What is Luke, I am Your Father?

It's the widely quoted but incorrect version of Darth Vader's reveal to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. The actual line in the film is "No, I am your father".

Where did Luke, I am Your Father come from?

The scene is from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21st, 1980, during the Cloud City duel between Vader and Luke.

What does Luke, I am Your Father mean?

It's shorthand for a dramatic identity or relationship reveal, and it's also a go-to example of the Mandela Effect because most people misremember the exact wording.

How do you use Luke, I am Your Father?

People quote it or pair it with a Vader image whenever revealing a twist, or use it as a reference in parodies like the ones in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Toy Story 2.

Is Luke, I am Your Father still popular?

It's a classic reference that stayed part of pop culture for decades, cited by outlets like The Guardian as one of the most pervasive film misquotes.

Luke, I am Your Father

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Published September 5, 2026

"Luke, I am Your Father" is one of the most famous movie misquotations in pop culture, attributed to Darth Vader in the 1980 film Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. The actual line is "No, I am your father," and the widespread misremembering became a textbook example of the Mandela Effect that fueled decades of parodies, YouTube edits, and image macros.

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Overview

The phrase "Luke, I am Your Father" is the version of Darth Vader's climactic reveal that lives in most people's memory, even though the actual line delivered in the film is "No, I am your father"1. That gap between what audiences remember and what was actually said turned the quote into one of the most cited pop-culture examples of the Mandela Effect, alongside misremembered Snow White and Humphrey Bogart lines3.

As a meme, the phrase works on two levels. It's a stand-in reference whenever anyone reveals a hidden relationship or twist, and it's also the punchline of countless jokes where people insist the wrong version is correct2. Parodies typically preserve Vader's cadence and the "I am your father" beat while swapping the surrounding context, from French-language rhyming comics to celebrity mashups4.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Film (The Empire Strikes Back) / YouTube (viral spread)

Date

1980

The line originates from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21st, 1980, in the scene where Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker their true relationship during their lightsaber duel on Cloud City5. The exchange begins with Luke accusing Vader of killing his father, to which Vader responds, "No, I am your father"2. The name "Luke" never appears in the line itself, but the misquoted version replaced it in popular usage almost immediately after the film's release1.

By the 1990s, the misquotation was already showing up as a stock reference in television and film comedies3, including the 1999 sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and the same year's Toy Story 2, both of which staged direct parodies of the Cloud City reveal3.

How It Spread

On January 12th, 2006, an Urban Dictionary user submitted an entry for "I am your father" that pointed back to Star Wars as the origin of the phrase6. YouTube then became the main engine for the meme's second life. On February 14th, 2007, user Jimmania07 uploaded "Vader Makes Fun of Luke," which mashed the Cloud City scene with Vader's infamous "No!" from Revenge of the Sith and pulled in millions of views over the following years7.

The misquotation crossed into mainstream commentary on May 11th, 2009, when The Guardian published a piece calling the line one of the most pervasive film misquotes ever8. A single-serving site called No I Am Your Father had launched a year earlier on May 9th, 2008, offering translations of the correct Vader line into 1337 speak, morse code, and binary ASCII3. On October 2nd, 2011, YouTuber bashthemonkey uploaded a widely shared clip of a four-year-old reacting in real time to the reveal, which pulled millions of views9. On January 2nd, 2012, the quote was formally added to Wikipedia's List of Misquotations3.

The format kept mutating in other languages too. "Luke, Je Suis Ton Père" became a long-running French exploitable comic series that pairs illustrated versions of Vader ("Dark Vador") and Luke with rhyming puns, celebrity swaps, and fictional-character mashups3 (translated from French).

How to Use This Meme

The catchphrase typically gets deployed in two ways. The first is as a straight reference: quote "Luke, I am your father" (in the misremembered form) whenever revealing a surprise identity or twist, often with a Vader image macro or the audio clip attached. The second is as a Mandela Effect gag, where the joke is people arguing over whether the line starts with "Luke" or "No." Common conventions include swapping Vader with a celebrity or fictional character in the same pose, or replacing "father" with a pun that fits the target.