[Max Cow Disease]

This drawing of a straight line between what people's expectations should be regarding the story in this movie/trilogy and what they were with the OT doesn't make any sense. A New Hope came out 40 years ago, and entered the world at a time when Star Wars entirely didn't exist and people had no idea what was going on. Zap forward to now and the state of the Star Wars canon as it is -a rich, fleshed out universe rife with little details and full of characters to whom people have become attached and with whom they're familiar- and it should be clear that we're not viewing Last Jedi in some vacuum. It doesn't mean that these movies shouldn't take things in a new direction or attempt to stand on their own merits, but anything that comes out at this point has to heed the backstory and the status of the franchise to a degree.

And that's what chokes me about the handling of Snoke. I'd contend that he WAS a potentially very interesting character, and that providing some more context could have been a great way to up the stakes in this trilogy and provide more weight to the conflict. All of the OT's primary characters that carried through to this new series seem to have known who Snoke is. He seems incredibly powerful and oversaw the formation of a capable paramilitary force in the First Order as well as a mysterious group called the Knights of Ren. He seduced and corrupted the son/nephew of one of sci-fi's most important trios of all time. Who is this guy?