Syfo-Dias was actually Sydo-Dias or something in the original conception of Attack of the Clones, Lucas realized it was too stupid though because that obviously meant Sidious and it was too on the nose. The Clone Wars TV show then made it into an actual seperate character, but the story arc never went anywhere under Lucas he just wanted Obi-Wan to be a detective for 40 minutes of a movie. 

I'm looking at movies through "where's the drama? Is the conflict interesting? Is the story surprising?" you know basic *storytelling* stuff not fanboy indulgement. That's not real storytelling. On that end I thought TLJ was alright. The mistake the script makes is it spends too much time on superfluous characters instead of staying with Luke-Rey-Kylo, any scene with one of those three characters I found very interesting, the other stuff kinda feels like it's there because it Star Wars and you have to have B/C-plot with other characters just cuz Star Wars. 

Snoke's backstory should've been in The Force Awakens. Even if there's a line there where they go "Oh Snoke was a dark side user who lived in the Outer Rim and consolidated power after the Emperor died" (which probably is the basic jist of his story) I guess .... so? I mean suddenly is the movie 5x better with that in it? I'm glad they didn't do that Darth Plagueis stupidity. 

We didn't know where the heck Palpatine came from or who he was in the OT, he just suddenly showed up. 

I can't really forgive Johnson turning a bunch of key characters into superfluous characters, in his own script. The only advice I have for focusing on them is "stop hitting yourself."

Palpatine showing up in the OG trilogy is explained the prequels, and the OG trilogy films are the prequels to the new trilogy. Ergo, Johnson should have borrowed from source material that explained it or explained it himself. It's not like Lucas started with IV-VI and didn't have an explanation: he didn't have the visual effects to start with I-III.

Also, the books were better.

We didn't have the prequels for like 20 years, lol, and believe me Star Wars was much better off before them. 

Lucas made most of his shit up on the fly, researching how the OT was done, he just turned Leia into Luke's sister way later on and the earliest drafts of Empire Strikes Back does not have Darth Vader as Luke's father (Anakin is a separate character that even shows up as a Force ghost to talk to Luke, lol). 

I don't have to believe you: I was there, and Lucas should have never helmed them.

If he handed off most of the directorial duties, a la IV-VI, he'd probably still own the franchise.

He sold to Disney because he was getting old and wouldn't be able to run the company forever and didn't want to lay off his Lucasfilm/ILM staff. 

That's a separate issue. The prequels were still dog shit though, lol. 

I imagine that after Episode 9, this thread will still be active with how much these people detest this movie

The Emperor didn't need to be explained in the OT - the Empire were the villains, ergo we have an Emperor helming it. Vader serves him, so he's probably super OP. He wants Vader to find Luke to become his new apprentice, and decides to kill him when he declines after revealing he has a sister (another potential convert).

Snoke, on the other hand...he comes out of nowhere in chapter #7, with a whole fleet, ultimate WMD, and sith (?) underling (whom he decides on a whim shouldn't wear a mask because reasons). He's got some fancy force tricks, his fleet recovers instantly from having the incredibly expensive WMD blown up, doesn't know his fleet has the ability to track through hyperspace, wants Rey initially to turn her...and then decides killing her & Luke is a better plan because reasons, and then dies like a chump.

I think it's pretty obvious the First Order is just the Empire rebuilt, it's not some entire new fleet. 

That said yes, they could have had a better explanation on it, but ultimately it doesn't really change the movie and that should have been in The Force Awakens, not The Last Jedi. Presumably he is some evil dude that took over the vacuum of power left after the Emperor and Vader were dead. It doesn't really matter where he came from, just that he did rise to power as a Dark Side user and took over the Empire. 

This is apparently Snoke's backstory via Wookiepedia:

Snoke was a humanoid alien who was the leader of the Attendants, a retinue composed of mute alien navigators who originated from the Unknown Regions. At some unspecified point in his life, Snoke acquired a black obsidian stone from the catacombs and mines beneath the castle of the Sith Lord Darth Vader on the planet Mustafar. He affixed the stone to a golden ring he wore, which was engraved with glyphs used by the Four Sages of Dwartii,[8] controversial figures of philosophy from the early days of the Galactic Republic and were represented with bronzium statues in the office of Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine.[9]

Eventually, Snoke witnessed the rise and eventual fall of the Galactic Empire.[1] Through a secret Contingency, however, many former Imperial officers, nobles and technologists fled to the Unknown Regions and took the shape of what eventually became the First Order. Most of the former Imperial officers would have likely perished while crossing this uncharted realm, if it had not been for the ancient hyperspace trails blazed by Snoke's retinue, along with some of Grand Admiral Thrawn's vast knowledge about the Regions, which helped them to stay there and organize themselves.[10][11]

Although he was a very powerful practitioner of the dark side of the Force, Snoke was not affiliated with the Sith, which became extinct as a result of the deaths of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader at the Death Star II thanks to the efforts of the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. As such, Snoke, a secretive master of the Force, was a seeker of arcane and ancient lore.[8][12][13] In a matter of time, Snoke became unexpectedly the leader of the First Order. The last of the Imperial leadership, including Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, the political lunatic Ormes Apolin or even General Brendol Hux didn't see Snoke's rise to power and were surprised when it occurred. General Armitage Hux, Brendol's son, was spared by Snoke in order to use him as a tool in his rise to power.[14]

So basically after ROTJ a bunch of the Imperials go running off into the "Unknown Regions" which Admiral Thrawn knows well. There they "regroup" and run into an old Dark Side user named Snoke. They reform into the First Order and consolidate the former Empire. 

I mean ... yeah. I think Rian Johnson actually said he shot a bit where this is talked about in the movie, but it doesn't really advance the actual plot of The Last Jedi.

The more control he had, the worse the films turned out. He made too much money to be challenged on the prequels, unfortunately.

It's a double-edged sword: Lucas' comic directing vs. losing Star Wars canon.