Over the last few weeks, we’ve been dissecting a purported leak of some major plot details concerning Rian Johnsons’ upcoming Star Wars trilogy. This week, we’ll instead be taking a look at a surprising connection between that trilogy and the current sequel trilogy: Supreme Leader Snoke.
But first, a brief recap. In our first video we broke down what the trilogy would follow in pretty broad strokes. In brief, this leak claims that the movies would follow a war between the Chiss Ascendancy and the Yuuzhan Vong. The movies will be set in the Star Wars Galaxy’s Unknown Regions, and will take place thousands of years before the Original Trilogy.
Then, in our video last week, we talked about the major changes in store for both the Vong and the Chiss as they return from being exiled into the Legends Canon.
At first, it seemed like the new trilogy might have been a boon to fans that didn’t like the sequel trilogy. No matter how you felt about Rian Johnson after The Last Jedi, his new trilogy would resurrect two fan-favorite EU races and be completely disconnected from the sequel trilogy.
But what if you were a fan of The Last Jedi and are worried this new trilogy might be a little too disconnected? Believe it or not there actually is a connection to the sequel trilogy, and a pretty big one: Supreme Leader Snoke.
One of the major complaints out of The Last Jedi in the first place was that Snoke’s backstory was left unexplored after his death. While that won’t happen in this new trilogy, and will likely take place off the big screen, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection.
Reportedly, Snoke is actually an ancient Sith, as many had theorized. This is something that was never confirmed by The Last Jedi as he shockingly died before we could learn more about him.
Despite being the only bridge between this new trilogy and the rest of the Star Wars Universe, Snoke won’t physically be in these new movies. In fact, he won’t even be directly referenced in them. Lucasfilm means what they said about the films not using any established characters. Instead, these new films will provide the answer to how an ancient Sith like Snoke stayed alive all those years.
The answer lies with the Yuuzhan Vong. According to this leak, as discussed last video, the Vong’s force immunity has been scrapped, as they won’t go up against any force users in this trilogy (more on that next week). Instead, it’s been replaced with a powerful ability connected to the dark side of the force: the ability to regenerate, an interesting mix with their organic ships and buildings.
Somehow, Snoke discovered and gained the same regenerative ability the Yuzhan-Vong have, effectively allowing him to live forever. This meshes with several earlier leaks about Snoke’s character: that he was an Ancient Sith, and that he was from the Unknown Regions, where he could have discovered the power the Vong possessed.
This has reportedly always been Snoke’s origin story. Obviously they ultimately held off on exploring it in the current films, likely to fit the story better in The Last Jedi. However, this new trilogy will explore that concept more in depth.
Additionally, this is expected to be the same ability that Darth Plaeguis used to save people from death, another connection back to the main saga of movies, and in a roundabout way, connecting Snoke and Plagueis as many expected, even though they aren’t the same person.
