Snoke the Great and Powerful
In The Force Awakens, the First Order’s Supreme Leader Snoke is introduced through a massive hologram that projects him looking down upon Kylo Ren and General Hux. The scene resembles the one in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her friends seek an audience with the Wizard and see a large, disembodied head projected above them. In both films, the imposing size of the projection is meant to make the ruler appear powerful and strike fear into those who come before him.
The resemblance between Snoke and the Wizard of Oz is taken further in The Last Jedi. Snoke’s first appearance in the film is once again in the form of a hologram, but this time the hologram only transmits his head, blown up to fill the deck of Hux’s command ship. In this scene the looming head threatens and terrifies Hux, just as the Wizard’s looming head threatens and terrifies Dorothy and her friends.
But just as it turns out the Wizard’s powers are more theatrical than genuine, it turns out later in The Last Jedi that Snoke is not nearly as powerful as he appears to be. Similarly to how the Wizard is too distracted to notice the dog Toto pulling away the curtain that hides him and the console by which he operates the intimidating projection, Snoke is too deluded by his own illusion of power to see that Kylo Ren is turning the lightsaber lying at his side to kill him. In The Rise of Skywalker, Ren will learn that Snoke was only a pawn of Palpatine, remotely controlled by him just as the Wizard of Oz remotely controlled the talking head.
EXPLORE FURTHER…
Characters: General Hux / Kylo Ren / Snoke
Films: Episode VII: The Force Awakens / Episode VIII: The Last Jedi / Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
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Concepts: fear / power and weakness / sight and blindness / size
Influences: The Wizard of Oz
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