'Star Wars' Collectibles & Toys Review: Hasbro Star Wars: The Black Series Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room)

© 2017 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Photo Credit: Gamestop

In the fall of 2017, two months before the release of Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Hasbro began sending shipments of The Black Series: Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room) to Gamestop and EB Games stores in the U.S. and Canada. Intended for sale to the public on November 10 of that year as Gamestop/EB Games exclusives, the deluxe 6-inch scale figure of the First Order's mysterious overlord hit shelves in October.

© 2017 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Photo Credit: Gamestop

The shadowy commander of the First Order, Supreme Leader Snoke prefers to operate from a distance, looming over his underlings in the form of an immense hologram. As the First Order rallies, this master of the Dark Side emerges from the shadows to seize victory. 

Introduced in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the mysterious villain who commands the evil First Order was mainly seen as a hologram in the first installment of Lucasfilm's Sequel Trilogy. Very little is known about Snoke; described simply as a "humanoid alien" who was born sometime before the Fall of the Republic and the founding of the Galactic Empire (19 years before the Battle of Yavin), Snoke became a powerful practitioner of the Dark Side of the Force and, in the decades following the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader at the Battle of Endor, gradually outmaneuvered or eliminated many of the survivors of the Imperial hierarchy who fled to the Unknown Regions at the end of the Galactic Civil War.

Unlike Sheev Palpatine, Snoke is not a Sith Lord; the Sith Order was destroyed along with the Emperor and his apprentice Darth Vader when the Death Star II was blown up four years after the Battle of Yavin. Nevertheless, he studied Dark Side lore and wears a ring with an obsidian stone taken from the mines beneath Lord Vader's castle on Mustafar. Obsessed with imposing a regime based on the precepts of Palpatine's New Order, Snoke snared Ben Solo to the Dark Side and enlisted him to lead the Knights of Ren and help destroy Ben's uncle Luke Skywalker and a nascent new Jedi Order.

The Figure

Snoke is old, disfigured, and frail, thus he is not able to engage his foes in a lightsaber duel like Darth Sidious or Lord Vader did in their prime. He can use certain Dark Side techniques, such as telekinesis, Force choke, and Force lightning, but otherwise he relies on the skills of Kylo Ren (Ben Solo's new identity as Snoke's apprentice) and his red-clad Praetorian Guards for protection from attack.

As such, Hasbro's Star Wars: The Black Series' deluxe Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room) depicts the character as he appears throughout most of his screen time in The Last Jedi. Instead of wearing a black cowled robe like Palpatine, Snoke wears an ostentatious outfit that consists of golden khalat robes over a gray underdress. The robes are usually closed and tied at the waist with a golden belt.  On his left hand's ring finger, Snoke wears a ring with the piece of black obsidian from Mustafar.

This 6-inch scale Supreme Leader Snoke figure from Star Wars The Black Series is carefully detailed to look like the iconic, dark leader from the new Star Wars trilogy. Figure features premium detail and multiple points of articulation, and this GameStop exclusive includes a detailed, movie-inspired Supreme Leader throne. - From the retailer's website

The Gamestop/EB Games exclusive Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room) figure also comes with a replica of the throne from the First Order's mobile capital, the Mega-class Super Star Dreadnaught Supremacy. It's similar in function to Palpatine's iconic swiveling chair, but has a more angular, almost pyramid-like look.

My Take

I've been a Star Wars fan since the fall of 1977. I have also been a collector of Star Wars action figures and other memorabilia since the spring of the following year. My collection is not impressively large; I started out with a self-imposed focus on the 3.75-inch scale action figures and their associated vehicles and selected playsets. I used to have most of the Kenner Toys collectibles in this category, though accidents, theft, my mom's poor choices of storage places, and a cross-state move whittled the number of items that survived to less than half of my original stash.

Because I now live in a place where I don't have much room in which to display (much less store) a large Star Wars collection, I've cut down on my purchases significantly. I've tried to get representative figures from each of the Trilogies and Anthology films, but I'm suppressing my instinct to want to get figures that represent all of the major characters.

I bought Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room) from a third-party seller on Amazon after watching The Last Jedi on Blu-ray for the fifth time. The character is not one of my favorites; I was actually looking for a 6-inch scale porg collectible, but when I saw Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room) being offered in mint condition for less than $30, I could not resist.

Features:

• 6-inch-scale, Star Wars The Black Supreme Leader Snoke figure
• GameStop exclusive includes Supreme Leader Snoke throne
• Collector grade quality figure with movie-accurate detail & premium packaging
• Recreate adventures from the Star Wars Universe

Overall, Hasbro did a superb job with  Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room). The sculpt and paint job are excellent, and I am impressed by the attention to detail lavished on this figure. The robes and sash are made of gold-colored cloth that looks remarkably like the outfit seen in The Last Jedi. 

The one thing that's a bit of a turn-off is that the points of articulation at the wrists are much too obvious, thus giving  Supreme Leader Snoke (Throne Room) a decidedly toy-like look. However, collectors who like posing their Star Wars figures to recreate "adventures from the Star Wars Universe" will tell you that it's an acceptable trade-off if you want your figures to look more lifelike than their 1970s and 1980s counterparts.