Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac has admitted that his much-memed “Somehow, Palpatine returned” line was the result of last-minute reshoots for Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker.
The Star Wars franchise is full of clunky dialogue, but there’s perhaps no line that better sums up how hastily-written Episode 9 feels than Poe Dameron’s three-word plot summary. How is the saga’s greatest villain back from the dead after 30 years and two other movies where no one gives him a mention? Never mind — there’s a galaxy to save!
Fans have ridiculed the line being essentially all waiting rebels need to hear about the situation (and all audiences need to be sold that this is at all believable) before the heroes gather a fleet of thousands of ships, travel the impassable route to Exogol, and happily save the day.
Isaac’s rather disgruntled delivery of the dialogue has only aided it in becoming a meme, and something that has been widely-shared among Star Wars fans (a five-second YouTube clip has millions of views, with countless disparaging comments underneath). Now, Isaac has addressed the dialogue’s meme-level status, and revealed it was a late addition.
“Those were reshoots, we had to do reshoots,” Isaac said via the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, recalling that he could tell the scene was slotted in later as he’d already cut his hair and was wearing a wig to try and hide the fact it was filmed after the movie’s main production was complete.
“When I look at it, I’m like ‘wig’s pretty good’,” he joked. “I cut my hair already and had come in…”
While Isaac did not go into further detail on how Rise of Skywalker’s story changed in post-production, he described the process of reshoots as “surgical strikes where you’re scrambling trying to get everything going.”
“That was a new addition at the end,” he continued, discussing the ‘Somehow, Palpatine returned’ line in particular. “There was a lot of movement and flux throughout that whole thing.”
And then, perhaps his most telling comment of all: “I committed to the exasperation, that’s for sure.”
Reaction to the Rise of Skywalker remains divisive, with critics and fans alike unhappy at its abrupt return of Palpatine, and soft retcons of various elements from the preceeding (and also polarizing) chapter, The Last Jedi. Finn actor John Boyega was particularly unhappy at how his character was treated in the film, though has softened his stance in the years since. Just last month, the puppeteer behind BB-8 said Disney’s divisive sequel trilogy would eventually become as beloved as the saga’s prequels — in around a decade’s time.
One person who reportedly isn’t losing sleep at night over the sequel trilogy is Star Wars creator George Lucas, who last year said he had let go of his instinct to manage the franchise, 13 years after selling it to Disney. “Disney took it over and they gave it their vision,” he said. “That’s what happens.”
image credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic via Getty Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
