Looking Back at Weird Al Yankovic’s Phantom Menace Parody The Saga Begins

Since the release of Return of the Jedi, the broader Star Wars franchise has rarely reached universal acclaim. The prequel trilogy targeted a younger audience, while Disney’s sequel trilogy lost momentum under shifting creative directions and audience pressure. Television projects such as The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars contained high points alongside uneven stretches, while Andor continues to earn critical praise.

One Star Wars release over the past four decades stands out as a genuine masterpiece: Weird Al Yankovic’s parody song, “The Saga Begins.” Yankovic performed the track during a 23-minute recorded set for NPR’s Tiny Desk series, providing a clear reminder of how well the parody holds up 27 years after its debut.

A sharp Star Wars parody

Like much of Yankovic’s finest work, “The Saga Begins” pairs a celebrated melody with humor directed at an entirely different subject. Yankovic used Don McLean’s 1971 classic “American Pie” to chronicle Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. McLean’s original folk-rock song ran more than eight minutes and explored the cultural shifts following the plane crash on February 3, 1959, that killed Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. Yankovic took that reflective framework and used it to deliver mainstream jokes about Jar Jar Binks.

Running five and a half minutes, “The Saga Begins” retells the plot of The Phantom Menace through the perspective of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The song opens with a direct alteration of McLean’s original lyric, changing “A long, long time ago, I can still remember” to “A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away.” From there, the narrative covers the entire movie.

Naboo was under an attack

And I thought me and Qui-Gon Jinn

Could talk the Federation into

Maybe cutting them a little slack

But their response, it didn’t thrill us

They locked the doors and tried to kill us.

Yankovic includes specific plot beats throughout the track, singing lines like “Well, I know he built C-3PO/And I’ve heard how fast his pod can go” and “So we took him there and we told the tale/How his midichlorians were off the scale.”

Some moments rely on direct jokes, such as Qui-Gon Jinn telling Yoda to “Just stick it in your pointy ear.” Other laughs come from simply summarizing the strange dynamics of the story, including “Ah, do you see him hitting on the queen/Though he’s just nine and she’s 14?” and the climactic clash where “A lot of folks were croakin’/The battle droids were broken.”

The chorus reworks McLean’s famous lines about driving a Chevy to the levee into a memorable summary of the protagonist: “Oh my, my, this here Anakin guy/May be Vader someday later, now he’s just a small fry.” The track also received a popular music video set in the Mos Eisley Cantina with Yankovic dressed as Obi-Wan.

The making of “The Saga Begins”

The production timeline behind the song makes the final result remarkable. Yankovic released “The Saga Begins” on June 24, 1999, five weeks after The Phantom Menace hit theaters. The recording session occurred on April 30, 1999, three weeks before the film opened. As Yankovic explained in interviews, Lucasfilm did not provide advance screenings. The songwriter pieced the plot together using theatrical trailers and online rumors, managing to predict the story accurately.

The parody found an enthusiastic audience among Star Wars fans, who had previously celebrated Yankovic’s 1985 track “Yoda,” a parody of “Lola” by The Kinks. McLean also voiced admiration for the tribute, telling Billboard, “When I heard his version, I thought it was better than the original.” George Lucas approved as well. When Yankovic submitted the track for clearance, Lucasfilm staff told him, “You should have seen the smile on George’s face.”

The success of the track highlights the comedy potential in other chapters across the franchise, such as the sequel trilogy, Solo, or The Mandalorian and Grogu. Yankovic rarely repeats past concepts, leaving “The Saga Begins” as a unique milestone in the history of Star Wars parodies.

Source: Polygon