The death of Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi was already controversial, but the reveal of Snoke's origins in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker only made it worse. Instead of being a formidable character in his own right, Snoke turned out to be nothing more than a clone who was being puppeteered by Emperor Palpatine.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the most divisive movie in the franchise yet, with some fans declaring it to be their new favorite and others arguing that it ruined Disney's sequel trilogy. Director Rian Johnson's film subverted much of what Star Wars had brought people to expect, literally burning down part of Jedi history and revealing that Rey didn't have any grand birthright or lineage, but was the daughter of junk traders who had sold her for drinking money.
After the volatile response to The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker scrambled to bring the franchise back to a safer place. Palpatine was brought back from the dead to give fans a familiar villain, and Rey was revealed to be Palpatine's granddaughter in a clumsy retcon of The Last Jedi's twist. However, instead of the clone reveal fixing Snoke's sudden death in The Last Jedi, it actually retroactively made it worse.
Snoke's Last Jedi Death Was Controversial - But Great
Supreme Leader Snoke was initially built up as the big bad of Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy, and in typical J.J. Abrams fashion the character's identity was a mystery box, with nothing known about his origins. But instead of answering big questions about Snoke or having a grand revelation (like Luke discovering Darth Vader is his father in The Empire Strikes Back), the twist of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is Kylo Ren turning on his master and cutting him in half before teaming up with Rey to take on the Praetorian guards. The two characters were only on the same side briefly, until Rey rejected Kylo Ren's offer to rule the galaxy with him. Kylo Ren was then elevated to the position of the main villain of the final movie in the trilogy, which could have focused entirely on the tortured enmity between him and Rey.
Snoke's death threw the franchise off the path of having Snoke as just another Palpatine - a wizened, dark Force user controlling a younger disciple - and in doing so averted the risk of the sequel trilogy being just a retread of the original trilogy's storyline. Or at least it would have, if Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hadn't forcibly shoved the franchise right back onto that track by bringing back Palpatine himself.
Rise of Skywalker Gave Snoke An Unnecessary Origin
Just as Star Wars: The Last Jedi gave a blunt answer to the mystery of Rey's parents by revealing that they were nobodies, so too did it cut short the mystery of Snoke's origins, since they don't exactly matter much after he was cut in half. But after The Last Jedi did away with Snoke, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker insisted on replacing him with another evil overlord who was controlling the First Order, and came up with an explanation for how Snoke could have effectively just been Palpatine in another form all along. As Kylo Ren enters Palpatine's lair on Exegol, he passes by tanks full of failed Snoke clones, revealing that the so-called Supreme Leader was just one of Palpatine's creations.
This origin story was wholly unnecessary. Snoke could just have easily been a powerful Force user who had risen up through the ranks of the First Order in his own right. The clone reveal instead more or less completely writes him off as the character, turning him into just a mask that Palpatine was using. This is actually worse than Snoke being a retread of Emperor Palpatine, as he was in Star Wars: The Force Awakens - not least because it undermines one of Kylo Ren's best character moments.
Rise of Skywalker's Snoke Reveal Makes His Last Jedi Death Worse
Like many elements of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the Snoke reveal appeared designed to appease complaints about The Last Jedi, but instead only served to undermine the middle movie of the trilogy. In Snoke's case, it seems that Rise of Skywalker was attempting to placate fans who were upset that the mystery of Snoke's origin was never revealed. But answering that question by showing that Snoke was just a clone being controlled by Palpatine is both a disappointing conclusion to that particular mystery for those unhappy with how Snoke died, and makes his death worse for those who liked that moment in The Last Jedi.
For Kylo Ren, turning on his master was a huge character moment. As set-up for the third movie in the trilogy, it could have either led to a story where he embraces his role as leader of the First Order and becomes a character equal to Palpatine in strength and villainy, or to a redemption arc where killing Snoke marks his first step back towards the light side of the Force. Revealing that Snoke was just a clone, and one of many, weakens that moment for Kylo Ren. It would be like if Return of the Jedi was followed by an epilogue explaining that Darth Vader didn't actually throw Palpatine into the Death Star reactor; it was just a mannequin that looked like Palpatine. (In fact, The Rise of Skywalker does comes close to that by revealing that Darth Vader didn't successfully vanquish Palpatine after all).
Ultimately, Snoke's journey from being set up as Palpatine 2.0, to being cut down by his own disciple, and finally becoming a puppet of Emperor Palpatine is yet another unfortunate outcome of poor planning for the Star Wars sequel trilogy. It's clear that the version of Snoke who was introduced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens wasn't supposed to be a clone made by Emperor Palpatine, and so as a character he is built up only to fizzle out. His death in Star Wars: The Last Jedi was one of the best moments of the movie, and it should have been the last we saw of him.