• The Mos Eisley cantina is a great source of studs. Destroy the chairs at the tables and take control of a Jedi character to pull studs out of the light fixtures. Then head outside and destroy trash cans as well as other random LEGO pieces lying around; they’ll all dispense studs. And when you return to the cantina after completing a level, or after quitting and reloading the game, you can collect studs all over again. You can easily accumulate over 20,000 studs from the cantina’s interior and exterior each time.
• When you’re not sure what to do next, start blasting boxes and other destructible items. Sometimes you can assemble the resulting LEGO blocks into the objects required to access a new area. In addition, try flipping switches or sliding blocks around the floor; you may activate something. And remember that you’ll likely need to trade off between different characters to perform specific tasks.
• Answers to problems often lie behind you. Sometimes you need to backtrack and pick up what you need to move past a blocked area. For example, in Jabba the Hutt’s palace, there are areas accessible only by bounty hunters. You can turn any character into a bounty hunter by placing a helmet on its head at the stations scattered around the palace, but it will lose the helmet if struck by an enemy, so you’ll likely need to turn around in some spots and pick up a helmet in order to open a door or release Han Solo from carbonite.

• Not all characters are created equal. For example, Chewbacca’s bowcaster is more powerful than the blasters carried by Han Solo, Princess Leia, and others. Han and Luke, however, have a nifty special ability that allows them to dive and roll, popping up to fire off a couple shots, if you press jump twice in quick succession. Play around with all of the characters to figure out their strengths and weaknesses.
• Depending on the size of your LEGO-ified group of characters, you can let the others run interference while you perform a task, such as building something or pushing blocks to their proper locations. Since your character is the only one that loses studs when it dies, you don’t have to worry about their fates (they simply reappear in the same spot when they die).
• In addition, droids tend to be ignored by the bad guys, a nod, perhaps, to an early scene in the first film, when R2-D2 and C-3PO cross a laser-filled hallway unscathed. That trick comes in handy when you need to open a door, activate an object, or flip a switch: Let the other characters handle the stormtroopers while you perform the task with a droid.
• In Cloud City and Mos Eisley, you can attack random passersby to get hearts. If you do it in Mos Eisley, however, other civilians will start attacking you, and a few Imperial stormtroopers might show up too.
• When you destroy something that produces a heart or two and your current character has full health, switch to another one and let it grab them. You never know when you’ll come across a situation that requires that character’s abilities, only to find that they’re down to their last heart in the middle of a firefight.

If you get stuck during a level, check out the in-depth walkthrough found at GameFAQs.

A long time ago, on location far, far away, a young director embarked on an adventure. His name was George Lucas, the year was 1976, and he was in Tunisia and England making a film called “Star Wars.” No one, including Lucas himself, really thought it would amount to much.

Fresh from the success of “American Graffiti,” (Lucas’s second full-length feature film — the little-known “THX-1138” was his first; astute fans will notice the repetition of those letters and numbers throughout the Star Wars films.) Lucas decided to take his love of fast cars, comic books, Flash Gordon serials, mythology, and Japanese films, and toss them into a cinematic blender. Twentieth Century Fox, the studio that financed “Star Wars,” didn’t really understand what he was doing, but they respected his track record enough to give him a shot.

The end result, of course, was easy for anyone to understand: “Star Wars” played for over a year in theaters, becoming the highest-grossing film ever in the process and setting the stage for a pair of sequels. During the three years before the first of them, “The Empire Strikes Back,” reached the silver screen in 1980, Lucas began to build his own little empire in northern California, selling the “Star Wars” licensing rights for toys, games, and other paraphernalia. His characters began appearing everywhere, from Darth Vader’s meeting with Wolfman Jack to Carrie Fisher’s comical version of Princess Leia on “Saturday Night Live.”

Why was the film so popular? Perhaps because millions of people around the world were captivated by the story of Luke Skywalker, a young farmer on a faraway planet who dreams of escaping his boring life and becomes part of a rebellion against the cruel leaders who rule the galaxy. Lucas has admitted that the story borrows much of its plot, as well as its two comic-relief characters, from Akira Kurosawa’s film “The Hidden Fortress,” and that many of his characters follow the archetypes laid out in Joseph Campbell’s influential book “Hero With a Thousand Faces.” The text that scrolls up the screen at the beginning of each movie — lovingly imitated in LEGO Star Wars II before each of its levels — was a direct reference to the old Flash Gordon serials that used the same technique.

Lucas allowed other creators to continue his characters’ adventures in ancillary comic books, novels, and comic strips, although that material was limited compared to what’s available today, and it died away completely when Star Wars went into hibernation after the release of “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. While many looked back on the movies as a fad from the 70s and 80s, a legion of die-hard fans waited for the saga’s return, which happened in 1991 when the novel “Heir to the Empire” and the comic book series “Dark Empire” were published.

“Heir to the Empire” was the first book in author Timothy Zahn’s “Thrawn Trilogy,” which took place five years after “Return of the Jedi” and featured an Imperial admiral who was determined to continue the Empire’s fight against the Rebellion. “Dark Empire” was set during the same time period, but it involved Emperor Palpatine’s return from the dead in a cloned body. Both works were enormously popular, with “Heir to the Empire” climbing the best-seller charts and “Dark Empire” selling out at comic book shops across the country, becoming a highly-valued collectible in the process.

Thus began Star Wars’ second coming, which included more novels and comic books, new lines of toys and videogames, and the announcement that Lucas was working on not only Special Editions of the original movies but also a new trilogy of movies, which would tell the story of the Republic’s transformation into the Empire and Anakin Skywalker’s fall from grace as he became Darth Vader. The Special Editions hit movie theaters in 1997, showcasing changes to the films that were furthered in the versions that appeared on DVD in 2004.

The first Star Wars prequel, “The Phantom Menace,” was released in 1999 to great fanfare but mixed reviews. It cleaned up at the box office, of course, and “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” came out in 2002 and 2005, respectively. With the saga of the Skywalker family complete, Lucas has said he wants to return to his experimental filmmaking roots. Star Wars, however, will continue to live in novels, comic books, and videogames, while a live-action TV show and a 3D cartoon series are in the works.

Bring Me the Passengers, I Want Them Alive! Well, Except Those. Darth Vader boards Princess Leia's ship.

That’s No Moon, it’s a — What is That Thing, Anyway? Our heroes get up close and personal with the Death Star.

Stumped? Then you may need some help, thanks to the cheat codes that are commonly placed in most videogames. They allow you to, well, cheat and change the rules. This sometimes includes activating bonuses, unlocking secrets and new levels of gameplay.

To enable the cheats in LEGO Star Wars II, visit the Mos Eisley cantina and see the bartender. Select “Enter Code.” Then simply enter the code shown below and press the Return key. Remember that the codes for characters only unlock them, which saves you from having to complete the level that unlocks them for you. You still need to purchase them from the bartender if you want to use them in Free Play. You should also note that codes are not available for all of the unlockable characters.

The Santa hat, clothes, and beard become available in the Character Customizer, which is a separate part of the cantina. There, you can mix and match LEGO pieces to create all kinds of wacky characters, from a C-3PO body with Darth Vader’s head to Bib Fortuna in stormtrooper armor. Or you can dress any character as Santa Claus, a lightsaber-wielding Santa Claus capable of showing the Empire what it really means to be naughty.

Another Minor Character Rushes to His Doom. Luke and his gunner, Dak, get ready to defend the Rebel base.

Hey, Bantha Poodoo! Now you can ride animals and small vehicles during on-foot levels.

But I Just Wanted a Friend! Luke barely escapes from the LEGO Wampa during his time on Hoth.