Star Wars The Last Jedi: Rian Johnson has No Regrets About Killing Snoke

One of the most anticipated characters for Star Wars: The Last Jedi was Supreme Leader Snoke, and everyone was shocked when director Rian Johnson decided to have him so unceremoniously killed off in the film. Despite all the fan backlash, Johnson stuck to what he did, and says he has no regrets for killing off one of the most hyped up characters for the sequel trilogy.

Talking to SlashFilm, Johnson explains:

"A lot of things that ended up taking hold in the fan community in terms of who is Snoke, who are Rey's parents, and the fever pitch that those rose to, I obviously knew those were questions you had coming out of Force Awakens, but I didn't have the weight of the fan expectation of what the payoff of those questions would be…Which I think was a good thing."

A lot of people were expecting Snoke to be such a huge character for the trilogy, but with him killed off, now Kylo Ren has nobody pulling his strings—thus making him a much more different threat than Darth Vader. Johnson continues:

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, the timing of it was, it's not like I was aware of those expectations and was purposefully trying to poke people in the eye… I was writing to my honest gut reactions to what the most powerful turn of events would be to those questions."

Despite all the backlash from fans, I completely stand behind Johnson and his decision to have Snoke killed off. With Snoke being an obvious parallel for Palpatine, everyone was expecting him to be the main villain of the last movie. With him offed in The Last Jedi though, fan expectations are suddenly blown out the water, and Episode IX is open season for whatever J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio have in store.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is still out in theaters.

See Also: Domhnall Gleeson Asked Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Director For Hux's Special Scene