As a little piece of Star Wars history, this piece of produced-for-the-internet ephemera is a bit too recent to have the collectible cachet of, say, the Holiday Special, and yet I think its status as a Star Wars collectible obscures the real joy of R2-D2: Beneath The Dome: it’s a cuttingly accurate spoof of all of those deadly-earnest Biography-style shows seen on E!, A&E, VH-1, and other networks that can’t afford to slap enough consonants and vowels together to form a name with actual words.
Every trick in the book is pulled, right down to the patented process of using film/video clips of someone out of context to illustrate something for which there’s obviously no real 
footage. (One classic example: Artoo was supposedly so nervous about working with Alec Guinness that he fainted; cue the Star Wars scene where, shot by Jawas moments earlier, the little droid falls over. And then there’s Artoo zapping Ewoks as the narrator says he lashes out at his critics…) The doctored film of Artoo in the sixties, plus the doctored photos and movie posters (Artoo and Olivia Newton-John in Greased!) are priceless. Even funnier is Richard Dreyfuss as the almost-prerequisite former-friend-turned-arch-rival, asking if anyone’s ever noticed that only George Lucas ever hires Artoo.
There are two places where the whole exercise falls apart, though: Artoo’s bungee jump (one of the only non-interview bits staged just for Beneath The Dome) is what I’d call over-the-top, and then there’s the small matter of having the divine Carrie Fisher, who actually has hit the low points this production’s making fun of, talk about it for laughs. Who knows, it’s probably something she can look back on and laugh, but I found that part of it to be in slightly questionable taste. Then again, it’s most likely just me.
The whole show is in widescreen, and only 20 minutes long. There’s a single easter egg, more of a brightly-painted jellybean really, showing a sequence of still photos of Artoo from the original Star Wars through Episode II, and a few extra photos taken during the bungee jump stunt.
Now, with the 20-minute running length, is Beneath The Dome worth it? A Best Buy/Musicland/Sam Goody exclusive, it’s been priced at around eight bucks, but some may not want to part with that much money for something with the running time of an after-school cartoon. Still, for those Star Wars fans with a sense of humor, it’s a nifty little gem, and sure to provoke at least one or two belly laughs.
