Weird Moments in Star Wars History
by Mary Jo Fox

The Music of Episode I
by James Addams

Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and the Arthurian Cycle
by Scott Coralles

Star Wars:  The Interpretive Dance Headlong Dance Theater of Philadelphia produced in 1997 a work called "ST*R W*RS" featuring music from the original trilogy era (except for one Beastie Boys tune).  According to an article about the show, "The choreographers think of it as a 'fantasia' based on the movie.  'There are movement-theater scenes that are plucked from the movie and then abstracted...sometimes we're kids from the '70s acting out Star Wars characters, and sometimes we're kids from the '70s in the basement having a make-out party or getting wasted on drugs.'"  One of the choreographers also mentioned "a series of duets based on Star Wars fantasies.  'Remember when kids used to sit around and say, 'What if Han and Leia did get together?  Or Luke and Leia?  So we have certain characters dancing with each other.'"  All of the women in the show wore Leia-style earmuffs. El Knocko-Offos We've all heard about pseudo-SW action figures from places like Eastern Europe and Turkey.  Many collectors have seen a series of Mexican knock-off toys called "Galaxy Cop."  But nothing I've seen could match the pure kitsch of these horrid Mexican action figures I saw at a con in December 1997.  These weren't coy imitations of the "real deals."  These were blatant ripoffs that in every way tried to imitate the Hasbro products, but they were done very, very badly.  All of the figures were on Shadows of the Empire cards with AT-ST driver foil stickers where the character picture should be.  The reproduction job on the cards was blurry.  But the real horrors were the figures themselves.  If you thought the '95 Leia figure was ugly, you should've seen this imitation.  The figures were hideously sculpted, as though cast from shoddy molds.  The paint jobs were amateurish and the colors were just unattractive.  The one that made me laugh the hardest was a Yoda figure.  Yoda was painted a dark pukey green and his eyes were so wide and bulging, it looked like he'd been up all night on speed.  I will never forget this figure as long as I live.  I would've bought it for pure cheese value, but considering they were 1) illegal imports and 2) really bad-looking, the prices the dealer was charging for them was ridiculous.  I think these were made not to gyp little Mexican children, but grown-up American collectors! The Force Against STDs The e-magazine "Salon" reported in July about  Rep. Tom Coburn's annual safe sex slide show put on for Capitol Hill interns.  Coburn, a practicing physician, decided to use the Force to boost attendance.  According to the report, "Invitations to the July 30 lunch event, which aims to educate Capitol Hill interns --who, according to Coburn spokesman John Hart, 'are at an age where they're wrestling with many of these issues'-- on 'the real phantom menace,' STDs, feature the likenesses of Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, the evil emperor, C-3PO and R2-D2 and that bumbling Gungan Jar Jar Binks. (Apparently Lucas' permission was not needed for use; congressional offices have a special exemption for official correspondence.)" The Jar Jar version of the invitation read, "Count me outta dis one.  STDs do terribul tings ... TERRIBUL TINGS!  Eegads!  What mesa sayin'!  Mesa go for de free lunch ... okeday."   Another version showed Artoo beaming STD statistics as Threepio worriedly looks on, saying, "Oh, how dreadful!" Luke Goes Glam! At last...a SW television extravaganza even more embarrassing than "The Holiday Special!"  Again, only European fans have access to this hilarious moment in SW history on bootleg video. Mark Hamill got to visit The Velvet Goldmine long before Ewan McGregor did; Luke Skywalker made his big appearance on German t.v. dressed not in his usual Rebel togs, but a tight-fitting, rhinestone-studded gold lame suit.  He was there to promote TESB, but Hamill did a lot more than just chat up the flick.  He sang some disco tune in German then participated in a bizarre ceremony where he was "married" to Miss West Berlin 1980...while standing on a snowspeeder!  No, I don't know why they stood on a snowspeeder nor do I know what the real Mrs. Hamill thought of these proceedings.  I have not actually seen the video myself-all I have to go by are witness accounts (thank you Derek!) and one photograph of Hamill in his Johnny Bravo suit.  But if anyone has a copy that has been translated from PAL to our primitive backwards system, let me know ASAP. Scary, wasn't it?  Well, with four down and two more to go, I'm sure more weird SW moments are on the horizon.  Until then, keep watching the skies! ©1999 Blue Harvest / Tydirium Multimedia

The Music of Episode One   (Excerpt)

By James Addams

For the first four years Blue Harvest existed, we did not have any new Star Wars films - or their related soundtracks - to review.  Finally (in 1997), the Special Editions came and went, and Mary Jo and I had the singular pleasure of actually publishing film reviews in Blue Harvest for the first time.  It soon became apparent to reviewers and readers all over the globe that almost every review of the SpEds was more or less a recap of which of the new bits the reviewer liked, and which they didn’t.  Our reviews were just as guilty of this as everyone else’s.  Few people even bothered to review the SpEd soundtrack albums, but like their film counterparts, the soundtrack reviews that did get published were more about cataloguing and recapping the changes to the CDs than they were about re-appraising the music’s artistic merit.  This is why the Phantom Menace Onslaught of 1999 has been such a delectation for us.  It has allowed us to review a Star Wars film from scratch (TPM in BH17), and it is now also giving me the opportunity to review the affiliated soundtrack CD in a similar manner.

 So let me remind long time BH readers (and inform any newbies) that for a living, I work as a Record Producer, Recording and Mastering Engineer, and Live Sound Reinforcement Engineer.  I therefore am fairly well versed in both artistic and technical aspects of music making, and I am also possessed of a reasonable knowledge of the music business.  My reviews of the SpEd soundtrack CD’s were fairly technical in nature, since (as stated above) the reviews were more about keeping my readers well informed about the changes to the CDs and why you should or shouldn’t buy that music yet again.  It is my pleasure and privilege then, to review for you the soundtrack to The Phantom Menace from a purely aesthetic point of view, which is perhaps the way all  music should be reviewed anyway.

 In BH14, I wrote a short editorial about what it would take for Episode I to seamlessly fit in with the Classic Trilogy.  One of my main points was that the music of Episode I should stand on it’s own merits, but still contain intimations of the Classic Trilogy’s main themes so as to make things feel cohesive.  It seems as though John Williams has been reading Blue Harvest (while on vacation from his gig with White Zombie*), because he has apparently taken my comments to heart.  The Soundtrack for Episode I contains exactly  the right amount of Classic Trilogy music, and expands upon it to create a body of work that is 90% new but still feels familiar.

 The best example of this is Anakin’s Theme.  Listen to the concert arrangement (track 3 on the CD).  It begins with a gentle 4-bar melody played softly on flutes, with some woodwinds in the background.  After a short bridge in which strings are introduced, the melody repeats two more times, each time swelling up a bit more than the last.  The strings then take over completely, playing variations on the theme, and for just a few seconds (around 0:58 to 1:01), one can almost hear a quote from ANH’s Throne Room.  But it is more of a fleeting tease than a direct quotation.  The big payoff comes in later in the piece, after the melody has swelled up and repeated a few more times, meandering through some permutations.  At about 1:54, the melody finds itself a little longer, as four new notes are tagged on to the end.  Well, they’re not strictly new notes; after all, the notes of ‘G’, ‘D#’, A#’ and ‘G’ (again) have been with us for centuries**.  These notes are also not entirely new to us as Star Wars fans, because played in a certain way, they comprise the second half of the first phrase of Imperial March, and then they repeat again in the second half of the second phrase of that most glorious piece of cinema score.

 So rather than giving us a blunt quotation of that famous inverted G chord that pounds out the beginning of Imperial March, Williams uses the more melodic bits that follow, and thereby gives us a hint of something familiar without being obvious.

 Anakin’s melody in its new and suddenly more sinister form then repeats, in case you missed it the first time.
 After moving the theme back to the delicacy of the intro, giving us time to contemplate this insanely cool way of recycling some old music, we hear the quote from Imperial March  once again. This time, the last few notes tease us a little, hesitating as if they aren’t going to happen, making you wonder if you heard things the way you thought you did the first few times these notes were snuck in.  You did.  This most recent and more delicate rendering of the melodic quote from Imp March  is then immediately repeated once again, lower and darker.  We are reminded of what lies ahead for poor Annie.  Then the theme peters out a bit, and ends just after the three minute mark.

Other familiar themes also pop up from time to time, often in more obvious forms.  Jabba and Yoda’s brief scenes are both underscored with their familiar melodic themes.  Both of these characters have gone digital (in whole or in part), but their themes are still played by the good ‘ol living, breathing analog London Symphony.  Palpatine’s ominous choral theme is quite present as well (more on that later).  I listened to track 13, Queen Amidala and the Naboo Palace  about 30 times looking for traces of Leia’s theme, but there wasn’t a darned thing there that my ears could detect.  One of the best surprises is how The Force Theme/Luke’s Theme pops up at about 2:30 into track 11 (Watto’s Deal and Kids at Play).  This quiet reading of one of the trilogy’s strongest themes reminds us of the scene in ANH when Luke is staring into the setting suns, dreaming of his future.  Hearing this theme in TPM while seeing Luke’s dad as a little kid helps bring cohesion to the Skywalker family tree.  We have an aural reminder then this kid is not only going to be Darth Vader, but he is also Luke’s pop, growing up on the same planet as his son one day will.  In the film, it also underscores the scene in which Shmi is telling Qui Gon about her mystery conception.  But I never hear that, because that’s the point in the film during which I always choose to go to the john.  Even if I don’t have to pee.  I am completely in denial.  Anyway, back to the soundtrack CD.  During track 11, The Force Theme segues into what I call “Shmi’s Theme”.  This is a really nice little motif, more interesting than Anakin’s theme, in my opinion.  Very romantic and yet melancholy.  One thing that disappoints me about the CD is the lack of good liner notes.  Remember that 11’x11’ paper insert that came with the original 2-record LP set of the original ANH soundtrack?  It had notes by Williams about each track, with little insights and bits of information about the recordings, plus a list of all of the musicians in the orchestra.  That was great stuff, and something like that is sorely needed in the TPM soundtrack... perhaps instead of the fold-out poster, which is another gimmick to get the MTV crown to buy the CD (more on that later, too).  The reason I mention this now is because of “Shmi’s Theme”.  I don’t even know if this is what Williams and Lucas call this particular piece of music, and with no real information in the liner notes save for the usual engineering credits, it is really hard to get into Williams’ head sometimes and get a grip on what he was going for.  The liner notes in the original LP’s were really helpful and are sorely missed.  One doesn’t need liner notes to appreciate everything in the score.  The first nineteen seconds of The Sith Spacecraft and Droid Battle are awesome.  Tribal percussion leads into tense strings, and big, low, scary, blurting brass stabs.  Then all hell breaks loose and the piece turns into a great (and very Williams-esque) action opus that quotes Duel of the Fates  and other new-for-TPM themes while perfectly alluding to the general feel of other great Star Wars action sequences such as Battle In The Snow.  The Droid Invasion and The Appearance of Darth Maul  (track 14) is another great action piece, and like Sith Spacecraft, this one also starts with some neat ethnic sounding percussion, that gives way to proud timpani and then ominous brass and military snare drums.  After getting chaotic for a while, the dark and familiar choral melody associated with Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi  is introduced, and is followed by a tense and atmospheric section. Then it’s back into the action.  The piece fades out just as a taste of Duel of the Fates  sneaks in.  Duel of the Fates is immediately heard again in the beginning of the next track, Qui Gon’s Noble End  (track 15) which is yet another great action opus that breaks down to some seriously creepy vocal chanting at around 1:55.  So what of Duel of the Fates?  Perhaps the most obvious track in the entire score, Duel of the Fates was designed to rise up and knock you over the head with it’s amazingness.  The choir parts are mind bogglingly cool and very powerful, and the rather simplistic but majestic brass melody is unforgettable over the churning string section.  However, in the concert arrangement (to my ears), the simplicity of the brass and string parts work against the piece.  Blended into the larger whole of a composition like Appearance of Darth Maul or Droid Battle, the powerful themes of Duel of the Fates work brilliantly, and stand up to great Star Wars action opuses like The Asteroid Chase  or Tie Fighter Attack.  However, there isn’t really enough substance present to make Duel of the Fates  work as a stand-alone piece of music such as Main Title, Imperial March, Princess Leia’s Theme, or even Cantina Band.  I find myself enjoying the individual elements of Duel of the Fates when they are presented as part of a larger musical tapestry, but I also find myself skipping over the concert arrangement when I play the CD.

So I wonder why a composer of Williams experience decided to expand Duel of the Fates  as much as he did, when there were perhaps better options available when deciding on pieces to re-arrange for live performance.

 Weeeellll.... Classical radio stations struggle in most markets, and often rely on governmental grants and donations from listeners to scrape by.  Rock and pop radio, on the other hand, generates more wealth than you can imagine, and is heard by exponentially larger audiences in virtually every market.  But orchestral music (such as the TPM soundtrack) is not traditionally heard on popular music stations.  Knowing what a huge pop culture phenomenon TPM was destined to be, Lucasfilm wanted to get a piece of it onto radio play lists nationwide, and not just Classical radio, who at best would give the CD a token spin on their weekly film score programs.  The TPM score needed to be on rock and pop stations across the country, luring kids in that precious 16-25 age group into theaters for multiple screenings of The Phantom Menace.  It was therefore necessary to market part of the soundtrack like a rock song.  So Williams was likely asked to take what was easily the most powerful and rock-like snippet of his score, and stretch it out to four minutes.  Then Lucas’s people put together a rock-style music video for it.  Next thing you know, Duel of the Fates  is a hit, and every time it is played on rock/pop radio or on MTV, it is a free four minute commercial for TPM.  Pretty smart.

 And it really is a great composition, I just prefer the music in it’s filmic context, rather than as a stand-alone piece.
 It is also interesting to note the places in the score where Williams recycles older ideas.  I first noticed this when listening to a CD of The Star Wars Trilogy, as recorded by Varujian Kojian and the Utah Symphony Orchestra.  This performance was originally recorded in 1983, and features 14 tracks of music from the Classic trilogy.  I always find alternative interpretations of the Classic Trilogy score interesting, and I have always liked Kojian's particular take on Williams' score.  Listening to track 10, Fight with TIE Fighters, we can hear some stacatto horn blasts that directly foreshadow Duel fo the Fates (at about 2:28 into the track).  It is interesting to note that this piece of music did not appear on the original ROJ soundtrack LP or CD.  At the time the Utah Symphony's version came out, their record was the only plce to hear this piece outside of the film itself.  It took a little work to track this quote down on the SpEd 2-CD soundtrack set, but you can hear it on Disc 2.

 The Sanskrit chanting in Duel of the Fates is truly powerful, and the use of Sanskrit is pretty daring and original concept for a largely conservative composer such as Williams.  Or is it...?

 I was re-watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom recently, and if you listen to the scenes where Mola Ram is conducting his Thugee ceremony, you can hear chanting almost identical to what we hear in Duel of the Fates.  Of course, the Temple o' Doom chanting is also Sanskrit - and very appropriately so, given that the film takes place in India!  Rewinding the scene for a more careful listen, there are several direct quotes in Duel  from the Doom score.  This is interesting stuff, but I will refrain from speculation as to Williams reasons for recycling his own older material.

 Never mind the comparisons to Orf’s Carmina. Burana...

 No, wait, okay, let’s talk about that.

 Williams, like any other composer who ever lived, is influenced by the music he encounters in the world around him.  It goes without saying that he would never  plagiarize the things he hears, but some of his work is going contain certain elements of some of the things he might have heard before.  If you haven’t heard The Planets  by Gustav Holst, go pick up one of the dozens of recordings of it available on CD.  I recommend a 1995 recording on Deutsche Gramophone (445 860-2) conducted by John Eliot Gardiner and performed by Philharmonia Orchestra.  In addition to (49:46) of The Planets, the CD also contains an (18:21) recording of The Warriors by Percy Grainger, which compliments the Holst pieces nicely.  But I digress.

 Listening to The Planets  after becoming intimately familiar with Williams’ ANH score, it is plain to almost any listener that Williams has heard The Planets many times.  No, Williams would not sink so low as to directly steal anything from Holst, but there are definite similarities in texture, in mood, in movement, in atmosphere, and in arrangement.  The Planets was very obviously a strong influence  on Williams, without a doubt.  And that’s fine.  I might not have heard The Planets, an incredible piece of music, if someone else hadn’t cryptically told me that I might want to listen to it if I was a fan of the Star Wars soundtracks.  When I did finally hear it, I immediately knew why my friend had recommended it.

 However, I also think that the connection between Duel of the Fates and Carl Orf's Carmina Burana  could be considered more than simply influence at work.  There are just too many similarities present for me to consider them coincidental or the result of subconscious influence.  Film goers might best recall Carmina  as being heavily used in the 1981 film Excalibur  (Liam Neeson’s first role, by the way).  Since then, Carmina  has been used in dozens of other films and commercials, and has even been covered by at least one death metal band and at least one Ska band.  Orf’s exceedingly powerful choral and orchestral masterwork is rapidly becoming as famous a piece of ‘pop classical’ music as Beethoven’s fifth symphony(***).  Everybody  knows it.  I therefore find it a bit disturbing that Williams not only emulated Orf’s work for use in TPM, but also made it the piece that would get the most widespread exposure.
 How many kids are going to hear Carmina Burana  a few years from now, fail to realize it’s vintage, and think it was Orf who was being unoriginal?  Then again, if hearing the ANH score turned me on to Holst, maybe Duel of the Fates  will turn the current crop of impressionable young kids on to Orf.  Time will tell.

 Okeyday, that said, I want to get back to yet more of the things I like about the TPM soundtrack CD, such as it’s single disc format.  Yes, I do like is the brevity of the CD.  It’s true!  I might be the only person who is as big a fan of both Star Wars and music as I am who isn’t complaining about this not being a 2-CD set, but please let me justify my reasoning.
 For many, many years, we were stuck with the original LP’s of the Classic Trilogy soundtrack albums.  In all three cases, (Return of the Jedi  in particular) these records did not present the complete score, and often contained short cues edited together (out of the context of the films) to make records that were more fluid to listen to, but which were chronologically inaccurate.  When released on CD, the Empire Strikes Back  soundtrack was actually cut further to make it fit on one disc.  The 4-CD boxed set released several years later changed the track order around some more, but at least it restored ESB to it’s original length, and added extra material from all three films.  In short, it worked pretty well.

 In 1997 the SpEd CDs came out, and presented the complete scores for all three films, all unedited, and in the proper chronological order.  Remixed (in some cases) and remastered (in all three cases) these were definitive editions of the Star Wars film scores.  Listening to the ESB discs over the past two and a half years though, I have come to prefer the edited version!  Here’s why. In the film, whenever the action shifts from the ‘good guys’ back to the action on Vader’s Star Destroyer, we hear a bit of the Imperial March.  As remarkable as this piece of music is, while listening to the ESB SpEd CD, it seems as though this same musical theme is popping up every two minutes.  By the end of either disc, I am sick of hearing it!  While watching the film itself, we don’t really notice these redundancies, because of everything else going on.  On the SpEd CD though, it gets really monotonous.  The shorter version (on the boxed set) contains all of the best music from ESB, and really leaves very little out - except for the redundancies - and is definitely a more pleasurable listening experience.

 So in preparing this review, I paid special attention to the music during one of my many screenings of TPM.  What I noticed is that a lot of the music is repeated. The creepy vocal chanting that I like so much during Qui Gon’s Noble End  is heard at least four times during the film; but once is plenty for the CD.  Similarly, The Force Theme is heard many times during the film, but again, once on the CD is enough.  If you need more, well, it is heard many more times all over the six discs of the SpEd soundtracks, and on all other previous permutations of the Classic Trilogy soundtrack LPs and CDs.  I did notice a few bits here and there during the film that could have been on the CD, (the source music heard in the background as Qui Gon and co. walk into Mos Espa was kind of cool), but at 74 minutes and 13 seconds, they couldn’t fit much more on the disc.

 So I think that if the complete score were presented on 2 CD’s, it would be a little monotonous to listen to.  We also have to think of marketing again; a single disc is a lot easier to sell than a 2-CD set.  Granted, all of us SW fanatics would have gladly bought a double disc, but the rest of the population would likely have balked.  Offering both versions would be seen as too expensive and too risky by Sony (trust me on this; I know people at the big record labels.  They’re like Neimoidians; stingy, greedy and cowardly!).  Perhaps a few years after Episode III is released, we’ll see a boxed set with expanded versions of the Episodes I-III soundtracks, but until then I am more than content with the Episode I CD as it stands.  Go buy it.

*This is a Blue Harvest in-joke dating all the way back to Blue Harvest Episode I.  Order your back issues today!
**...Although music historians will tell you that these notes as played today are ever so slightly sharper than the same notes as heard by Bach.  We have periodically been sharpening our orchestras ever so slightly over the centuries.
** Recent investigations claim that Beethoven was a member of the Bavarian Illuminatti, and his fifth symphony was conceived as an Illuminatti anthem.  Those famous first four notes - dum dum dum DUUMMMM - tap out the number five in Morse code, and the Illuminatti are ruled by ‘the law of fives’.... Read The Illuminatus! Trilogy  by Wilson and Shaw for more.

©1999 Blue Harvest / Tydirium Multimedia

PHANTOMS OF THE ROUND TABLE: OBI-WAN, QUI-GON
AND THE ARTHURIAN CYCLE
by Scott Corrales

The clash of swords; the exchange of brave words and greater vows; strange, magical lands;good knights fighting their way out of danger; evil knights ensnaring brave queens...these things hold true not only for Episode 1: The Phantom Menace but for one of the greatest epics ever told on planet Earth: the story of a young boy who pulled a sword from a stone and went on to form the greatest fellowship of warriors ever known. Their adventures are legion, their names are commonplace to us, but we have come to term this entire epic saga as the “Arthurian Cycle”, whose points of contact with the first chapter of the Star Wars cycle are considerable. Menace of the Phantoms Episode I: The Phantom Menace  can easily lay claim to being the "ultimate" prequel: it foreshadows the very Arthurian cycle of adventures and legends which will eventually give birth to Star Wars Trilogy itself. The comparisons are rather straightforward: the Jedi Knights are the Knights of the Round Table; Yoda and Mace Windu merge to form the characters of King Arthur, in the version offered by Sir Thomas Mallory's La Morte de Arthur, or that of Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal. Beautiful and eerie planets echo the castles and fortresses encountered by the Arthurian knights; lovely queens are ever-present, as are young boys destined for eventual greatness (Anakin in TPM, Perceval in the Arthurian cycle. Indeed, the concept of two knights--one to teach, one to learn--wandering the roads and byways of a world/galaxy filled with the promise of adventure constitutes the backbone of both epic cycles.  The overriding world view in the Episode 1 and in the Arthurian Cycle is the eternal conflict between day and night, good and evil, the status quo versus revisionism. In these cases it is exemplified not by two sets of opposing deities but by masters of good and evil, respectively, and their apprentices. This ultimate conflict assumes multiple guises throughout the length of both epic cycles: in the Arthur stories, we have Merlin as the initial master--wise, mystical, with amazing powers at his disposal--and the Arthur, the future king, as his apprentice. Merlin prepares the young Pendragon for an ultimate goal: the restoration of law and justice under a single monarch in a land divided by conflict and the rivalries of various lords. In the same capacity, Darth Sidious hopes to accomplish a similar purpose but from a negative approach: undermine the pompous, useless Republic and supplant it with a political order more to his liking. His apprentice, Maul, is carefully trained to become the prime mover of this change, although it is doubtful that Maul would have ultimately become the "ruler" controlled by Sidious in the way that Arthur is "guided" by Merlin from behind the scenes. "Always difficult to see is the dark side," as Yoda wisely observes in TPM.  As the Arthurian cycle progresses, the roles of master/apprentice change. Merlin vanishes from the scene, imprisoned forever by a sorceress (Nimue in some versions, the Lady of the Lake in others) in the magical forest of Broceliande (a counterpart of Yoda's own forested Dagobah?), and a helpless Arthur is left to face his sorcerous sister Morgan Le Fay, who is as cleverly villainous as Darth Sidious and hopes to achieve a similar overthrow of the established order. John Boorman's magificent film Excalibur (1980) adds still another wrinkle: Morgan Le Fay incestuously conceives a son--Mordred--by her brother Arthur, training him to be the ultimate destroyer of the Knights of the Round Table. In Excalibur we reach the closest approach between the two epics, with the Darth Maul/Sir Mordred binary and the destruction of the Jedi Knights/destruction of the Knights of the Round Table motif being nearly identical. Arthurianists (yes, there is such a field of study!) have always been puzzled by Mordred: in some versions, he is the youngest brother of Sir Gawaine; in others, he is Arthur's son by his sister Margause; still in others we have the Morgan Le Fay element. The same element of mystery that dogs this ultimate destroyer of the established order is the same element that clings indelibly to Darth Maul in TPM and to Darth Vader in ANH: creatures of mystery having no known origin but endowed with a clearly evident purpose.

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Jedi Vs. the Round Table
The relationship between the Jedi Knight and his Padawan learner is somewhat analogous to the one existing between the Medieval knight and his squire. A young boy, raised in the manor or feudal hall, would first be a page, waiting at his lord's side during feasts and performing other tasks; as he grew older, he would become his knight's squire, tending his master's horse and weapons. Upon reaching age and "proving himself" at his master's side, the prospective knight would maintain a vigil over his future armor for many days and nights, engaging in prayer and fasting. In a great ceremony, his patron would strap on the new warrior's spurs and asked him to swear a number of oaths. After this mystical initiation, a new Knight was born.

 We can easily imagine that while neither horses nor armor are involved, the Padawans must have performed a similar role for the full-fledged Knights. The Phantom Menace gives us an Obi-Wan who is ready for the unspoken "trials" to be endured for full Jedi knighthood--a trial that is unnecessary after his defeat of a powerful Sith Lord. Surely in the recesses of the Jedi Temple were younger Padawans still engaging in performing tasks for their masters and busily trying to build their own lightsabers.

 Sir Thomas Mallory's La Morte D'Arthur, first published in the late 1400, remains the ur-text for studying the Arthurian Cycle (other sources disagree, claiming that Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of England  deserves that appellation). In describing the life of Sir Tristram, Malory makes a statement that could be applicable to Qui-Gon Jinn or any other Jedi: "...he fulfilled on all occasions the duty of a true knight, rescuing the oppressed, redressing wrongs, abolishing evil customs, and suppressing injustice..." From what we gather from TPM and ancillary sources, the Jedi Knights were called upon to do exactly the same.

 In the Adventure of the Cart, Queen Guinevere is menaced by the "rogue knight" Sir Malegans, son of the villainous King Bagdemagus (another Sidious/Maul binary). Much in the same way that Maul's primary mission is to recover Queen Amidala (fighting the Jedi is surely more pleasurable to the dark lord's heart), Sir Malegans is sworn to hate the table round and ultimately overthrow Arthur, but his attraction to Guinevere and her successful abduction are a more immediate concern. Other evil knights in the Arthurian cycle include Breuse Sans Pitie, "the most villainous knight living", who would have surely felt at home in the company of Darth Sidious and Darth Maul if transported there by Morgan Le Fay's sorcerous wand.

 Another direct link between TPM and the Arthurian epic is the power of the promise. Victorian author Sir Walter Scott noted that "whenever a knight's word was pledged (it mattered not how rashly, it was to be redeemed at any price. Hence the sacred obligation of the boon granted by a knight to his suppliant..." (footnote to The Age of Chivalry p.125). With his dying breath, Qui-Gon asks Obi-Wan to insure that young Anakin Skywalker will become a Jedi (Phantom Menace, p.313). Obi-Wan grants the boon to his dying master, although he himself is not yet a knight and is therefore not bound by it. During the meeting with Yoda, when knighthood is rather unceremoniously conferred upon Kenobi, the freshly-minted knight reminds the Jedi Master of the boon granted to Qui-Gon: "I gave Qui-Gon my word". While Yoda could have conceivably reminded him that he was not bound to such a oath, the laws of chivalry in our galaxy and the one far, far away are still remarkably similar.

 Another curious parallel between the epics concerns Obi-Wan's being "trapped" and immobilized behind the energy screens during the duel with Darth Maul on Naboo and the experiences of Sir Owain --one of the so-called "Knights of Battle" in the Arthurian cycle, second only to Lancelot  -- while on the quest for the Lady of the Fountain. Owain finds himself battling a black knight (again,echoes of Darth Maul) and inflicts a mortal wound upon his dark opponent, who flees into a nearby castle. The black knight manages to enter the fortress just as the portcullis--the huge iron gate behind the drawbridge, is dropped on Sir Owain, resulting in the knight's horse being sliced in two. The text reads: "...and the rowels of the spurs and part of the horse were without, and Owain with the other part of the horse remained between the two gates, and the inner gate was closed, so that Owain could not go thence; Owain was in a perplexing situation." Like Obi-Wan trapped within the power screens, helplessly watching events over which he lacks control, Sir Owain must endure an experience he has never felt before: powerlessness.

Women with Swords
To the joy of thousands of viewers who had patiently waited years for the Star Wars saga's "estrogen deficiency" to be corrected, we were treated to our first glimpse of female Jedi Knights during the Council scenes in Episode 1. Three of them -- Adi Gallia, Depa Billaba and Yaddle -- have already acquired considerable status among enthusiasts even though we have yet to learn of the adventures and exploits that surely landed them places of honor among their peers. The Arthurian cycle never featured women in active, knightly roles (confining them to the role of witches, wisewomen or queens), so this is a major discrepancy between the epic cycles. However, another cycle of epic adventure, the Legends of Charlemagne, corrected this oversight. Charlemagne was the king of the Franks and Emperor of Western Europe between 768-814 C.E. and legends soon grew to match his historical adventures. The Legends of Charlemagne are heavily spiced with magic, high adventure, beautiful princesses and evil sorcerers, and feature the Twelve Peers--the paladins sworn to fight for Charlemagne. Most famous among these is Roland, wielder of the sword Durendal or Durandana. But one of the best knights in the Legends of Charlemagne is in fact a woman: Bradamante "with scarf and plume of snowy whiteness" (Chivalry, p.438) who defeats the Saracen king Sacriphant in single combat. The angry king asks to know the identity of the white-armored knight, and is told that he "owes his fate to the high prowess of a lady as beautiful as she is brave. It is the fair and illustrious Bradamante..."

 The female knight is the protagonist of numerous adventures in the Legends, one in which she meets the ghost of the enchanter Merlin (in a cross-over from the Arthurian stories) and another in which she rescues her lover, Rogero, from the clutches of an evil sorcerer and wins possession of the winged beast known as the Hippogriff. Like a true heroine, Bradamante swears that she will not be forced to marry any man unless he can defeat her in single combat.

The Balance of the Force
One of the most cryptic situations presented before the viewer/reader of The Phantom Menace is Qui-Gon Jinn's insistence that the young slave boy Anakin "will bring balance to the Force", giving no indication as to why an "energy field created by all living things" (ANH, p.81) would require equilibrium. Future books and movies will no doubt shed light on this particular. Suffice it to say that Anakin's mysterious birth serves a highly important purpose, much in the same way that the birth of Perceval (Parsifal, in the Wagnerian opera of the same name) points to a special destiny: along with Sir Galahad, he is to find the Holy Grail and serve it, something which will be denied to the other knights of the Round Table.

 Perceval's beginnings are as humble as those of young Skywalker. While Anakin and his mother are slaves on a remote planet, Perceval's mother forces him to grow up "in a solitary region" (Chivalry, p.151) of Scotland and does not want him to learn about knighthood. Curiously enough, Anakin asks Padme: "Are you an angel?" when encountering her on Tatooine, while Perceval is told by his mother that a group of armed knights in the woods are angels. This prompts the boy to exclaim: "By my faith, I will go and become an angel with them." One of the knights is Sir Owain--discussed earlier--who shows Perceval the armor, horses and weapons of knighthood, inspiring Perceval to go to Arthur's court to become a member of the Round Table. Much in the same way that Padme smiles warmly at the boy Anakin, a damsel of King Arthur's retinue "who had never been known to smile," approaches Perceval and tells him, smiling, that "he would be one of the bravest and best of knights." (Chivalry, p.153).

 While we know all too well the horrible future that awaits Anakin Skywalker, we can only speculate about his success in bringing "balance to the Force". Perceval, on the other hand, successfully found the Holy Grail. But after the divine vessel was taken away to heaven, Perceval became a monk and died a year later, being buried next to his friend Sir Galahad.

Conclusion
None of the above should be construed to mean that the Star Wars universe lacks originality, or that it is simply derived from pre-existing sagas: the Arthurian cycle is descended from even older Norse and Mediterranean traditions which pit heroes against primeval forces and passions that are common to humankind as a whole, but which can discerned with greater clarity when a nameless galaxy, far, far away is held up as a looking glass.

SOURCES:
Bulfinch, Thomas. The Age of Chivalry and Legends of Charlemagne. New York: Meridian, 1995.
Brooks, Terry. Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, 1999.
Lucas, George. Star Wars. New York: Del Rey, 1977.

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