Snoke is what would have happened if the Men of the West found a way to kill Sauron without submerging the One Ring.
Now that Sauron is no more, the ring binds itself to Gollum as he bites Frodo's finger off. Rather than celebrate like a moron, he books it out of Mount Doom.
Frodo is so ashamed his failure, he decides to lie and say he tossed the thing in as directed. Meanwhile, the ring's power surges through Gollum, making him bigger, faster, stronger, and remarkably less schizophrenic. He decides to adopt his black speech name "Snoke" because "Gollum" is so Third Age.
After making his way to Dul Guldur, Snoke has a meeting with the Nazgul. There they agree the forces of Darkness have no immediate future on Middle Earth, so why not try their hand at interstellar travel? Couldn't hurt.
The Witch King of Angmar designs a craft with his magic skills. It takes five years and two dramatic Goblin labor union strikes to get the thing built. All the while, Snoke grows taller and more diabolical. Khamul the Easterling gets so bored, he designs new red suits for the Nazgul. Because black is so Third Age.
King Aragorn, knowing their plot, let's them build the craft. Good riddance.
Snoke and the Nazgul leave in their flying saucer, not knowing their galactic reign would come to an end at the hands of a chick named Daisy and a My Chemical Romance reject.
Wearing black of all things. BLACK! So Third Age. What a philistine....
As for the Star Wars debate, it was an overall good movie but not a great Star Wars movie. To anyone who saw it, that whole casino scene was just so boring it took me out the movie. It was a bland movie of what you come to expect from Star Wars movie. I won't spoil anything but while we learn more about Kylo Ren, we learn nothing about Snoke and that's frustrating. It's hard to explain but it wasn't a Star Wars film.