Skip to main content

star wars - How did "Weird Al" Yankovic predict "The Phantom Menace"?


In the "Weird Al" Yankovic song The Saga Begins, he makes a bunch of predictions about Episode One that all seem to be valid, and unless I'm mistaken wrote the majority of the song before the film was released, and only made minor changes after seeing an advanced screening.



  • Naboo was under an attack

  • this here Anakin guy May be Vader someday later

  • he built C-3PO

  • his midi-chlorians were off the scale

  • he might fulfill that prophecy

  • Little Hotshot flew his plane and saved the day



Screen cap from the music video


Did he have a sneak peek at the film before he started writing? Were the trailers that revealing? Or did Jedi Al just use the Force?



Answer



According to Weird Al's interview on TheForce.Net, he managed to gather most of the advance intelligence from the Internet:



The song was entirely based on Internet "rumors." I gathered all the leaked info I could about the movie from all the various Star Wars websites (TheForce.net was particularly helpful), and was able to piece together the basic plot of the movie. We had planned to release my "Running With Scissors" album the month after "Phantom Menace" came out. But because of the lead time involved in recording, mixing, pressing, and physically getting an album out in the stores, I had to write "The Saga Begins" about two months before the movie came out. The folks at Lucasfilm have always been very friendly towards me, but they politely declined my requests for an advance screening or a peek at the script. Thankfully, the storyline according to the Internet followed the filmed storyline pretty accurately. Just for safety's sake, we didn't do the final mix on "The Saga Begins" until after I had seen the movie (I paid to go to the $500-a-ticket charity screening, so I could see the film a couple days before the rest of the world). I remember I changed a couple lines after seeing the movie - very minor tweaks. Like "He's probably gonna marry her someday" was originally "I HEAR he's gonna marry her someday," because according to an Internet rumor, in one scene Anakin tells the Queen to her face that he's going to marry her (which, as it turns out, wasn't in the final cut - but everybody knows how the storyline is going to go anyway, right?)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What did the Starkiller kill?

In The Force Awakens we see a powerful weapon capable of immense destruction. When it's activated, we see five or so planets and a sun that are enemies of the First Order destroyed. Is there a verified list of the target s by name ? I'm not asking for merely the most publicized target. Answer As of this moment, no. There is no official, published list. We won't know until more information is published from an official source. The official novelization mentions the Hosnian system ten times, but only ever refers to Hosnian Prime's neighbors as "the Hosnian System's other worlds" or "the Hosnian worlds". It does name Korr Sella as the Resistance officer staring at the bright light in the sky in Republic City on Hosnian Prime for a brief moment, before Hosnian Prime's destruction, but that's the only clue. Unfortunately the Visual Dictionary does not mention what the other worlds (and whether they are planets or just moons) of the Hosni...
Post a Comment
Read more