Star Wars: Rian Johnson Compares Snoke To The Emperor

While Kylo Ren is the most visible antagonist in the new Star Wars trilogy, he isn’t necessarily the most powerful.

That position is reserved for Supreme Leader Snoke, who made his debut in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Fans are eager to see more of the shadowy figure, and they’ll get their wish in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where fans might seem some similarities to another franchise icon.

“We got the whole story of Palpatine’s rise to power in the prequels, but in the original films, he’s exactly what he needs to be, which is just ‘The Emperor’,” director Rian Johnson tells Empire. “He’s a dark force: the scary thing behind the thing. That was entirely how I approached Snoke. I wasn’t interested in explaining where he came from or telling his history, except where it serves this story.”

So Star Wars fans probably won’t get much backstory on the disfigured villain in the main films, at least unless it has to do directly with the current characters. Whether those relationships will reveal exactly how he got disfigured or to his position of power remains to be seen, but don’t expect an origin story anytime soon, at least on the big screen.

If anything, Snoke’s history might provide some compelling content for the Star Wars novels, which have the ability to explore characters in a larger way. They did a similar thing for Jar Jar Binks, who last seen in the films was a politician, but is revealed to be a street performer after falling out of favor with, well, pretty much everyone.

While the movies won’t go into as much history on Snoke, he does seem to have a similar relationship to Kylo as Palpatine had to Darth Vader. Both leaders play on the baggage that their apprentices have with the Force and their former mentors, though Snoke seems to have to fight back the light in Kylo more than Palpatine had to in Vader.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters on December 15th.