"The Saga Begins" is a parody of the Don McLean song "American Pie" that tells the story of The Phantom Menace from Obi-Wan Kenobi's point of view. The song is sung by "Weird Al" Yankovic and appears among the bonus features on the 2011 Blu-ray release of the complete saga, and on the Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 2 CD.
Among Star Wars fans, Yankovic is also known for his Star Wars–themed song parody "Yoda," as well as a scene in the video of his hit single "White & Nerdy" that shows him making a back-alley purchase of a bootlegged VHS of The Star Wars Holiday Special.
"The Saga Begins" was recorded on April 20, 1999 by Volcano Records and was released on the album Running with Scissors on June 27, 1999. After getting Don McLean's permission to parody "American Pie" in 1998, Al began composing the song, given the lead time involving in creating albums forced the song to be ready by March 1999—two months before The Phantom Menaces release. Lucasfilm declined Yankovic a look at the script due to the high secrecy of the film, so the musician had to search "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." The final mix of the song was held until after Yankovic had seen an advance charity screening of the film.
The lyrics are surprisingly accurate even though the song was released before the movie. According to Yankovic, everything was gleaned through Internet spoilers. Yankovic paid $500 to view an advance screening after writing the song, but most of his lyrics were correct, so he made minor changes; the only major change he had to make after the screening of The Phantom Menace was that Anakin did not tell Amidala that he was going to marry her, like Yankovic originally thought.
The main inaccuracy is that Obi-Wan stayed at the queen's royal starship after their arrival on Tatooine, rather than going with Qui-Gon and Padmé to search for a new part for the ship. Thus, he didn't witness the podrace firsthand, and didn't meet Anakin until he arrived at the starship with the rest of the group.
A group of Als at the end of the video
The video begins in a desert, supposedly on the planet Tatooine. Yankovic, dressed like Ewan McGregor's Kenobi, walks until he finds Darth Sidious playing the piano. Yankovic uses the Force to pick up a steel guitar, and in the second verse he reappears performing in a Mos Eisley cantina look-alike where he leads a band likewise dressed as Jedi. In the last verse, he returns to the desert, and in the last chorus, an entire crowd of "Obi-Wans" is shown singing, a possible reference to the Clone Wars that follow. Various Star Wars characters can be seen, such as Yoda, Amidala and Mace Windu, dancing strangely, although Yoda does not move. The upper half of the pianist's face is always covered by the hood of the robe that he is wearing much like the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. When asked why, Al stated that "They didn't want to scare small children," a reference to the playful bullying of Al's pianist, Rubén Valtierra, commonly used in his live shows.