Oscar Isaac Explains How Star Wars' Infamous 'Palpatine Returned' Line Came To Be

Film history is rich with unforgettable lines of dialogue, the kind you hear at a very young age before you see the actual movie they're from. Over the years, they tend to become pop cultural touchstones. "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." "You're gonna need a bigger boat." "We have taken a powerful psychotropic drug, and you are going to die." "I used to f*** guys like you in prison."

With few exceptions, it's hard to predict which lines are going to catch on with moviegoers, but it is stupidly easy to identify a snippet of dialogue that is either death on the page or too awkward to deliver. If you're a veteran writer, you know immediately when a line needs to be rephrased or cut altogether. And if you don't see it, rest assured the veteran talent around you, from actors to designers to crew members, know a bum utterance when they hear one. Yet, somehow, "Somehow Palpatine returned" made it to the final cut of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker."

The infamous line is spoken by Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron, and, after a pregnant pause, he spits it out with such supreme, rapid-fire distaste that John Moschitta Jr. would've been impressed. This scene is a risible disaster for a number of reasons (including the clumsy cut to deepfake Leia), which leaves you wondering how so many talented people could stand by and let it all unfold on camera. During a recent visit to Josh Horowitz's "Happy, Sad, Confused" podcast, Isaac opened up about his day of dialogue infamy, and, wouldn't you know it, this shoehorned bit of dialogue was made possible by a rushed reshoot.

It's unclear when these reshoots occurred prior to the release of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," but time was obviously of the essence. As Isaac told Horowitz, "Those are like those surgical strikes where you come in and try to ... they're scrambling to get everything done. That [line] was a new addition right at the end. There was a lot of movement and flux throughout the whole process." As for his moment becoming a meme, he fortunately did have time to consider such humiliation. "Had you asked me at that moment if I thought that was going to be the one that everyone would remember ... I wouldn't have known. But hey, man, I committed to the exasperation!" We felt that, Oscar. And we thank you for your thankless service.

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" grossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office against a $594 million budget, but its 51% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes is the lowest score for a Skywalker-centric movie. It's a dreadful work of fan service that sought to undo the challenging new ideas introduced by Rian Johnson's "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," and managed to turn off fans of that movie as well as the diaper-filling miscreants who a) launched a harassment campaign against Kelly Marie Tran b) couldn't handle the idea of a humble stable boy possessing the Force, and c) were still sore over Luke going out without a lightsaber duel. When making a tentpole movie, it is vitally important to identify the diaper brigade and do only things that will piss them off. That's how good movies get made.