As soon as the iconic yellow letters scrolled through space and the deep sound of tubas shook my seat, I knew I was in for a treat.

“Tuba Wars: A Parody with Music,” a riff on “Star Wars” performed by the UNITuba ensemble in Davis Hall of the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center Thursday night, follows Luke Skywalker, a restless teenager working at an instrument repair shop on a windy planet, as the arrival of C-3PO, a droid with amnesia, with a tuba that will not play (R2DTuba?) sends him on a journey to rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the evil Darth Vader.

This isn’t the “Star Wars” you know, however. The lightsabers are traded for tubas and euphoniums, the wise Obi-Wan Kenobi comes off a little drunk as he teaches young Luke the ways of the force (which consist of occasional mind control and the ability to play a mean euphonium) and the actors portraying Leia and the rugged Han Solo switched genders. The result is a more feisty Solo and ridiculously tall Leia, whose fake bosom must have had a tractor beam, because almost every character’s face found itself hilariously nestled between her fake death stars at one point or other during the show.

The performance interspersed its highbrow low-brass renditions of classic “Star Wars” themes and Lady Gaga hits (which sound better through the horn of a tuba, by the way) with its humorous plot, poking no small amount of fun at its source material — for example, during their classic duel, Vader stops the action to ask Obi-Wan, “How can you become more powerful than I can ever imagine if you’re dead?” Oh, Darth.

Directors Tori Rezek, a senior theatre major and tuba player, and Holly Botzum, a graduate student in the UNITuba ensemble, have been working on the performance for a year, though its history goes back a long, long time ago to a 1981 radio broadcast on KUNI-FM called “Tuba Wars” that featured the 1981 UNITuba ensemble.

Rezek made brilliant use of the space in Davis Hall, sending her performers to the catwalks for the epic tuba battles and hilarious chase scenes, and even expanding the room’s borders by using film for training montages with generous references to “The Empire Strikes Back.”

I have to be honest; I’ve never been a big tuba fan. However, when Luke and Obi-Wan married tuba and euphonium in a “Binary Sunset” duet on the Millennium Falcon, I, like Han, could not help but fall in love. To hear the euphonium gently carry the melodies of my childhood while literally feeling the tubas’ support is a rare and powerful magic, much like the force itself.

While it turns out that tuba players don’t make the best actors, the humor and music of “Tuba Wars” made it an undeniably enjoyable experience, regardless of whether you spend your Saturday nights in Russell Hall or in heated arguments over who shot first.