Snoke and Kylo Ren was tired and repetitive. "It would have stopped any of these scenes dead cold if he had stopped and given a 30-second speech about how he’s Darth Plagueis," Johnson explained in one interview. "It doesn’t matter to Rey. If he had done that, Rey would have blinked and said, 'Who?'"
Still, when J.J. Abrams returned for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, he chose to finally reveal Snoke's origin. When Kylo Ren arrived at the Sith redoubt of Exegol, he discovered evidence of sophisticated cloning and genetic engineering experiments. The artificially-created creatures within cloning cylinders were recognizably Snoke-like, and shortly afterwards the resurrected Emperor Palpatine revealed the truth. "My boy," the Emperor teased, "I made Snoke," confirming the leader of the First Order - and mentor of Kylo Ren - had only ever been his puppet.
Star Wars is currently attempting to fix the many plot holes and continuity SNAFUs created by the sequel trilogy, albeit with mixed success. The broad thrust of The Star Wars Book, which revealed Snoke is a "strandcast" - an artificial genetic construct created by the Emperor to be his proxy. Tie-ins have since been exploring the overarching story of the Supreme Leader, allowing viewers to put the pieces together into a single coherent narrative. It's easiest to look at these in an in-universe chronological order, rather than order of release, because it helps clarify this story.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Teases The Creation Of Snoke
Snoke prototypes decades before the Emperor's death.
The Empire Pursued Cloning In The Dark Times
The next clue is offered in Charles Soule's first Darth Vader run, which revealed the Emperor commissioned a number of scientists to work on cloning experiments - right up until the time of the Galactic Civil War. While these experiments really foreshadow Palpatine's own resurrection - the scientists were creating personality maps to copy them into clone bodies after they died, doing with technology what the Emperor would accomplish through the Force - they are still important in this context. They confirm the Empire began conducting cloning and genetic engineering experiments akin to the Kaminoans', under Palpatine's direct command.
The Severed Hand Of Luke Skywalker May Point To Snoke's Creation
Incredibly, it's possible The Empire Strikes Back, and it sees Darth Vader discover the existence of Exegol and Darth Sidious' experiments there. Although the facility was clearly the same as the one seen in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the operation was at its height, and every clone cannister was filled. The Emperor boasted this was his "scalpel of creation," and insisted he can make use of anything - with Vader noticing a severed hand. This is likely the hand Luke Skywalker lost during his duel with his father on Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back, raising the possibility Luke's own DNA was used to create Snoke.
Imperial Cloning Experiments In The Mandalorian
These threads are next picked up in Return of the Jedi, meaning Palpatine would have already been resurrected in a clone body by this time.
Star Wars Reveals The Reason Palpatine Needed Snoke As A Proxy
But why did the Emperor need Supreme Leader Snoke in the first place" This likely further explains why the Emperor had so many Snoke clones, because he would have periodically had to replace the Supreme Leader.
-
At present, the origin of Supreme Leader Snoke remains clouded in mystery. Still, all the various tie-in media seem to be hinting at an overarching narrative in which Kaminoan experiments were taken over by the Empire, with Palpatine focused mainly on using cloning as a means of avoiding death, only to become interested in the idea of strandcasts as proxies when his own resurrection went wrong. The most curious idea is that Snoke could have been created using Skywalker DNA, but so far, that's only been hinted at, and not explicitly confirmed. Hopefully, Star Wars will eventually reveal the truth.
