Category: IIA

The film: This, of course, is where George Lucas comes into his own. Star Wars went from film to phenomenon after Lucas' team took marketing and merchandise out of cinemas and into playgrounds far, far away. They found that filling kids' toy-boxes with Star Wars dolls was no more difficult than stuffing an actor into a plastic costume. More than 25 years later, his aliens act digitally but mutate just as easily into hard cash: those same kids - grown up in body if not mind - won't resist tossing a copy in the DVD collection.

The extras: The disc's cover sells itself with, 'relive the adventure the way it was meant to be seen', the kind of seduction that gives a better understanding of how the Dark Lord wooed Anakin away from his Jedi duties. Not that this package fails to provide plenty. Could you ask for more than 16 trailers? Eight deleted scenes are explained by Lucas, producer Rick McCallum and editor Ben Burtt. The digital animators have their time in front of the camera, through the documentaries 'From Puppets To Pixels' and 'State Of The Art: The Previsualisation Of Episode II'. Three more features look for intricacies in the plot, love story and action sequences.

The best of the package is in 12 Web documentaries on quirky aspects such as the Boba Fett character.

But the last extra fades to black along with any hope that Episode II matched its fanfare. During 'Pixels' Lucas brags: 'Very rarely do I not get my way.' It has been said before, but his prequels would be better films if someone could convince him to take a day off work and walk beyond the orbit of the distant planet George. See a movie, perhaps. One look at a Lord Of The Rings or a Harry Potter and he'd realise how soon his digital animation will date compared to the less sophisticated but more realistic tricks of his competitors. The package's glimpses of earlier Star Wars show that many of the franchise's vehicles and creatures looked better in the 1970s. Lucas might also learn that the effects fail to fill out a vague plot, that his script and his animation combine to form a vortex sucking the life out of his cast.

Ewan McGregor gets the best line of either prequel when he asks Anakin: 'Why do I get the feeling you'll be the death of me?' But watching him deliver the rest of his dire dialogue - usually little better than 'I hate it when he does that' - is far darker than anything from Sith's side of the universe.

The verdict: DVD is Star Wars' place. What were we thinking when we hoped to find background in the first prequel insights into the emergence of evil in the second? Much better to have the film-makers explain those issues outside the film.