesday addresses Snoke and his Praetorian Guards.
“Similar to Rey’s parentage, Snoke is here to serve a function in the story. And a story is not a Wikipedia page,” Johnson said. ““For example, in the original trilogy, we didn’t know anything about the Emperor except what Luke knew about him, that he’s the evil guy behind Vader.”
For some fans, these comments might seem like a preemptive defense of a movie that hasn’t even been released. Obviously, Johnson has a point about crafting cool, efficient stories that don’t require long digressions of exposition to work, but there is a sense of flippancy here. It almost sounds like Johnson is saying the film might not really explain two of the biggest things fans have been wondering about for two years: who are Rey’s parents and what’s up with Snoke?
Obviously, the merit of The Last Jedi doesn’t rely on finding out who Rey’s parents are, or figuring out Snoke’s weird backstory. But, these questions are still a huge part of why fans are going to see the movie. To be clear, Johnson isn’t saying audiences won’t learn new things about these mysteries, but his tone heavily implies the new information won’t be as detailed as some might hope.
Perhaps, Rian Johnson has already taken the easy way out. Maybe it will all be explained in one scene: Snoke reveals he’s Rey’s father and her mother is dead. Then, everyone sighs deeply and moves on quickly to a sweet lightsaber fight.
The Last Jedi opens on December 15.
