Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Luke, I am your father

Not quite — the actual line is “No. I am your father.” Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan Screenplay credit, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) · story by George Lucas
The film and the moment are real; only the wording drifted. In copyright

Darth Vader never says “Luke.” In The Empire Strikes Back (1980) the line is “No. I am your father” — and the “No.” is doing the work, because it contradicts Luke’s accusation that Vader killed his father. The popular version swaps that rebuttal for a name that is never spoken in the scene.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“Luke, I am your father” Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones) in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, story by George Lucas. The popular "Luke, I am your father" is never spoken in the film.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Lucasfilm Ltd. (a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company); originally distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan — story by George Lucas. Theme: "Luke, I am your father". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Luke, I am your father". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The actual exchange

Work
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Written by
Screenplay by Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan; story by George Lucas
Spoken by
Darth Vader (David Prowse; voiced by James Earl Jones) — a fictional character
Scene
The duel with Luke Skywalker, Cloud City

Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough. He told me you killed him.
Vader: No. I am your father. the reply, not the name

Quoted from Wikiquote’s transcription ↗. Luke’s middle line is included because it is what the “No.” answers — the reason the real wording cannot survive being quoted alone.

The Empire Strikes Back at Wikiquote

How we verified this

In copyright

The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980 — half a century after the 1930 US public-domain cutoff — so the film and its screenplay are firmly in copyright. Screenwriting is work-for-hire: the rights sit with the studio, Lucasfilm Ltd. ↗, not with Brackett’s estate or Kasdan personally. The brief exchange above is quoted for identification and correction of a widely repeated misquotation.

Fact-check

What the retelling changed

Nobody is falsely credited here — the film is right, the villain is right, the moment is right. Three smaller things went wrong, and only one of them is the famous one.

“Luke, I am your father” never spoken

The name is an addition and the “No.” is a deletion. Wikiquote’s transcription ↗ has Vader say “No. I am your father” — contradicting Luke, who has just said Vader killed his father. Strip the “No.” and you lose the fact that the line is a rebuttal. Lucasfilm itself gives the line as “No, I am your father” ↗.

David Prowse wrong voice

Prowse wore the suit but never spoke these words: he “was told nothing, and spoke placeholder dialogue” ↗. The voice everyone quotes is James Earl Jones, dubbed in later. Neither man wrote it, and neither is the line’s author.

George Lucas, alone oversimplified

Lucas has the story credit and, per Wikipedia ↗, wrote the draft that established the twist — but the screenplay credit reads Brackett and Kasdan, and Kasdan polished the dialogue. Conversely, crediting Brackett overshoots too: she died in March 1978 and was credited “in tribute despite not being involved in the final film” ↗.

The moment is exactly as remembered; the sentence is not. Vader says “No. I am your father” ↗ — answering an accusation, not announcing himself to a name.

Context

Why this one drifted

The misremembered version is arguably the better standalone sentence — and that is exactly why it spread. Lifted out of the scene, “No. I am your father” is a non-sequitur: no to what? The line only parses as a reply, because Luke has just said Vader killed his father. To quote it on its own, people unconsciously repaired it, swapping the dangling rebuttal for the name of the person being addressed. The misquote is a self-contained sentence; the real line is half of a two-person exchange.

The scene was also built to be hidden, which left the words unusually free to wander. David Prowse, inside the Vader suit, was never given the real dialogue — he spoke placeholder lines, and only Lucas, director Irvin Kershner and Mark Hamill knew the twist. James Earl Jones’s voice was laid in afterwards. The line that lodged in the culture was never performed on set at all.

The misquote is a sentence. The real line is an answer.

The novelization spoiled it first

A curiosity that bears on the “where did it come from” question: Donald F. Glut’s novelization, published by Del Rey on 12 April 1980, reached readers before the film opened on 21 May 1980 — so the revelation was in print before any audience saw it. That does not make the book the line’s origin. The novelization is expressly “based on the screenplay… by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan from story by George Lucas” — it is downstream of the script, not upstream of it. Unlike Gone with the Wind, where the film sharpened a line already in Mitchell’s novel, here there is no earlier novel or play to credit.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Empire Strikes Back — transcribed dialogueen.wikiquote.org

The film’s transcribed script. Gives the Cloud City exchange verbatim — “No. I am your father” — plus the writing credits. This page’s anchor source for the wording.
Defining Moments: “I Am Your Father”lucasfilm.com

Lucasfilm’s own account. States the line as “No, I am your father,” notes the popular misquote, and confirms Prowse spoke placeholder dialogue while Jones kept the secret in the booth.
“No, I am your father”acmi.net.au

Australia’s national museum of screen culture, directly on the misquote: “Many believe that the full line is, ‘Luke, I am your father.’ It’s not.”
The Empire Strikes Back (film)en.wikipedia.org

Credits, release date and drafting history: Brackett’s February 1978 first draft, her death, Lucas’s own second draft, and Kasdan’s third and fourth.
Rare Star Wars script protects Empire’s Vader secretdenofgeek.com

On the secrecy around the scene: script pages withheld the twist, and only Kershner, Lucas and Hamill knew — Hamill told just before his close-up.
The Empire Strikes Back (novel)en.wikipedia.org

Glut’s Del Rey novelization, 12 April 1980 — in print before the film opened, but expressly based on the Brackett/Kasdan screenplay, so downstream of it.

The writers, not the character

Who actually wrote it

Leigh Brackett & Lawrence Kasdan

Screenwriters, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) · story by George Lucas

The film’s screenplay is credited to Leigh Brackett (1915–1978), the science-fiction novelist and Howard Hawks veteran nicknamed “the Queen of Space Opera,” and Lawrence Kasdan (b. 1949), who went on to write Raiders of the Lost Ark and direct The Big Chill. The credit is shared, but not evenly: Brackett delivered a first draft shortly before her death in March 1978 and, per Wikipedia, was credited “in tribute despite not being involved in the final film.” Lucas, dissatisfied, wrote the next draft himself — the one that established the major plot twists — and Kasdan was then hired to polish the dialogue. This line therefore traces to Lucas’s draft and Kasdan’s dialogue work, not to Brackett’s; it is an authorship no single name honestly covers.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Irvin Kershner, dir. The Empire Strikes Back. Screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, story by George Lucas. Lucasfilm Ltd. / Twentieth Century-Fox, released 21 May 1980. Dialogue as transcribed at Wikiquote ↗.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Luke, I am your father’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/luke-i-am-your-father

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