Snoke

Supreme Leader Snoke is a major antagonist in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He first appeared as a major antagonist in The Force Awakens, and returned as the secondary antagonist of the sequel The Last Jedi.

He is the founder and Supreme Leader of the First Order, as well as the founder of the Knights of Ren, and is also the master of both Kylo Ren and General Hux, as well as a powerful entity of the Dark Side of the Force. While he was introduced as the main antagonist, he was later betrayed by Kylo, who turned out to be more dangerous than him.

He was portrayed and voiced by legendary actor Andy Serkis, who also played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, Mr. Grin in Stormbreaker, Ulysses Klaue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Capricorn in Inkherat, and voiced Spike in Flushed Down and the Witch-King of Angmar in the Lord of the Rings.

Description
Snoke is a male individual who served as Kylo Ren's master approximately thirty years after the Battle of Endor and a very powerful practitioner of the Dark Side of the Force.

He appears as a very thin and frail being with large hands. His hologram used on the Starkiller Base projected him several times larger (around 25–30 feet) than his natural appearance, towering over Kylo Ren and General Hux similar to the Emperor making his true height up to 7–8 feet, as Andy Serkis said.

Snoke had an elongated face with pale, scarred skin and light blue eyes, though they can easily be mistaken for dark black eyes in Snoke's hologram. He sported a large scar from the top of his head, all the way down to his brow. Snoke also has a scar or burn on his right cheek. Snoke wore a simple cloak similar to those worn by Sith Lords in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (even though Director J.J. Abrams said that there are no Sith in The Force Awakens, but Snoke could still be a Sith, while in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he wears a golden robe. Snoke tended to speak slowly and enunciate his desires with a forceful undertone.

Star Wars: Episode Vll - The Force Awakens
After the escape of Poe Dameron with help of the deserting stormtrooper Finn, General Hux and Kylo Ren are called before Snoke. Snoke tells them that if the droid BB-8, whom Dameron gave the map leading to Luke Skywalker, brings the map to the Resistance a new Jedi Order will rise. Hux claims full responsibility for the failure and tells Snoke that Starkiller Base is ready to be used against the Republic. Snoke orders Hux to oversee the preparations and dismisses him. After the general has left, Snoke exclaims that there has been an awakening and asks Ren whether he felt it too. He then tells Ren that the droid they are searching is in the hands of Ren's father, Han Solo. Ren tells Snoke that Han means nothing to him but Snoke responds that despite his training, Ren has never faced such a task before. His hologram then fades away, leaving Ren alone in the room.

After Ren has captured Rey, but is unable to read her mind, as she herself is strong with the Force, he reports to Snoke who can not believe that the scavenger girl bested his apprentice. When Snoke asks of news of the droid, Hux tells him that because he had the girl in his hands, Kylo deemed the droid irrelevant and stopped the search for him. To prevent the Resistance from finding Luke Skywalker, Snoke tells Hux to prepare the base's weapon to destroy the home planet of the Resistance. Snoke then tells Ren to bring Rey to him, but she has already escaped her prison cell.

After Han Solo calls out to Kylo Ren (by his name Ben) to come home and depart Snoke, his son asserts that Snoke is wise while Han claims that Snoke doesn't care about him and will crush Ben once he gets what he wants. It is unspecified what Snoke wants, it could be obedience from all over the galaxy or Luke Skywalker's location, if not both. Kylo Ren may have believed Han's warning that Snoke will crush him and then secretly made plans to kill Snoke later on to prevent that from happening. Nonetheless, Han's lecture to him about Snoke did not change his relation with his son, and his son executed him anyways.

When it becomes imminent that Starkiller Base has reached a critical condition and will be destroyed under the attack of the Resistance, Snoke calls General Hux to him and orders him to evacuate the base as well as to bring Kylo Ren to him, promising he will complete Ren's training.

Star Wars Episode Vlll: The Last Jedi
Following the destruction of Starkiller Base, Snoke starts to sense that Kylo is growing weaker ever since he killed Han. He then proceeds to compare Kylo unfavorably to Vader by calling him an immature child hiding behind a mask, a statement that left Kylo very upset. Despite the setbacks, Snoke becomes delighted to hear that Hux found a way to constantly track down the Resistance fleet and deduce their current location through hyperspace, so he orders both Kylo and Hux to lead a series of assaults on the Resistance fleet.

Snoke also learned that Kylo and Rey have developed a certain connection to each other within the Force as they can communicate through their minds. Deciding to exploit this, Snoke manipulated both Kylo and Rey into communicating more with each other in the Force, which allowed Rey to be captured by Ren in a failed attempt to bring him back to the Light Side.

Being brought over to a room occupied by Snoke and his Elite Praetorian Guards, Rey is horrified to learn that Snoke plans to use his Force skills to torture her into giving out the location of Luke so that he can destroy the Jedi legacy and cement the First Order's reign across the galaxy. As Snoke tortures Rey, he sadistically orders Kylo to finish her off by gloating of his ability to read Kylo's mind and calling the latter a 'foolish child' for his hesitation. However, this finally drove an angry Kylo to rebel against Snoke by activating Luke's lightsaber and using it to cut Snoke in half by the waist, killing him instantly. After finishing off Snoke's guards to their deaths, Kylo takes over Snoke's mantle as the new Supreme Leader, even framing an escaping Rey for the murder and Force-choking an arriving Hux into compliance for the new chain of command.

Personality
Snoke is an extremely intelligent, deceitful, and wise leader. However, he is very sly and manipulative, as he exploited Force-sensitive individuals, such as Ben Solo, only for their power.

Snoke displays tendencies unusual for practitioners of the Dark side of the Force; he is somewhat emotional and melodramatic. His anger and frustration were on clear display after learning of failures from General Hux (the loss of BB-8) and Kylo Ren (inability to extract the map from Rey). In The Last Jedi it is shown that he often uses his force powers on his minions, like General Hux and Kylo Ren, to express his displeasure at their failures.

His reason for choosing Ben Solo as his apprentice (as explained in the novelization of The Force Awakens) is that as Anakin Skywalker's grandson, he is a focal point in the Force; a perfect balance of light and dark.

For mostly unknown reasons, Snoke has a dislike for Luke Skywalker. However, in the film's novelization, Snoke is shown to believe that Darth Vader's loving and compassionate nature for his son, Luke, was the reason for the fall of the Galactic Empire. He also passed on that belief to Kylo during the the latter's apprenticeship.

In The Last Jedi, Snoke seems to hold doubts about Kylo Ren ever becoming the new Vader, believing that even with the death of his father, Han Solo, he had some weakness in him that left him in conflict. He even taunted Ren of his unwillingness to kill Rey to succumb himself further, calling him a pathetic and foolish child. Eventually, this horrible treatment led to Snoke's downfall as it provoked an angry Kylo to kill Snoke by cutting him in half from the waist with Luke's lightsaber.

In the little screen time we got with Snoke, he proved to be utterly sadistic, arrogant, cruel, and incredibly evil. Snoke also exhibited extreme psychopathic traits: A complete lack of conscience, a lack of empathy and remorse, extreme arrogance and narcissism, and a lack of fear. Snoke was also highly sadistic, and completely willing to let his own soldiers, as well as millions of others die. Snoke proves to be as evil as Sidious before him, if not worse. He was also incredibly manipulative, easily seducing Ben Solo to the dark side, turning him into Kylo Ren. Before his death, he was arrogant till the end, and even though he could sense Kylo’s every move, his arrogance was his downfall.

Powers

 * The Force: Snoke is extremely powerful, and has an extremely strong connection to the Force.
 * Telepathy: Snoke had the power of telepathy, which he used to sense Kylo’s emotions and intentions, though he was only able to sense that Kylo was about to kill “his true enemy”, but assumed that it was Rey and not himself.
 * Mind Probe: Snoke possesses skill with the mind prove that was naturally superior to that of his apprentice, as he easily pried into the mind of Rey to discover Luke’s location, which caused her extreme agony.
 * Telekinesis: Snoke possessed an affinity for Telekinesis as well as being able to use Force chokes and throws. He was able to immobilize and restrain his targets effortlessly, which allowed him to manipulate their movements. As demonstrated on both Rey and Hux, Snoke could make his targets glide along the floor or fly through the air while barely concentrating or exerting visible effort. His power in this regard is so strong that he doesn't even have to be in close proximity to his intended target, as he was capable of using his powers on General Hux even though they were not even on the same starship (or solar system, as his ship had not entered the same system yet at that point).
 * Force Lightning: Snoke was able to use Force lightning, which he blasted against the floor like a shockwave to knock his apprentice off his feet.

Abilities

 * High-Level Intellect/Master Tactician/Leader/Manipulator: Snoke is highly intelligent. As the leader of the First Order and the Knights of Ren, Snoke is a highly skilled tactician and a capable leader. Snoke's skill in manipulation is so strong that Snoke even managed to manipulate and deceive Ben Solo into becoming his apprentice and turning him against the New Jedi Order, even before the boy was born.

Trivia

 * Snoke is the Bigger Bad in the sequel trilogy as he is responsible for turning Kylo Ren to the Dark Side. During the first half of the sequel Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Snoke appeared as the primary antagonist, but this role is taken over by Ren after he kills Snoke and takes his place as Supreme Leader.
 * His appearance was created using motion capture (CGI).
 * His name was officially unveiled on May 28, 2015.
 * The role of Snoke in the sequel trilogy mirrors the role of Emperor Palpatine in the original trilogy. The case of Snoke is similar to the roles of both Kylo Ren and General Hux in the sequel trilogy, who respectively mirror Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin in the original trilogy. The difference being that, Snoke is betrayed and killed in the second installment of the trilogy.
 * Likewise, his telling Kylo Ren to "fulfill his destiny" mirrors Palpatine telling Luke the same thing in Return of the Jedi. Both villains are also shortly after uttering this line betrayed and killed by their respective right-hands (Darth Vader and Kylo Ren).
 * His being taken by surprise and sliced in half by a Force user wielding a lightsaber not their own is strikingly similar to what happened to Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace where a Force user (Obi-Wan), cut him in half using a lightsaber not his own (Qui-Gon's). The difference of course being that Maul survived.
 * He is played by Andy Serkis who also played Gollum in the Lord of The Rings films. Andy Serkis is the second major Lord of The Rings actor to play a Star Wars villain after Christopher Lee who played Count Dooku in the prequel trilogy.
 * Ironically, both characters died one movie after they first appeared.
 * Ironically, his yellow/golden robes resemble those worn by the Jedi Librarian Jocasta Nu, though this resemblance was likely just a coincidence.
 * Andy Serkis has confirmed that Snoke's horribly deformed face was inspired partially by injuries of World War I veterans who came back badly scarred or deformed.