Mel completely misunderstood Star Wars (the original). He thought he could parody something that was already a finely tuned parody.
Star Wars (the original) can be 'read' as a retelling of the Morte d' Artur, with Luke as the young Arthur, Obi-Wan as Merlin the Magician, etc. The light sabre is Excalibur...
A year or two later, the producers of the (bad) movie Excalibur went to pains to point this out; knights' helmets looked like Storm Troopers or Darth Vader; the young Arthur makes precisely the same moves with his sword as does Luke...etc.
--Boris