On November 1st, the Star Wars saga will be complete on DVD with the release of the missing piece of the puzzle, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. Developed by the same team that put together the bestselling and award-winning DVD releases of the other Star Wars films, the Episode III DVD was produced concurrently with the hit movie.

"From the beginning of production, George Lucas wanted to be sure we chronicled everything that went into the making of Episode III specifically to create an incredible DVD experience," said Jim Ward, the DVD's executive producer and Senior Vice President of Lucasfilm Ltd. "This DVD has literally been three years in the making, and it's going to be a fantastic way to complete the Star Wars saga at home."

Like its predecessor Episode II, Revenge of the Sith's live action was captured with the latest generation of HD digital cameras and lenses. Since the source material and the final DVD transfer stayed within the digital medium from beginning to end, the finished result is pristine image and sound clarity, overseen by the quality assurance experts at THX. Like previous releases, the release includes a THX Optimizer for on-screen calibration of picture and sound to perfect levels.

To best preserve the image and sound quality of the feature, the centerpiece of any DVD release, Lucasfilm has once again separated the movie and bonus materials onto two discs. Upon inserting Disc One into a DVD player, the screen soon fills with an Episode III environment transformed into a menu presentation.

DVD Producer Van Ling is again responsible for taking the worlds of Star Wars and customizing the imagery to create a dynamic and engaging menu experience. "ILM really worked hard to give me usable elements as digital files," says Ling. "I'm constantly trying to find ways to take their elements and use them in ways they never intended or could even imagine."

The menus consist of familiar yet new presentations of Episode III imagery. One of three randomly selected environmental themes appears each time you watch: either fiery Mustafar, with its lava rivers and heat-blasted industrial facility; Utapau, base of operations for the wicked General Grievous; or Coruscant, with the showdown between Emperor Palpatine and Yoda in the Senate being a featured scene. Hyperspace members, for more information about the creation of these menus, click here.

Knowing that fans like to home in on their specific favorite scenes, Lucasfilm segmented the film into 50 chapters. With titles such as "Tragedy of Darth Plagueis," "Mace vs. Sidious," "Order 66" and "Immolation," and animated presentations on the menu screens, viewers will have no problem finding just the scene they're looking for.

The DVD is available in both Widescreen and Full Screen. Determining which version is right for you is primarily a question of personal tastes. Widescreen preserves the rectangular image as it was presented in movie theaters, but in order to fit that rectangular image into the more squarish shape of a standard TV image, black bars appear at the top and bottom on the screen. Full Screen doesn't have the black bars, but fills the screen top-to-bottom with imagery. However, since a rectangular image cannot fully fit into a square shape, parts of the image are cropped out of the frame. An example of the differences is included here, but to find out more about the differences, see this article.

Disc One presents multiple audio options for viewers. You can fully experience the rich aural experience of Revenge of the Sith in Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 EX, or choose from English Dolby Surround 2.0, French Dolby Surround 2.0 and Spanish Dolby Surround 2.0. The movie also has optional English subtitles that can be toggled on and off. For those seeking insight into the creation of the movie as it plays out, one of the optional audio tracks includes commentary provided by George Lucas, Producer Rick McCallum, Visual Effects Supervisors John Knoll and Roger Guyett and Animation Director Rob Coleman.

"This was my seventh commentary with George [Lucas], including all six Star Wars films and THX 1138," says Gary Leva, producer of the audio commentary. "We have fun together and, since I've also produced documentaries for all the previous DVD sets, I know the ground we're covering pretty well by now. So I can ask intelligent questions and sort of guide him into areas I think would be interesting for fans. George has gotten increasingly skilled at doing commentaries. It's been fun for me to work with him over the years and watch the progression."

Hyperspace members, for more information about the development of these commentaries, see this story here.