Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're My Only Hope

About

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're My Only Hope!" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Princess Leia in the 1977 science fiction film Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope. Online, people use parodies of the scene to call for assistance, either sincerely or ironically.

Origin

On May 25th, 1977, 20th Century Fox released the film Star Wars in the United States.^[1] In the film, the character Luke Skywalker finds a secret message from Princess Leia (portrayed by Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, respectively) recorded on a hologram and hidden in the droid R2-D2 (shown below).

Spread

The line is one of the most famous and iconic from Star Wars. Since the film's release, the scene has been parodied numerous times. For example, on January 11th, 1997, Saturday Night Live ^[2] parodied the scene in the sketch "Star Wars 20th Anniversary DVD Screen Tests: Part 2."

More than a decade later, the series Phineas and Ferb referenced the scene in the episode "Attack of the 50 Foot Sister," which aired on May 1st, 2009.^[3] In the scene, the character Baljeet parodies Leia's entire holographic message to Obi-Wan, with a variation of the message, "Help me Phineas and Ferb; you're my only hope" (shown below, left).

Others use the expression in every day calls for action. For example, on July 23rd, 2011, Newgrounds user Lambtaco published the thread "Help me Obi wan Newgrounds, you're my only hope" (screenshot below, right).

The scene is referenced, again, in the 2017 film Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where the character R2-D2 plays the message for an aged Luke Skywalker. On April 9th, 2018, YouTuber Star Wars Story published a side-by-side video of the two scenes (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References