Star Wars Discussion Thread contains spoilers (and may contain nuts)

[Berkut]

Plus Kylo Ren seemed like kind of a bitch anyway.

[Brazen]

Plus Kylo Ren seemed like kind of a bitch anyway.

He's a hormonal teen bully with emotional and morality problems straight out of Harry Potter.

[Berkut]

Star Wars needs a "super villain" who just looks like a completely normal guy.

Snoke, in addition to having a stupid name, looks like Gollum or something. Why would anyone follow him?

[Syt]

Kylo Ren feels like what Anakin should have been.

[Legbiter]

Kylo Ren being a tantruming, slightly ineffectual emo bish was great but it'd have been better if he'd been a bit more badass. Like if he had fought them both at the same time in the end fight and just beaten the shit out of them, playing with them, just "come on, kill me", throwing them their weapons back before countering all their attacks, daring them to put him down for him killing his dad. And then Mary Sue finally using the force pull to land a blow on him.

[Solmyr]

Snoke, in addition to having a stupid name, looks like Gollum or something. Why would anyone follow him?

And Yoda looks like a muppet. Some people feel like following him, nonetheless.

[Solmyr]

Kylo Ren being a tantruming, slightly ineffectual emo bish was great but it'd have been better if he'd been a bit more badass. Like if he had fought them both at the same time in the end fight and just beaten the shit out of them, playing with them, just "come on, kill me", throwing them their weapons back before countering all their attacks, daring them to put him down for him killing his dad. And then Mary Sue finally using the force pull to land a blow on him.

I thought it was obvious that he was not meant to be a big badass yet. That's why he had a somewhat hard time fighting (admittedly while wounded) and his lightsaber is made from junk. Snoke even says at the end that "it's time to finish his training". I expect he'll develop into more of a badass in later movies.

[celedhring]

The whole "freeze a blaster shot mid-air" bit was pretty badass.

[Syt]

That was very cool, and made me jump a bit in my seat when it's finally released.

[Syt]

Also, I give the movie credit that they for the scenes where Kylo freezes or interrogates people. He's basically waving his hand and the other person freezes in place like in a kid's game; and in interrogation it's a lot of waving hand and looking intense. I think it would have been very easy to make these scenes silly and unintentionally funny. But with a combination of subtle nuances in facial expressions, music, and mise en scene they actually make those sequences credible and chilling.

[FunkMonk]

Star Wars needs a "super villain" who just looks like a completely normal guy.

Snoke, in addition to having a stupid name, looks like Gollum or something. Why would anyone follow him?

Well, there is that General Hux guy who seems like a fairly normal and competent dude. Excepting of course for the fact he seems like a fanatical Nazi 

[Berkut]

Snoke, in addition to having a stupid name, looks like Gollum or something. Why would anyone follow him?

And Yoda looks like a muppet. Some people feel like following him, nonetheless.

Yoda was not the emperor, or supreme leader, or really any position that required massed followers to believe that he was their "leader". In fact, I always assumed that the reason he was really only a leader for Jedi was very much that his stature and weirdness would make it not likely that he could be a popular leader.

He was not particularly charismatic to the masses.

Charisma is important when it comes to populist leaders.

[celedhring]

Snoke, in addition to having a stupid name, looks like Gollum or something. Why would anyone follow him?

And Yoda looks like a muppet. Some people feel like following him, nonetheless.

Yoda was not the emperor, or supreme leader, or really any position that required massed followers to believe that he was their "leader". In fact, I always assumed that the reason he was really only a leader for Jedi was very much that his stature and weirdness would make it not likely that he could be a popular leader.

He was not particularly charismatic to the masses.

Charisma is important when it comes to populist leaders.

Yet in the prequels he leads the Republic Army 

How I hate those films.

[Berkut]

Snoke, in addition to having a stupid name, looks like Gollum or something. Why would anyone follow him?

And Yoda looks like a muppet. Some people feel like following him, nonetheless.

Yoda was not the emperor, or supreme leader, or really any position that required massed followers to believe that he was their "leader". In fact, I always assumed that the reason he was really only a leader for Jedi was very much that his stature and weirdness would make it not likely that he could be a popular leader.

He was not particularly charismatic to the masses.

Charisma is important when it comes to populist leaders.

Yet in the prequels he leads the Republic Army 

How I hate those films.

Again, not the same thing at all. You can be assigned to lead an army without being particularly charismatic, and if it is a professional army, they will likely follow just fine.

But the idea that the "Supreme Leader" of a Nazi-like fascist political organization is this weird ass fucked up little/big troll thing is just silly.

[Solmyr]

Charisma is important when it comes to populist leaders.

How do you know Snoke is a populist leader, though? There is nothing in the film that makes such an assumption. The only time we see the First Order staging a mass march/parade event, General Hux is the guy who speaks to the troops, and he is pretty charistmatic. Snoke does not interact with anyone in the Order except Hux and Kylo (and presumably the other Knights of Ren, off-screen), and seems to be more of a gray eminence/man behind the man type of leader.