Rian Johnson Reveals Why He Killed Off Snoke in The Last Jedi

Rian Johnson, the director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has opened up about why he chose to kill off the mysterious villain Snoke early in the movie. Fans had expected Snoke to be the big bad guy of the new trilogy, especially since The Force Awakens made him seem like a powerful and dangerous leader of the First Order. But Johnson had a different plan.

Johnson explained that killing Snoke wasn’t an easy choice. “I didn’t easily dispense with Snoke,” he said. “I took great pains to use him in the most dramatically impactful way I could, which was to then take Kylo’s character to the next level and set him up as well as I possibly could.” Johnson saw Snoke as a complicated villain, but he felt the story needed to focus more on Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver, who was a fresh and powerful character.

Snoke, this dark and mysterious figure, was introduced as the Supreme Leader of the First Order, controlling the villainous forces that threaten the galaxy. He was meant to be a scary, powerful figure, but Johnson believed that focusing on Kylo’s inner conflict made the story stronger.

Instead of spending too much time on Snoke, Johnson used his death to push Kylo into a bigger, more important role.

Many fans thought that Johnson and J.J. Abrams, who directed The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, didn’t communicate well, which caused some plot points to get changed or undone. Johnson cleared that up, saying he and Abrams did talk and even spent days together discussing the story.

He said, “I feel like the choices in it, none of them were born out of an intent to ‘undo’ anything. They were all borne out of the opposite intent of, how do I take this story that J.J. wrote, that I really loved, and these characters he created that I really loved, and take them to the next step?” He also mentioned that Lucasfilm president Kathy Kennedy told him she wanted The Last Jedi to be like The Empire Strikes Back for the new trilogy, which Johnson took very seriously.

Johnson also shared where the idea for the famous Holdo Maneuver came from. It was inspired by a line in A New Hope where Han Solo warns Luke Skywalker about flying too close to a star. Johnson thought, “If that’s physically possible, what would that look like?” He wanted the maneuver to be a huge moment, not something small or casual.

When asked about changes in The Rise of Skywalker, like why they didn’t just use the Holdo Maneuver with an unmanned ship or how Rey’s backstory was changed to be Palpatine’s granddaughter, Johnson said he wasn’t upset. “J.J. did the same thing with the third that I did with the second, which is not digging it up and undoing — just telling the story the way that was most compelling going forward,” he explained.

He reminded fans that all these movies were made by friends who love Star Wars, and he was happy to watch the latest film.

The backlash to The Last Jedi surprised Johnson at first. He admitted it was hard to handle some of the negative reactions online but said his experience as a lifelong Star Wars fan helped him. “I was in college when the prequels came out. My friends and I were Prequel Hate Central,” he said, pointing out how opinions can change over time. Johnson sees the push and pull of fan reactions as part of being a Star Wars fan and believes it’s a healthy thing in the long run.

There were also talks about Johnson directing a new Star Wars trilogy, but that never fully happened. Johnson said he never expected to do more than The Last Jedi and was happy to focus on other projects like Knives Out. However, he remains open to returning to the galaxy far, far away someday.

In the end, Johnson’s decision to kill Snoke early was about making the story stronger and focusing on Kylo Ren’s complicated character. Snoke might have seemed like a big mystery, but Johnson saw him as a tool to deepen the story, not the story itself. As Johnson put it, “This is such a compelling and complicated villain. This is who it makes sense going forward to build around.”