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Below this post I attached the pictures of Snoke and Maz Kanata. I noticed there are striking physical similarities between these two characters:

  • Small, similarly shaped eyes and large eyesockets
  • Wrinkles around their mouths
  • Wrinkled foreheads and eyebrows
  • Small, flat noses
  • Thin necks
  • Very long lifespans

This is of course just a conjecture, but the similarities exist. Has there been revealed anything that would provide some hard proof of this theory? Or anything that would disprove it?

Supreme Leader Snoke

Maz Kanata

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    There's an interview with JJ or one of the other major production staff where they mention Snoke is around 7ft tall in person. That would seem to imply they're different species.
    – Renegade Princess
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 0:31
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    All of these similar traits are ones we see in elderly characters. Size differences exist between sexes in many species, so I don't discount that. But, this really reads to me like "Hey, these characters are both old. Are they the same?"
    – user31178
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 2:48

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There is no real evidence that they are of the same species. What we know so far about Snoke makes this extremely unlikely.

According to an interview by People Magazine with Neal Scanlan, the chief of creature and droid effects for the new trilogy,

“This character is much better executed as a CGI character. That’s just a practical reality when he's 7-foot-something tall; he’s very, very thin."

(Source)

Given the spectacular height difference between Snoke and Maz Kanata (who clocks in at one inch over 4 feet), it is unlikely that they are members of the same species. While it is possible they could belong to a species with a wide variation in size, it seems that to defy the production choices made in Star Wars throughout the saga: humanoids belonging to a single species seem to have only minimal size variation (humans in the Star Wars universe, Wookiees, Sand People etc.).

Also, there is no real suggestion that Snoke is especially long-lived. All we know is that he was present before the time of the Empire. Maz Kanata, on the other hand, has been alive for over a thousand years, based on her ownership of the castle / cantina in The Force Awakens.

Furthermore, I would not count wrinkling as a similarity — it is part of the natural aging process of many species in both our universe and the Star Wars universe. While it's possible it can point to some genetic similarity, it really isn't a "smoking gun" here.

Finally, once you inspect the concept art for Snoke (which is quite similar to his final appearance in the film but which gives sharper detail), most of the similarities you mention break down, such as the small, flat nose that you perceive:

Snoke

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    A younger Voldemort
    – thegreatjedi
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 5:58
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    “Given the spectacular height difference between Snoke and Maz Kanata (who clocks in at one inch over 4 feet), it's extremely unlikely that they are members of the same species.” — I don't think this bit is very valid. The difference in size between Maz and Snoke is far less than that between a Chihuahua and an Irish Wolfhound, for example, and they're the same species. And the differences are even more extreme in water-dwelling species, like whales (dwarf sperm whale around 9 ft long vs. blue whale up to 100 ft long).
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 15:01
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    (Even in humans, of course, people shorter than Maz and taller than Snokes have been known to occur, though only due to genetic anomalies, like dwarfism and pituitary hyperplasia.)
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 15:04
  • @JanusBahsJacquet : You certainly raise an interesting point, but just to be clear, I am saying "extremely unlikely" as opposed to impossible. It's true that canine sizes vary wildly, but humans (and humanoids in fictional universes like that of Star Wars) tend to vary much less wildly in size, as evolution begins to focus on finer features of development. If Maz and Snoke were of the same species, I would put their size difference down to genetic disorders, as you point out.
    – Praxis
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 16:43
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    Please see sexual dimorphism: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism
    – Detective Chimp
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 20:29

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