He’s strong with the Dark side of the Force, and he loves the color red, but Supreme Leader Snoke, creator of the First Order, is not a Sith Lord.
On Wednesday, Empire released an excerpt from their January issue in which actor Andy Serkis drops some new Snoke hints. “He’s definitely not a Sith, but he’s certainly at the darker end of the Force. Without giving too much away, that begins to unfold a little in this one.”
What the “darker end” of the Force ends up meaning is still pretty mysterious. When Daisy Ridley appeared on Good Morning America on Tuesday, she had similarly eyebrow-raising comments in terms of the Light and Dark sides of the Force getting blurry. “The thing about this film is that the lines are less clear in terms of good and bad,” Ridley said. “Rey is trying to find out about herself and the universe, and those questions don’t fall entirely to the good.”
Because Rey and Snoke are bound for some kind of meeting in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it’s utterly fascinating that both are being described by their respective actors as not entirely evil. Serkis is saying Snoke isn’t a Sith, and Ridley isn’t necessarily going to become a Jedi. Serkis even went so far as to say that Snoke has a “bizarre vulnerability about him.”
Traditionally, Star Wars films are very interested in creating compelling reasons for the audiences to understand the villains, perhaps even more so than the heroes. After all, there are three movies devoted to why Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and only a few minutes in another movie where he switches back. Mark Hamill has been joking that the Star Wars movies have always been about the villains, but now with both Snoke’s and Rey’s respective roles seemingly being blurred, it’s clear that this has been going on all along.
For now, Star Wars fans have a little over two weeks before we discover just how many characters in The Last Jedi switch sides or walk away from this destructive galactic conflict entirely.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on December 15. Check out all of Inverse’s coverage right here.
