Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Supreme Leader Snoke is not a Sith Lord

By Bryan Abrams

You'd have been forgiven for assuming that Supreme Leader Snoke, played by Andy Serkis, was a Sith Lord. While we only saw him in holographic form in The Force Awakens, it was made crystal clear he was the man-er, being-in charge.

Both General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) genuflected before him like two squabbling brothers before their overbearing, terrifying father. And while Hux complained to Snoke that Kylo Ren's petulance was hurting the First Order's cause, it was clear that Snoke liked, or at least tolerated, Ren's rage, as it seemed to fit his larger plan of using Ren to destroy the Jedi once and for all.

Everything we seemed to learn about Snoke in The Force Awakens, which was admittedly minimal, pointed to his being a Sith Lord, in the same way Emperor Palpatine, who tempted Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side in the Star Wars prequels, was the Sith Lord. Yet Andy Serkis himself has told Empire that Snoke is not a Sith Lord, begging the question of what, exactly, the big bad in the new Star Wars trilogy actually is. One thing that Serkis said is that Snoke's seething fury is even greater than Palpatine's was.

5th December 2017