Not as good as Episode 1, but still very informative as far as how to make special effect movies. I know this would never happen, but George Lucas should let some actors do some commentaries.

I feel the same. This track starts off kind of dry but gets better as the movie progresses. Like in the Episode 1 track, Mr. Lucas mostly talks about the story and the characters, Mr. McCallum talks about making the movie, Mr. Burtt talks about editing and sound. Those three are all there from the beginning The four other guys talk about the visual effects of the movie. At the start it’s only Coleman and Knoll, but Helman joins in at Naboo and Snow joins once the movie gets to Geonosis. I preferred the Episode 1 track to this one (it’s actually one of the best I’ve heard), but this one is good enough. Before I go on, if you don’t want to know the fate of a certain important character in Episode 3 (who isn’t Anakin, everybody what’s going to happen to him), don’t listen to this track until 2005. Mr. Lucas gives away what will happen to someone in the next chapter of the saga, and I didn’t like that one bit. Barring that, back to the track’s content. I was actually surprised to hear that some of the sets were sets and not effects shots – they just looked so fake. (Contrary to what some people might think, that is not good effects work, which is suppose to make things look real. A fake looking movie, whether through sets or effect, is not an indicator of good effects work. I guess the movie is just terribly lit. It’s very difficult to match lighting to effects work that will be put it later.) I was also surprised by the fact that they used computers to integrate different takes into a scene. Mr. Coleman talks about animating Yoda, which was interesting to hear. Another thing I was surprised to hear was that Mr. Lucas was very sincere in his love story. It makes me kind of glad he never really did a romantic movie before. I guess he accomplished what he wanted to do (i.e. make Anakin and Amidala fall in love at least semi-credibly), so it’s not a complete failure as a love story. He also talks about the references and how the story is arranged. One thing that really impressed me was the parallels between this movie and Episode 4, like Jengo/storm troopers head-bumping, and the hiding behind an asteroid trick. It shows George Lucas really thought about the overall saga while making this movie. The effects stuff is standard, nothing new or exciting, but it was incredible to hear the insane amount of computer work that went into this movie. Oh, yeah, whenever someone is talking, there’s his name and function on screen. Seeing as how most of these people were effects people, I don’t really this is completely necessary (if it’s not George Lucas talking, it’s probably about the special effects, right?), but it’s nice enough to do that.

It gets a bit tiring hearing all of the butt-kissing comments made by Rick McCallum after a while. I mean, how many times can he say "George's talent/genius really showed in this scene".

Contrary to the reviewers before me I found this commentary superior to the Phantom menace one. They are structured exactly the same with basically the same people talking, we just have Pablo Hellman and Ben Snow substituting Dennis Muren & Scott Squires in the special effects department.

However, I feel that Lucas takes a bit more space in this one, with McCallum getting sacrificed with a somewhat reduced role compared to the last one, which I'm all for. Lucas has the most substantial contributions and I'm always disappointed when we switch from his commentary to one of the others. That said, it seemed to me that everyone was more at ease in this one, maybe it was a more relaxed experience making this movie than episode 1, I don't know, but they got me more engaged in this commentary and I got the feeling of a bit more pride and enjoyment from them here.

It's also a more well-rounded and nuanced track with Lucas, thankfully, devoting less time talking about the effects, and also, Ben Burtt now has an additional job as editor which makes his commentary more varied and I actually found his comments about the editing more interesting than his sound talk.

There's plenty of meat here for the Star Wars fan and I think even if your just a regular movie buff you could find plenty to enjoy in this track.

A good track, but its hard to be unbiast about a commentary if you have issues with the film itself... In the case of AOTC's almost all comments grate with me as i cannot understand how all involved cannot see the glaring problems with the film itself. Its not a 'tome poem' mr Lucas, its a farce. Plus as this commentary goes on it becomes more and more obvious that the big underlaying problem with AOTC's production was the lack of a decent script and slid plot to begin with. Lucas seems to havd pre planned all the pointless in jokes (Jango bashing his head - storm trooper bashing his head etc) but evidently forgot to run the 1 draft script past anyone else. Not that it would have mattered, everyone under Lucas appears to be a collection of 'yes men' headed up by the utterly spineless McCallum.
As Lucas waffles on and on, it becomes apparent that most of AOTC's is comprised of reshoots, ADR and digital trickery to cover up all the plot errors, missed beats and abandoned sub plots. Perhaps if Lucas had run his script by someone outside of his inner sanctum, someone like Kasdan or Darabont, someone who wouldnt just tell him what he wanted to hear... Then the production wouldnt have been a revision upon revision unfocused mess.
Anyway, an interesting, slightly frustrating track.