Star Wars Fan’s Hilarious Impression of John Mulaney Giving the Darth Plagueis Monologue Goes Viral

There are quite a lot of Star Wars lines that have taken on a life of its own, and a new video puts a pretty great spin on an old fan-favorite. A video from Twitter user @PhilJamesson recently went viral, in which he imagines what it would be like if Emperor Palpatine’s (Ian McDiarmid) Darth Plagueis speech from Revenge of the Sith was delivered by comedian and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse star John Mulaney.

The end result is honestly pretty delightful, with Mulaney’s enunciation suiting the speech surprisingly well. Although we can’t help but wonder how much the legend of Darth Plagueis would be different if he’d used his street smarts.

Palpatine is expected to make some sort of a return in the forthcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, after his menacing laugh factored into the film’s first trailer. While there’s still no telling exactly how the Sith lord will factor into the film, it’s something that the franchise has been setting out to do for a while now.

“This has been in the blueprint for a long time,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy shared in April. “We had not landed on exactly how we might do that, but yes.”

“Working with Ian was among one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had. He is like a breathtakingly good actor,” The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams revealed. “I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun for audiences.”

“Like everybody else, I had no idea what the title was,” McDiarmid explained shortly after the trailer was released. “They did let me into a secret that the Emperor might be laughing, but I have to tell you that that particular laugh was not specially recorded, they found it somewhere, probably from one of the movies or the digital vault or maybe George’s iPhone, I don’t know.”

“What I liked about it, though, that’s why I think it is a real tease, I mean, the new title, [The Rise of Skywalker] is wonderful, and then, from the past, maybe from Hell, a laugh that comes,” McDiarmid added. “Which sort of implies, ‘Yeah, right.’ In other words, ‘Skywalkers? Rising? I don’t think so.’”

What do you think of this John Mulaney-themed take on Emperor Palpatine? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be released in theaters on December 20th.