A German warship blasted the Darth Vader theme on the Thames. ‘No deeper message,’ navy says.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s Navy says there was “no deeper message” within the option to blast the famed Imperial March — Darth Vader’s theme music within the “Star Wars” movies — from considered one of its warships because it cruised down the River Thames by way of London this week.

A bystander captured the spectacle Monday on video, which rapidly went viral on social media. The music choice made waves throughout Europe. The warship was within the space for coaching and dropped anchor in London for a traditional provide cease, the German Navy mentioned.

“The commander can select the music freely,” the Navy mentioned in an announcement Thursday. “The selection of music has no deeper message.”

Different video recorded the warship, the Braunschweig, taking part in “London Calling,” the 1979 hit from British rock band The Conflict, upon its arrival in London. The music’s title is drawn from the BBC World Service station identification in World Conflict II and its lyrics embody the traces, “London calling to the zombies of loss of life/Give up holding out and draw one other breath.”

The Braunschweig is called for a metropolis in Germany’s Decrease Saxony — an space far, far-off from the U.Okay. — and a part of the nation’s latest class of ocean-going corvettes.

For its departure, a tugboat pulled the warship down the river close to Tower Bridge as sailors — with none lightsabers, sadly — stood on the deck. This journey was the Braunschweig’s second to the British capital, the Germany Embassy to London wrote on social media platform X.

The warship’s commander “is an enormous ‘Star Wars’ fan and an admirer of the legendary musical scores of John Williams,” the embassy mentioned in an announcement. “He chooses a unique Williams tune each time his ship is visiting a international harbor.”

There’s no phrase whether or not Anakin Skywalker himself was aboard.