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[EnigmaticHat]

Did Boba Fett need to be explained?  Jabba the Hutt?  Yoda?  The Rebel Alliance?  The thing that lived in the trash compactor?  Chewbacca?  I could go on.  Random aliens/robots/badass humans appearing and being neither explained nor commented on is a Star Wars staple.  Here:

After the fall of the Galactic Empire, the remaining admirals fought for control amongst themselves.  A sith lord, Lord Snoke, emerged from parts unknown and quickly began to unite the disparate factions.

All the backstory you need.  Its one possible interpretation of "first order".  Among many forms of order (AKA the different factions of the old empire's military) we are the foremost.

Side note: why would we count novels?  Its a movie series.  If you have to read supplementary novels to enjoy a movie, its a bad movie.

[Kot]

Did Boba Fett need to be explained?  Jabba the Hutt?  Yoda?  The Rebel Alliance?  The thing that lived in the trash compactor?  Chewbacca?  I could go on.  Random aliens/robots/badass humans appearing and being neither explained nor commented on is a Star Wars staple. 

Most of them were explained to some degree, though, and the things that weren't, just weren't big shit on Galactic scale.
Think of it this way - Fellowship of the Ring throws the damn ring into the volcano, Sauron dies but suddenly there is another dude with high-ass tower just a bit to the East called Snort, he takes over Sauron's old army and turns out to be much more powerful but doesn't even have a ring. His backstory is that he just is.

Here:

After the fall of the Galactic Empire, the remaining admirals fought for control amongst themselves.  A sith lord, Lord Snoke, emerged from parts unknown and quickly began to unite the disparate factions.

All the backstory you need.  Its one possible interpretation of "first order".  Among many forms of order (AKA the different factions of the old empire's military) we are the foremost.

He's not a Lord and he's not a Sith, but eh, about the same. The problem is he is powerful force entity and it's hard to think that nobody fucking heard of him before, really.

Side note: why would we count novels?  Its a movie series.  If you have to read supplementary novels to enjoy a movie, its a bad movie.

Because old supplementary novels supplement the movie, and Disney's supplementary novels don't supplement the movie.
/shrug

[Putnam]

The problem is he is powerful force entity and it's hard to think that nobody fucking heard of him before, really.

Have you heard of the Father, Son, Daughter, Bendu, various other powerful force entities which rarely come up and nobody's heard of? This is also a star wars staple in canon.

[Reelya]

I agree with Kot, that tacking big things onto an otherwise complete saga never quite gels properly. Beat the big bad? Now there's another even bigger bad that nobody ever hinted at before. that sort of thing can in fact introduce 'retroactive' plot holes.

If there was another Sith Lord around then it clearly breaks the Sith principle of the "Rule of Two". So Snoke could exist, however he has to be a "dark force user" who is entirely unconnected to the Sith, which itself brings in all sort of questions if there are otherwise unrelated Sith-like people just hanging around who don't have the convenient "Rule of Two" of the Sith which is there to help explain why they don't end up with armies of Sith. The real question is whether he gained force powers after Palpatine's death, becoming a "fake Sith" or whether he had those powers already, which begs the question of why Palpatine wouldn't hunt him down just like he did with the Jedi. I doubt the Sith with their strict "Rule of Two" would allow any other force-sensitive person to exist, light or dark.

So the only real believable thing would be that he's some random force-power using person who happens to be on the Dark Side, but was hiding from the Imperial forces during the Empire period just like Obi Wan and Yoda were, and the reason he acts like Palpatine is because he's a newly minted "Sith wannabee".

[Putnam]

I really don't think you could call Snoke bigger than Palpatine, especially considering the way he went down.

...the question of why Palpatine wouldn't hunt him down just like he did with the Jedi...

He's from the Unknown Regions, which speaks for itself. The Empire had basically no jurisdiction there. The Thrawn novel goes into this i think.

[Reelya]

Palpatine died purely from falling down a hole. I don't think the specifics of his death showed Palpatine to be especially death-proof compared to Snoke. Snoke was tricked with a sudden light-saber slice, whereas Palpatine was picked up and carried over to the hole and couldn't do anything about it even though he had much more warning before his eventual death when he hit the bottom.

Compare Palpatine to Princess Leia surviving being blown into vacuum.

[Taricus]

Well, to be fair falling down a large hole is basically a death sentence thanks to gravity. Jedi/Sith are powerful, but they aren't invincible

[Reelya]

That seems to be a plot hole right there. People who can levitate heavy objects at will should be able to do something about merely falling in a hole. How about he uses some of that telekinesis to levitate a board into the hole, and ride it down, surfer-style?

However, this is again the sort of retroactive plot hole that's made worse with "power creep" stuff in a series. In any original film/series, deaths can be pretty mundane, but as more and more powers are added to the "standard repertoire" of the Jedi/Sith you need to construct more elaborate ways to make sure they'e really dead. They seem to favor being cut in half now as a way to indicate being really, really dead.

[NJW2000]

They seem to favor being cut in half now as a way to indicate being really, really dead.

Mumble mumble darth vader legs mumble mumble?

[Kot]

Maul got cut in half and went on to live pretty well.

[Reelya]

I was thinking of Darth Maul and Snoke, Anakin survived getting sliced up.

Also Mace Windu didn't survive going out the window. Leia's magic space journey really breaks cannon powers.

Maul only "lived" in the EU because ... EU writers. He's dead dead in movie canon. (I note he turns up in the Clone Wars tv show, which I haven't watched, but not sure how canon that even is considered now).

[Kot]

Maul only "lived" in the EU because ... EU writers. He's dead dead in movie canon. (I note he turns up in the Clone Wars tv show, which I haven't watched, but not sure how canon that even is considered now).

They're canon, same as Rebels, because >Disney. So Maul being alive is even more canon than ever.

[ChairmanPoo]

Well, to be fair falling down a large hole is basically a death sentence thanks to gravity.

... It happened in a f***ing space station  

[Kot]

... It happened in a f***ing space station   

Yeah, like when in new movie Resistance used gravity-dropped bombs on the spaceship and it worked?

[ChairmanPoo]

You mean the new movie which spawned a giant space lobster from nowhere Sith Noone Knew Existed*  and then killed him off with no previous warning?   
So yeah, no, itīs not a peak of narrative quality. If anything itīs sort of reminiscent of Poochie the Dog in The Simpsons (anyone remember that?)


*The name and character implementation are so lame that Iīm pretty sure the redditer who came up with this acronym hit jackpot as to itīs etymology.