Ever since The Force Awakens introduced Supreme Leader Snoke, fans expected him to be the next big bad of the trilogy—a shadowy figure pulling strings from the dark, maybe even tied to Palpatine somehow. But then The Last Jedi happened… and Kylo Ren sliced him in half before we ever really learned who he was. That moment left fans stunned, divided, and asking: “Why kill off the main villain so early?”
Well, now we know the answer—straight from Rian Johnson himself.
According to Rolling Stone, Johnson didn’t see Snoke’s death as throwing away a major villain. In fact, he saw it as the most impactful way to push Kylo Ren’s story forward.
“This is all a matter of perspective and phrasing, but to me, I didn’t easily dispense with Snoke. 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.”
To Johnson, Kylo Ren was always the more compelling and complicated character. Killing Snoke wasn’t meant to be a twist for shock value—it was meant to elevate Kylo from an unstable apprentice into the real villain of the story. A villain who wasn’t just following orders, but now calling the shots.
“I thought, ‘This is such a compelling and complicated villain. This is who it makes sense going forward to build around.’”
And despite what some fans think, Johnson insists there wasn’t any creative friction with J.J. Abrams. They talked, met for days, and shared ideas. Johnson says his goal wasn’t to undo anything from The Force Awakens, but to take what J.J. set up and push it to the next level.
“None of [my choices] were born out of an intent to ‘undo’ anything. They were all borne out of the opposite intent: 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 Kathleen Kennedy wanted The Last Jedi to be like The Empire Strikes Back—a darker, more introspective middle chapter. Johnson took that seriously. And love it or hate it, The Last Jedi definitely left an impact.
As for the backlash? Yeah, he felt it. But Johnson’s also been a fan long enough to understand that opinions in Star Wars fandom are always evolving.
“I was in college when the prequels came out. My friends and I were Prequel Hate Central,” he admitted. “But I’ve seen how much those movies mean to fans today.”
In the end, Johnson didn’t try to play it safe or stick to expectations. He wanted to take risks, challenge the characters, and hand Kylo Ren the spotlight.