How creepy would it be to watch Andy Serkis getting into character? The guy is a genius when it comes to becoming Snoke in The Last Jedi, but thinking about Daisy Ridley having to go face to face with him when he’s in character is kind of terrifying really. Obviously she knows that eventually the director will call for a cut and Andy will go back to being his normally charming self, but the idea of facing down the same guy that’s done Gollum, Caesar, and even King Kong and a few other characters seems like it might be slightly intimidating. Ridley holds her own though and puts up a great performance as Rey faces off against Snoke with her customary defiance, vowing to give him nothing.
The layering that is done with the CGI to create Snoke is something else. By the end product you can still just barely tell the difference between real life and CGI, but the effect is still getting better with every movie and one day might be indistinguishable. Given that it was never much of a thing only decades ago the fact that it’s used so widely and in such a great way these days is a big leap forward in cinema. It’s a lot more expensive however and can really eat into a movie’s budget, so sometimes it has to be used sparingly. But for Andy Serkis the CGI life is pretty much what he’s built his reputation on. He’s been a great live action actor as well, as has been seen in Black Panther when he plays Ulysses Klaue, but his CGI moments are out of this world.
Honestly it seems like Gollum might have been one of his best roles ever, and that Snoke, while steeped in evil, is a minor role that he was considered to be best for since, hey, he’s the master when it comes to slipping into psychotic CGI characters. But to see him fall so easily after building him up in the first and second movies is a little disconcerting and has, as you might have guessed, started the rumor mills churning full force ever since its December release. The idea that such a powerful Force user steeped so heavily in the Dark side could be fooled in such a way begs the question of how powerful Ben really is, and whether Luke could have taken him easily had he really been there in person. Of course those of us that are big Luke Skywalker fans want to say that of course Luke would have taken him, he’s the master after all and Kylo is still a rampaging psychopath with a lot of power but little real control.
But now we’re going to see what will happen between Kylo and Ren you would think in the last movie when it comes out. This next episode is supposed to be the last one before the story starts taking off from the Skywalker/Solo line and exploring the universe in greater detail, but not to include the characters that remain seems like it would be a waste. But as for Snoke, well, unless he made clones of himself his one-off performance was kind of puzzling by Serkis’ standards.
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