7. "I Am Your Father" - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
It's one of the most iconic and pervasively-parodied moments in any Hollywood movie, as well as perhaps the worst kept plot twist, that Darth Vader is in fact the father of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), as revealed during their climactic confrontation in the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. It's the defining moment of not just the darkest and most dramatically potent Star Wars film to date, but of the series entirely: it frames everything we see both before and afterwards, and as soon as we see the above image, we know that "I am your father" has to follow. The image is one difficult to consider on its own terms, though know this: with this nuclear bomb of a plot reveal, sci-fi and blockbuster cinema was never the same, and seeing the villain with the hero so thoroughly over a barrel even before revealing his parenthood (having cut his hand off just prior) wasn't exactly something audiences were used to seeing in high-budget Hollywood cinema. The message here? Sometimes the good guy doesn't win. And sometimes he's your dad, too.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
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