Review – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Blu-Ray+DVD+Digital HD)

Today marks the home release date of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on Blu-Ray, and no doubt many Star Wars fans will be clearing their schedules tonight to feast their eyes on the spectacle once again, this time in their sock feet and favorite chair. Read on for our review of the Rogue One Blu-Ray+DVD+Digital HD…

 

While most fans will probably be going out to buy a copy for themselves regardless of the special features included, there are some who may want to see if it might be worth it to wait for a future release or to just buy it digitally and forgo the Blu-Ray altogether.

 

 

Make no mistake – the Blu-Ray version of the film is a quality product with top-notch audio and visuals, and it looks fantastic on my shelf in its glossy cover right next to my copy of The Force Awakens. However, in this day and age, I rarely buy physical copies anymore, and when I do it’s usually a special case scenario like with The Force Awakens that had extra features that were only available on the Blu-Ray. With Rogue One this is not the case, as all of the extras on the Blu-Ray were available two weeks ago on the Digital HD version of the movie.

 

 

While this can be viewed as a positive, as with no matter which version you purchase you’re essentially getting the same thing, some fans who waited for the Blu-Ray may feel a little slighted if they were hoping for something a little more. That being said, if you do buy this version of the movie, you get the bonus DVD and Digital HD which has become pretty standard for Disney’s home video releases. With “Disney Movies Anywhere”, you can also link your streaming accounts like Amazon, Google Play Movies, Vudu and iTunes, so you can enjoy the film virtually anywhere.

 

 

But if you’re one of those fans who can be patient with your purchase, waiting for a later release of the film is certainly not a silly idea. However, if you’re like me, and you want to display this beautiful film on your shelf at home, you can’t go wrong jumping on the wagon with the current Blu-Ray release. Now, about those special features…

 

 

Special Features:

 

As with most Disney releases, the special features on this initial Rogue One release are somewhat minimal. Like The Force Awakens, it seems Lucasfilm’s initial release opts for a select batch of brief features while foregoing any extensive deep dives or features that used to be considered standard for most releases, such as a director’s commentary and deleted scenes.

 

 

What we do get is interesting but often superficial. There are 11 brief features ranging from four to nine minutes. Some of these are of the disposable variety. Four minutes spent on Rogue One’s premiere. Another 4 minutes going through a subset of the easter eggs to be found throughout the movie. These are fun for people who may not have been following the production that closely, but for fans there isn’t much there unless you missed that General Syndulla call out the first 10 times you watched the movie and really want to know where it was.

 

 

The centerpiece of the features might be the quick look at the inception of the film from Rogue One’s initial pitch to Kathleen Kennedy, to coming up with the initial look and feel, and eventually hiring Edwards to lead the way. Rogue One’s creation has a nice origin story and this is a good start. Hopefully we will be able to see it fleshed out a little more in a longer documentary down the line somewhere, but it is disappointing to say the least that we don’t find a whole lot of substance in this area on the Blu-Ray.

 

 

There are a few interesting, if brief, looks at the design of the film. “Visions of Hope” and “The Empire” dive into the care and effort that went into finding a balance between replicating the feel of A New Hope and coming up with something original and fresh that people will want to see. It is clear that Edwards and team took very seriously the task of placing this film into the canon directly ahead of the iconic original film.

 

 

There is also an interesting feature on the creation of Tarkin and Leia through the magic of computer animation. A lot of this information has been revealed already through interviews but it is still interesting to watch them go through the process and describe just how difficult and stressful finishing those shots was.

 

 

But the meat of the features really comes down to the character pieces. Six individual features on the major Rebel characters, plus the aforementioned “The Empire” which dives into Krennic, Vader, and Tarkin as well. These are a fun watch even for those who may already know most of the information being given as they provide a nice context for the film, its relation to classic war movies, its connection to classic Star Wars movies, and the decisions that went into making these characters. And in the end, Rogue One’s characters are what separate this from your standard sci-fi action spectacle.

 

 

All in all, this Rogue One release is good, but one would hope there is a far more extensive release coming down the road somewhere. The features, while well done, feel like they are just starting to scratch the surface on all we would want to know about the film and its creation.

 

 

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Jordan Pate is Co-Lead Editor and Senior Writer for Star Wars News Net, of which he is also a member of the book and comic review team. He loves all things Star Wars, but when he's not spending time in the galaxy far far away, he might be found in our own galaxy hanging out in Gotham City or at 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, NY.

Jordan Pate (Hard Case)

Jordan Pate is Co-Lead Editor and Senior Writer for Star Wars News Net, of which he is also a member of the book and comic review team. He loves all things Star Wars, but when he's not spending time in the galaxy far far away, he might be found in our own galaxy hanging out in Gotham City or at 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, NY.

46 thoughts on “Review – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Blu-Ray+DVD+Digital HD)

  • April 4, 2017 at 9:21 pm
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    Rogue One? When did they make this? I must’ve missed it in the theaters.

      • April 4, 2017 at 11:56 pm
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        And wasn’t that an interquel of Z Nation?

          • April 5, 2017 at 4:17 am
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            Is that related to War for the Planet of the Apes?

      • April 5, 2017 at 1:32 am
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        Or a sequel to Rogue Zero?

    • April 5, 2017 at 1:37 pm
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      Don’t watch it. There are so many new places, characters, and plot points that it doesn’t even feel like Star Wars. And besides that, it is completely unoriginal.

      • April 5, 2017 at 5:47 pm
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        Are you ironic?

  • April 4, 2017 at 10:24 pm
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    Nothing to see here… move along

  • April 4, 2017 at 11:35 pm
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    minimal extras? very bunty hunter-y of Disney. I´ll wait for an edition with plenty of extras

  • April 5, 2017 at 1:28 am
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    How do we know there would really be a second release later this year (or next) ? I was hoping for that, and was thinking of holding off this first purchase, but in the light of the recent GE interviews saying that the *majority* of any deleted scene material would simply be snippets cut from existing footage [notwithstanding the extra trailer footage, eg, the heroes running across the beach from the data vault to the transmission tower ; Jyn and the TIE] , should we really be in a position to expect a ‘double dip’ later on ? Now that this detailed review above [thankyou !] says that the extras are fairly short and minimal, I am now wondering if there could indeed be a later, more involved, release, akin to the second TFA release in the autumn of 2016.

    • April 5, 2017 at 6:29 am
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      If the sales are down due to not having good extras put on the discs, then of course they will release it again with all those goodies in able to make a profit.

      • April 5, 2017 at 5:41 pm
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        My question is more “is there actually (more) material to present to the fans ??” The cynic in me would say yes, but it’s unusual (following TFA *1) that there’s apparently so little in the way of extras for this (first) release, not to mention GE’s own comments about extra material. Still, even some sort of extended in-lore piece and production documentary feature (rather than deleted scenes necessarily) would be good.

      • April 5, 2017 at 8:36 pm
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        If the sales are good they are more likely to try and sell it to you again, if they’re poor then they’ll just repackage their old stock.

        I doubt for most people the lack of extras would be a deciding factor in their purchase, most people never watch extras or only ever watch them once.

  • April 5, 2017 at 1:31 am
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    Gotta give it to George, he made us purchase many versions, but all of them had great extras and BTS footage. Thanks for the info, will wait for the next one.

  • April 5, 2017 at 1:37 am
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    So, Force Awakens – Launch blu-ray has deleted scenes but no 3D. 3D comes seven months later.

    Rogue One has 3D at launch but no deleted scenes. These come out, what, November? I’ll be watching those on Youtube. Not paying another $25 for deleted scenes.

  • April 5, 2017 at 2:22 am
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    Did anyone else notice that the LFL logo and the “Long time ago, in a galaxy far far” text were really small?

    Like much smaller than the other films. Nitpick i guess, but i just thought it was weird

    • April 5, 2017 at 5:48 pm
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      I thought instead that in TFA they were much bigger… whatever.

  • April 5, 2017 at 4:27 am
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    When will Disney finally get off their lazy butts and produce a proper extras-packed release first time round, and that includes the trailers?

    • April 6, 2017 at 9:11 pm
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      You’re mistaking a feature for a bug in this new system.

  • April 5, 2017 at 5:41 am
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    Okay, so… the extras are thin. REAL thin. Like, gimme-a-can-of-spray-on-hair thin. It’s incredibly obvious from watching them that they’re only a small portion of a longer and more extensive making-of documentary – a documentary that I would really like to see someday.

    That being said… Rogue One is still a fucking GREAT Star Wars movie. IMHO it’s up there with the very best of the saga films, and really deserves to be counted among them, Skywalker soap opera be damned. For me, it’s as close in tone to the original film as any other SW film to date – not in terms of it being light-hearted fun, but in terms of it being a fantastic, character-driven war movie set in outer space.

    Tonight was the third time I’d seen Rogue One, and it’s now officially cemented itself alongside ANH and ESB as far as my absolute favorite Star Wars films go. Nothing is ever perfect, and Rogue One is no exception to that. But I think that Gareth and the cast and crew knocked this one completely out of the park. It’s absolutely everything I loved about the original film back in 1977, as well as being its own unique animal on top of that.

    God love John Knoll for taking a chance and pitching Destroyer of Worlds. It was a gamble that truly paid off.

  • April 5, 2017 at 5:44 am
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    I had to buy it as I really wanted a quality copy of the actual film, but the extra’s are pathetic – remember the beautifully packaged prequel films when they first came to DVD… well this is basically the total opposite. I honestly thought Disney would have more respect for Star Wars fans, but alas no, they intend to make every fan double dip. I won’t be double dipping myself, I can higher further discs from the library for no cost, or get them through other means… On a positive note, the film looks fantastic and is a joy to behold.

  • April 5, 2017 at 8:11 am
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    Re: Blu ray – “While most fans will probably be going out to buy a copy”… “some who may want
    to see if it might be worth it to wait for a future release ”

    Or some who won’t buy an old format & might be worth it to wait for a future as in *current* / *modern* blu ray UHD!

    Give us ~4K/UHD – something appropriate to this being 2017 & UHD being the modern resolution standard.

    /rant

    • April 5, 2017 at 9:58 pm
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      Very few people have those super-expensive UHD Blu-rays or ever will. Within ten years digital download will dominate everything anyway.

      /rant

      • April 5, 2017 at 10:44 pm
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        Re: “digital download” / Future
        Downloads maybe, streaming no (hence why need media now-storage supporting the bitrate).

        Re: “super expensive UHD Blu-rays”
        What are the new xbox with 4K UHD drives in them going for – $199?
        The discs don’t cost much more ($5?) than std blu-ray & usually come with all 3x: Std blu-ray ( give away if all u want is UHD ), 4K UHD disc, and digital download to play from your other media.

        Super expensive? That’s obviously super subjective topic, but I don’t agree. It’s the exact same justification/argument for NOT releasing on blu ray back in the day & only selling DVD version because “1080p was super expensive”.

        • April 5, 2017 at 10:48 pm
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          And at the time, it was true. The market for it just isn’t big enough for Disney to care, at the moment.

          • April 5, 2017 at 11:22 pm
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            They’d make their money back just fine (see UHD market for triple AAA movies released by lots of studios).

            The decision from Disney is simple – milk that cow baby.

          • April 6, 2017 at 12:09 am
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            That too 😉

  • April 5, 2017 at 2:33 pm
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    Extras shmeckstras. Does anyone really watch them more than once? I’ll probably pick up the release later on today and be done with it. If another version with more extras is released down the road (and I imagine one will), I’ll watch the features online 15 minutes after it hits the market.

    • April 5, 2017 at 3:06 pm
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      I’m totally with you on this – if I’m going to spend money on a movie it’s not because of features and making of documentary. It’s not like that stuff is about actual film making, anyway – it’s often kind-of-interesting, but nothing more.

      • April 5, 2017 at 8:32 pm
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        It was wonderful working with [Insert Name], he/she [Delete as appropriate] is an outstanding visionary film maker, coming to work every day was fun etc, etc, important movie, etc etc

      • April 5, 2017 at 10:02 pm
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        I think books are a much better medium through which to tell the story of how a movie is made. There’s probably some irony in that, but it is what it is. None of the ‘making of’ features on any of the DVDs are all that thorough or informative. They’re neat, don’t get me wrong, but hardly comprehensive. Rinzler’s books, on the other hand, are masterpieces and really do the subject right. I’m looking forward to other books of this caliber in regards to TFM and RO.

  • April 5, 2017 at 3:51 pm
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    I still watch The Beginning from TPM DVD. I’ve seen it countless times. Its an amazing making of. This one is decent but I doubt I’ll ever watch it again. They could have expanded a lot of stuff in the making of (the design and actual production stuff) and removed a lot of the ones regarding the characters. Those didn’t really add anything.

  • April 5, 2017 at 5:27 pm
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    Yup I’ve let time pass..I let all the hype go down..and I can honestly say this is hands down top three on my Star Wars list. Thank you Gareth.

  • April 5, 2017 at 5:28 pm
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    “And in the end, Rogue One’s characters are what separate this from your standard sci-fi action spectacle.”

    I enjoyed the movie when I watched it, but no the characters weren’t what separated it from the standard sci-fi action spectacle. To me, the characters in Alien separated the film from the standard sci-fi spectacle. I would watch those characters in any situation and as long as they were interacting together with one another, I know I’d love it because you understood them so well in such a short amount of time. You take the characters in Rogue One out of a Star Wars movie and put them in anything else, don’t think I’d care so much because they were not developed as well. So I don’t think that statement put up there is a fair one. Still enjoyed R1 for what it’s worth though!

  • April 5, 2017 at 6:22 pm
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    Celebration is a week away.
    All I have been hearing is that the Last Jedi trailer will be there.
    And yet, not a single word … it’s still Rogue One, spinoffs, Lego, Rebels ..

    any idea why ?

    • April 5, 2017 at 9:52 pm
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      Because Lucasfilm is doing a good job at keeping this thing under wrap.

    • April 5, 2017 at 9:59 pm
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      At this point, an E8 trailer running at Celebration is only a rumor. Even so, I don’t think there’s any real incentive to announce it beforehand. It’s not as though folks won’t be paying attention to what’s going on there anyway. The second teaser for TFA debuted at Celebration Anaheim and it wasn’t announced beforehand.

  • April 5, 2017 at 8:14 pm
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    Good movie…but I still only rank it above Revenge Of The Sith, and that’s only because Revenge had too much corny CGI…waiting patiently for VIII

  • April 5, 2017 at 10:00 pm
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    It’d be nice to have them honestly tell us the juicy details of what Reshoot-gate was actually all about in a long “making of” doc.
    I’d eventually like to see something like that for the Sequel Trilogy too: What actually was changed from George’s treatments.
    I’d like an honest documentary, not a bunch of back patting and horn tooting.
    What went wrong. What the suits made them change. Problems, solutions. Ideas that never saw the light. etc.

    • April 5, 2017 at 10:24 pm
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      I think that when we get the full making-of story, it will turn out that the “-gate” bit was largely a matter of fans getting all het up over rumors.

      Gareth said something recently that seemed to indicate that the “reshoots” were more a matter of Kennedy and company saying, “go ahead and keep shooting until you’ve got the picture you want.” This brings to mind other bits and pieces we’ve heard about from the production, such as how the star destroyer collision scene was scripted as “and then the Rebels take out two star destroyers in an interesting way.”

      I think the missing piece of the puzzle here may simply be that there was a more “improvisational” aspect to the Rogue One production than we’re used to hearing about on other SW films. I’m getting less and less of an impression that LFL/Disney took an almost finished movie and ordered structural changes, as a lot of fans seem to have assumed happened. It’s very likely that Edwards just got more post-production leeway than is common, and ended up being able to get more shots and cut together an even better final edit.

      We’ll probably find out this fall, though, when the Making of Rogue One book comes out (something which still hasn’t happened for The Force Awakens, unfortunately.)

      • April 6, 2017 at 3:30 am
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        Reports say that Gilroy was paid over 5 million dollars for work including the reshoots up until the release of the film. That is a lot of money to be spending on 6 months of work for another writer/directer on a film that is only shooting until they get the picture they want. I would bet we are going to get some info way down the line, years from now, that will illustrate the clusterfuck this production was. Not that it really matters, the finished product is good.

  • April 5, 2017 at 10:29 pm
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    If you didn’t catch it the first ten times you watched the movie.

    I’ve only seen it once. I still went out and bought a copy yesterday, but the ending just burned me so badly on the rest of the movie.

    Look, I get it, it made sense storywise to kill everyone at the end, but one thing that I really love about the Star Wars movies is that even in the darkest moments, you can still feel hope. You still get that happily ever after for the characters. I actually can’t watch Padme’s death scene in ROTS because I hate seeing a character I love so much die.

    That’s my biggest problem with this movie. I went in with all these expectations and very few of them were met. And I get it, that’s my own problem not that of the movie, but I get really upset because I was willing to have those expectations broken. All that mattered to me was the characters (especially Jyn) were well-developed, the plot made seen (don’t talk to me about anything to do with Saw), the character relationships were strong, and at least one of the Rogue team made it out alive. They missed the mark on all of that.

    I really wish I could love this movie, but unfortunately I can’t.

    • April 6, 2017 at 3:36 am
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      So your problem is that they died? I guess I could see where you’re coming from.

      • April 6, 2017 at 4:02 am
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        I really dislike stories with bittersweet endings. Tragedies I can get behind, and happy endings I love, but I cannot stand bittersweet endings. I hate seeing characters I love come so close to their goal, and then have it taken away from them. I had a complete emotional breakdown when I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and they (sort of) killed Will Turner.

        I knew going into the movie that some of them were going to die. What pissed me off was that every single one of them died, especially when it came to Jyn and Cassian. That sudden appearance of the Death Star to fire on them even though they had already established that Alderaan was the first test subject (I know, whole planet vs part, but really? You think Tarkin was just casually hiding the fact it’s already been used twice?) To me – and I totally accept this is my own personal opinion – it felt cheap and unnecessary.

        Yeah, I get it, they weren’t in the Original Trilogy and they weren’t mentioned. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t be alive. No one cared about the question of who stole the plans to the Death Star until they decided to make a movie about it. I could easily see it being the same in-universe. No one cares about who stole the plans, everyone only cares about who destroyed the thing.

        And who says that they never were talked about afterwards? We’ve literally only seen in film what the Rebels were doing at about three points in time throughout the entire war. Somehow I think who stole the plans to the first death star wasn’t relevant to discuss during the Battle of Hoth or Endor, and they really didn’t have time to discuss it during Yavin. Heck, consider the characters we follow in ANH. Luke, Han, Obi-Wan, and Chewie certainly didn’t know the story, while Leia, Artoo, and Threepio must have known very little. Mothma is nowhere to be found on Yavin IV, and it was already confirmed Wedge wasn’t around for Scariff. Who is left to tell them? Dodonna? He only really talks to Leia, and why would they talk about that? Red and Gold Leaders barely had lines, so they certainly didn’t have to die.

        For me, it didn’t make sense for them to die. And for anyone who wants to say, well where were they during the OT? How about another base? How about locked in a prison cell? How about they escaped but got shot down and were making their way back to Yavin IV when the battle went down? Why not say, “Oh yeah, Cassian and Jyn were totally sitting in the back row in the meeting about the second death star, you just never see them because the camera isn’t on them.” Poe’s parents were both retconned to fighting in the Battle of Endor. Why not Rogue One? Snap Wexley was retconned to fighting in the war, and now he’s in TFA.

        They could have done so many things with them surviving. Sure the ideas I’ve heard they had were pretty cheap, but this didn’t have to be an ending where everyone dies. If they just put a little effort into it, they could have come up with an amazing ending that didn’t involve everyone dying. I’m just so sick and tired of this mindset that for something to be great it has to be dark, gritty, and bittersweet. This is why I think ROTJ is better than ESB (only my personal opinion) because the ending is so satisfying. And with the mess that Rogue One’s beginning was, they needed a satisfying ending for me to think this was amazing.

        But what really confuses me is why did they kill them all off when Disney so could have milked them for all they’re worth? Books, toys, movies, tv shows. There was so much potential.

        I really wanted to love this, I do, but the ending just doesn’t sit right for me. I guess I’ll just have to watch Rogue One the same way I watch ROTS, Titanic, and The Notebook. By turning it off before the characters I love die. I’ll just turn it off around the spot Jyn and Cassian are sitting on the beach and pretend they didn’t die.

        (Disclaimer: Another reason I was really disappointed was because I really wanted Luke + Jyn = Rey to be a thing. I knew it was unlikely to happen, but even with that aside, I still have major issues with the movie.)

  • April 6, 2017 at 10:23 pm
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    This is actually the one Blu-ray I’ll be purchasing. For granted, I do not own TFA nor will I until the ST is completed. That said, it seems like the SF are rather decent. And that is great, because my biggest gripe with Blu-rays and DVDs are the lack of special features. I mean come one; would it kill companies to put making offs anymore?

    I like seeing how a movie I love is made. And honestly, that is one thing I’ll praise the PT DVDs. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a fan of those movies. But the special features on those DVDs are incredible. It really does give you a window as to how those movies were made. For better or worse, I’ll everyone decide.

    Overall, I look forward to picking this up. 🙂

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